That dream? Winning the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event.

There will be those who look at how the 23-year-old PokerStars.net player started the final table and make the logical jump that the Canadian's road to victory this weekend was a smooth one. That is, if Duhamel had a big chip lead to begin the final table and a massive chip lead heads-up, he had no excuse to not win. Those would be people who didn't witness Duhamel's precipitous fall down the leaderboard Saturday when his ace-king lost to John Racener's ace-queen, a pot that paved Racener's road to heads-up competition. It, too, threatened to end Duhamel's and Canada's chance for the bracelet. Duhamel, as he did all summer, persevered and dispatched the remaining favorites from the table. The effort carried him to the stage tonight where poker's biggest spotlight pointed its bulb in the Canadian's eyes and asked, "What's your next trick?"

Duhamel responded by summarily dismissing Racener. After wading through a field of more than 7,300 players, waiting four months to play at the final table, and killing 40 hours before getting to face Racener heads-up, Duhamel made it clear, he didn't want to drag this out any more than necessary. After doubling up Racener once in the first 30 hands with king-four versus pocket queens, Duhamel didn't seem fazed. After a short break in the action, Duhamel came back in binary form. It was a yes/no proposition for him. He was either all-in or folding. It took just a few hands of that before Racener's stack was only a little more than 15,000,000. With the big blind coming in at 1.6 million, Racener had little time to wait.

And so when Duhamel shoved it in again, Racener finally decided to call. It was [As][jh] for Duhamel and [kd][8d] for Racener. With his hood off, Duhamel rocked back and forth on his feet and breathed deeply as he watched the flop come out [4c][4d][9s]. It was a clean flop, one just as pretty as the [6c] on the turn.

Duhamel put his hands together as as if in prayer and held them to his mouth. The man who had betrayed no emotion in the hours leading up to this moment suddenly allowed himself to look hopeful. He had to dodge just six cards in the deck. If he could, everything he wanted would be his. Only an eight or a king would ruin the moment.

The dealer's hand pulled out the last card that would matter in the 2010 World Series of Poker. It was the [5c], a greeting card that might have read, "You are now the biggest name in poker."

With four months of energy stored in his 23-year-old body, Duhamel turned from the table and sprinted to his fans. In a sea of red jerseys, it looked for a moment as if Duhamel and his fans had won the Stanley Cup. Hoisted onto shoulders, Duhamel rode a screaming scrum around the stage and into poker history.

With that, with his family and friends bursting from their Canadiens sweaters, with the poker world ready to celebrate him, Jonathan Duhamel climbed down from shoulder-top, hugged Racener, and then assumed his role as poker champion of the world.

From that spot on the stage, Duhamel could see his fans' elation, Racener's disappointment, and the local cadre of the world poker media mobilizing to make him the biggest name in the game. What he could only imagine is what will happen next. The WSOP will cut Duhamel a $8.9 million dollar check. His home country will celebrate him. The late night TV chat shows will start calling. The possibilities are so heady, it will be some time before Duhamel will be able to grasp it all.

"It's like the most beautiful thing in my life by far," he said. "This bracelet means so much to me. It's amazing. It's unbelievable."

Tonight, Jonathan Duhamel is everything he wanted to be. He is the man with a bracelet. He is a hero to his country and beloved Boucherville. He is the 2010 World Series of Poker champion.

Now Cada has no one else to beat. With a tear in the corner of his eye and his lips pursed to hold back obvious emotion, Cada lifted his new bracelet above his head and accepted his role of ambassador to the poker world.

In 1989, Phil Hellmuth surprised both opponent Johnny Chan and the poker world when at 24 years old he became the youngest-ever WSOP Main Event champion. There were people (chiefly Hellmuth) who thought the record would never be broken. That changed after 24 years when the then 22-year-old Peter Eastgate stepped into the Rio's Penn and Teller Theater and won the 2008 WSOP.

Then came this year's Main Event and the battle between 6,494 people from all over the world. The two-week fight led us to the Penn and Teller Theater where only one player was young enough to break Eastgate's record. Cada is 340 days younger than Eastgate and has proven to be no ordinary kid. By the time the Michigan native was 19 years old, he had enough money to buy his first home--in cash. An online whizkid, Cada went to his first WSOP and cashed in two events before sitting down for the big one. Then he went and made the final table.

Still, when he started November Nine play, Cada was fifth in chips. Making his odds even longer, at one point during the final table Cada held only 1% of the chips in play. It would've been tough to find a bettor anywhere in Vegas who would've put much money down on Cada walking away with the bracelet.

But this is Las Vegas. This is the World Series of Poker. This is a place where the unlikely is expected and the longshots prove reason for hope. This is the place where Joe Cada came back from the brink of an early finish and won the biggest and most coveted prize in the world.

Coming into heads-up play tonight, Cada had a 2.3-1 chip lead on Darvin Moon and a boatload more tournament experience. Moon doesn't play online, doesn't own a credit card, and had never been on a plane before the WSOP. Cada, meanwhile, probably plays more hands a year online than Moon has played in his life. Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein predicted a 28-hand heads-up battle, and there were a lot of smart people willing to take the under.

On the very first hand of play, however, Moon took a nice chunk out of Cada's stack in a pocket queens versus pocket nines battle. Those pocket nines would come back around again, but not before Cada found himself in an unenviable position.

Within a few minutes of play and a couple more big hands, Moon had taken over the chip lead. Suddenly, all the people who were ready to simply give the bracelet to Cada before the event began were shifting in their seats.

Was it possible that the Maryland logger under the New Orleans Saints ball cap would find a way to deny Cada his place in history? Would conventional wisdom be as worthless as it had been through most of the final table play? Cada would have none of that. It took him less than 15 minutes to come back and reclaim the exact same lead he'd had at the start of play. And then, again, he lost most of it back.

Cada had been down in chips before. This was the place he knew. This was like home. And he knew just what to do.

When Cada raised to three million, he got a call from Moon. The flop came out [Tc][5s][9h]. Both players checked to the [td] turn. That's when Cada came in for three million again. He had to be a little surprised to see Moon push all-in, well enough to cover Cada and well enough to put on the rail in second place. This was the place where the younger man simply had to be right. Wrong, and he's gone.

Finally, Cada announced call and turned over [jh][9d] for second pair. He was right.

Moon held [7s][8s] for the open-ended straight draw. Moon had seven outs to the river and none of them came. Suddenly, Cada held the chip lead again. And this time he wouldn't give it up.

Just a few hands later, Cada made it his standard three million and Moon raised to eight million. This time Cada pounced and put it all-in. Moon barely thought at all before waving his hand and saying, "Call." The hands?

Moon: [Jd][Qd]
Cada: [9d][9c]

There were those nines again for Cada. On the first hand of heads-up play, they cost him a huge pot. On the last hand? Well, on the last hand, the board ran out [8c][2c][7s][kh][7c] and made Joe Cada a champion.

When it was over, the young man was gracious. He congratulated Moon, saying his opponent played "absolutely great." He thanked his friends and fans who made up a big percentage of the crowd. "I'd like to think all my fans for coming out and supporting me. A lot of them took off school and work to come here. I really appreciate that."

But in front of the assembled crowd, that was about all Cada could choke out. Unlike a lot of the young ones who came up on the internet, for Cada this was not a ho-hum-ship-it moment. This was real. That was a dream come true before before Cada got old enough to realize that it was an impossible dream. At 21 years old, he was the envy of the poker world, a great deal wealthier, and free to dream even bigger.

When Joe Cada's fans walked into the Rio two days ago, they all wore bright shirts that bore the legend "The Kid." They all now need new shirts, because henceforth, Joe Cada will be called "The Comeback Kid."

He will also answer to "2009 World Series of Poker champion."