CPPT Event 9: 1st Place - Tom Cady ($12,418)

Event 9

Level 30 (40,000/80,000/10,000)
Total Entrants: 195
Players Remaining: 1
Chip Average: 3,800,000

Tom Cady - Card Player Poker Tour Event 9 Champion

It's not how you start, it's how you finish and after starting this Event 9 Final Table slow and getting chipped down, Tom Cady (Middlefield, CT) rode a heater, scoring many of the last few eliminations to earn his first ever major poker title here at the Card Player Poker Tour.

Of the final four eliminations, Cady had three of them, constantly showing up with the best of it and, true to what he said before the elimination of Sharman Olshan, when he didn't have the best of it, he got there.

We started our late level pre-Final Table coverage saying that Chris Leong was "due" for a title after making deep runs this series, but a look at Cady's tournament resume shows that he too might have had a little "due-ness" going his way, as he's made deep runs before, including three Foxwoods Final Table results, but he's never won a trophy in "anything other than golf."

He finally has, as he outlasted a field of close to 200 players to win a CPPT title and just under $12,500, one of the bigger scores of his tournament career.

That concludes and "early" day here in the Card Player Poker Tour series and the action ramps back up tomorrow with the $300,000 GTD CPPT Main Event with two starting flights beginning at 11 AM and 5 PM.