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In the poker world, “lucky” is a four-letter word. We’ve all heard the complaints a thousand times: how some idiot got lucky against the storyteller to bring about the only plausible means of defeat. Think about it: It’s never used in a complimentary way.
Each world champion over the past halfdecade has had to contend with the L-word. First it was Robert Varkonyi, the amateur whose good fortune led to a now-famous shaving of Phil Hellmuth’s head. Then it was Chris Moneymaker, who has to hear about it every day of his life. Greg Raymer shut the world up when he followed his 2004 victory with a deep run in 2005, but it was that year’s World Champion, Joe Hachem, who finally managed to silence potential critics for good with his victory at the Five Diamond Poker Classic at Bellagio this past December.
Hachem wasn’t exactly an amateur going into his WSOP championship run. He’d been a dominant figure in Australian poker for over a decade, making his living off of the game Down Under. Still, he’d never made the journey to the event to end all events, so when his victory came calling, the pundits were skeptical.
At the 2006 World Series, Hachem made it his mission to show he was no flash in the pan. He final-tabled twice, finishing second in the $2,500 Short-handed No Limit event, then fourth in the Pot Limit event of the same denomination. The lack of a first place finish notwithstanding, the experts were satisfied that Joe’s victory hadn’t been entirely undeserved.
It was at the World Series that Hachem’s participation in a lawsuit filed by seven players against the World Poker Tour became known. Hachem, Raymer, Howard Lederer, Annie Duke, Jesus Ferguson, Andy Bloch, and Phil Gordon filed suit with allegations of anti-trust and copyright infringement. More notably, this was followed by the group’s absence from World Poker Tour events.
None of the seven made an appearance at a WPT for the next five months until Hachem broke the embargo. When the Five Diamond began, he was there along with what may have been the year’s toughest field. The answers as to why he was there weren’t forthcoming, tied up in legalese. Presumably though, the man just wanted to play some poker.
He did more than that. Joe survived the first day, despite more than half of the 583 entrants going by the wayside. He parlayed his $66,000 stack into $152,100 by the end of day two. His $915,000 after three days’ play put him in fourth and left the poker world buzzing with what-ifs. By the time he made the final table with the third largest stack, the buzz had grown into an expectant clamor.
Hachem entered final table play with $2,345,000, barely more than Ed Jordan in fourth and twenty-five-year-old David Redlin in fifth, while almost two million chips separated him and Mads Anderson. Mads was a close second to Daniel Negreanu, who’d exploded on Day 4 and brimmed with confidence heading to the final table.
Jordan would be the first to go, padding Negreanu’s chip lead. The affable Canadian started bullying the table and worked his stack up to $9,000,000. Joe was in second, but with a third of Negreanu’s stack, he needed to make something happen soon if he was going to avoid a confrontation at a major disadvantage. Then lightning struck.
Redlin led off with a raise to $180,000 and Joe reraised to a cool half-million. Redlin thought for a moment and then announced himself all in. Hachem called and flipped over Qc Qh. The kid slumped, realizing his Ah Qs was in trouble.
Joe got up and started pacing as the flop came 7h 4h 4d. Things were looking good for the former World Champion, but David found one of his three remaining outs on the turn, A.. Suddenly, Joe had gone from 84% favorite to 98% underdog. The only card in the deck that could save him, Qd, came on the river.
The crowd exploded. Redlin was eliminated in fifth, while Hachem suddenly had a stack he could use to challenge Negreanu. He’d eventually do just that, combining with former NFL star Jim Hanna to eliminate the all-time WPT money leader, and then taking Hanna out for the title. He joined Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, and Carlos Mortensen as the only players to win both the WSOP Main Event and a WPT.
What Hachem’s return means can only be guessed at now, but what’s for certain is he did it with style and class. In victory, he was complimentary of his hosts and opponents. He called the victory the second most important of his career in terms of prestige, but number one in terms of legitimizing himself in his own eyes as well as in those of his peers.
It was a remarkable performance by a remarkable champion, even if he had to get a little lucky to accomplish it.
Gary Wise is an official World Poker Tour event coverage blogger and lucky enough to write about the best players in the world on a constant basis at www.wisehandpoker.com.
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