LAS VEGAS (AP) After winning enough at poker to buy a house and justify playing tournaments in far-off places, Joe Cada bet on gambling instead of college and started playing cards full-time.

Cada's wager paid off Tuesday in a way many players only dream when the 21-year-old from Shelby Township, Mich., became the youngest champion ever at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

''It gives me a lot of freedom,'' Cada said after winning $8.55 million. ''I'm going to absorb it and take it in.''

He posed for pictures with his mom, girlfriend and a large stack of cash on a table where he matched wits against eight others during the weekend culmination of a no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament that began in July with 6,494 players.

Then he partied with friends and family in an unrentable suite at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, a high-roller haven usually reserved for free-spending gamblers and celebrity guests.

''Poker-wise, this opens up tons of doors. Everything I do I always strive to be the best,'' Cada told The Associated Press. ''I'm not saying this even makes me close to the best, but it's one step closer and a good start to my poker career.''

Cada told the AP that his decision to leave community college and play poker full-time instead was a logical one not just an all-in shot without an idea of how successful he could be.

''I won a significant amount of money and I had good results over a long period of time,'' Cada said. ''School and poker kind of interfered with each other and I made the decision.''

Cada had won $500,000 playing poker before he entered the main event, helped by backers who paid his $10,000 entry fee in exchange for a 50 percent cut of his winnings.

His mother, Ann Cada, drew her son into a big hug after he won the bracelet and thanked a raucous crowd. The dealer at MotorCity Casino Hotel in downtown Detroit said afterward that she was ''very elated.''

''We wanted him to get his education. He's living his dream, and he loves it,'' she said. ''He's kept it very levelheaded.''

Cada stayed level at the table during a nearly three-hour heads up match against Darvin Moon, a 46-year-old logger from Oakland, Md., who won $5.18 million for second place.

Cada turned over a pair of nines on the final hand after Moon called his all-in wager with a suited queen-jack, setting up an about-even race for most of the chips on the table.

A board of two sevens, a king, an eight and a deuce didn't connect with either player's cards and gave Cada the win with two-pair.

''I knew if I could catch, I got him,'' Moon said of the final hand. ''I just took a shot.''

The hand abruptly ended a final table that saw Moon bounce back to a dominant chip lead after being down 2-1 in chips to start the night.

Moon and Cada traded the lead several times in 88 hands spanning nearly three hours of play, with one 20-minute break.

Moon erased Cada's lead in 12 hands, revealing a pair of queens during a showdown to rake in a pot worth millions of chips. After some chip-shifting, Cada was ahead by less than 4 million chips after 52 hands, with 194.8 million chips in play.

But Moon stormed to nearly a 100 million-chip lead shortly after the break, urging a visibly frustrated Cada to make tougher decisions.

An amateur who won his entry into the main event through a satellite tournament in Wheeling, W.Va., Moon had downplayed his skills throughout the 115-day break before the final table. Heads-up against Cada, Moon seemed to have picked up a psychological edge.

''I'm always calm with my game. I knew where I was with every hand,'' Moon said.

But Moon said he wasn't overly confident.

Fortunes changed when Moon put Cada's entire tournament at risk on a board with two 10s, a nine and a five. After a sip of bottled water and several minutes of thinking, Cada called the bet and flipped over a nine for a pair.

Moon held only a straight draw and didn't hit his hand on the river, giving the lead back to Cada and drawing roars from the crowd.

''He made a phenomenal call,'' said Moon. ''That's why he's the champion.''

Cada broke a record for the tournament's youngest winner set last year by Peter Eastgate of Denmark at age 22. Cada is 340 days younger than Eastgate.

The record was previously held for two decades by 11-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, who posed for pictures with Cada after the win and watched as he and Moon endured 276 hands over 14 1/2 hours on Saturday and early Sunday.

Cada said he planned to spend a few days celebrating in Sin City before returning to Michigan and starting life as a recognized tournament professional. He had already signed a sponsorship deal with online poker site PokerStars, and he said he planned to learn more poker variations to continue chasing gold bracelets at the World Series of Poker.

In cash games, Cada said he might raise his stakes from $25-$50 blinds to $50-$100 minimum bets.

''I'll probably take it pretty slowly,'' he said.