Joe Hachem Back in the Winner's Circle at the Victorian Poker Championship

The 2005 WSOP Main Event champion is still finding ways to win at home. Joe Hachem topped a 48-player field in Event #9: A$1,250 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo at the Victorian Poker Championship in Melbourne, banking A$16,000 and adding the seventh title of his long career.

Hachem bounces back after the Celebrity Event

The festival at Crown Melbourne opened with a Celebrity Event, and Hachem did not get far in that one. A few days later he was back in his element in a split-pot game. Event #9 drew 48 players, a small but seasoned field for a limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament, and Hachem steered his way through it to the final table.

That final table also featured another local name, Billy "The Croc" Argyros, who went out in seventh place for A$3,100. Perry Jeffs finished third for A$6,700, which left Hachem heads-up against Chi Troung. Troung took A$10,300 for second, and Hachem collected the A$16,000 first prize.

The cash keeps Hachem among the top Australian earners in tournament poker. He sits third on the Australian All-Time Money List, behind only Kahle Burns and Michael Addamo.

How Limit Omaha Hi-Lo works

Hachem's win came in one of poker's more technical formats. In Omaha Hi-Lo, each player receives four hole cards and must use exactly two of them with three community cards. The pot is split between the best high hand and the best qualifying low hand, which must consist of five unpaired cards of eight or lower. If nobody makes a qualifying low, the high hand takes the whole pot. In the limit version, bets and raises are fixed amounts, so big stacks cannot simply bully the table with oversized bets. Success depends on hand selection and on chasing hands that can "scoop" both halves of the pot — skills that reward experience over aggression.

A champion's pedigree

Hachem's place in poker history was secured in 2005, when he won the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas from a then-record field of more than 5,600 entries, collecting $7.5 million and becoming the first Australian to win poker's world championship. His victory came during the height of the poker boom and helped spark enormous interest in the game in Australia. Two decades later, he remains a regular at Crown Melbourne, the home of the Aussie Millions and the country's biggest poker room.

Wins in smaller-field events like this one rarely make global headlines, but they show why Hachem is still respected among Australian players. Limit split-pot games reward patience and hand-reading rather than raw aggression, and beating a field of experienced local grinders in that format is a reminder that the 2005 champion's game has aged well.

The Victorian Poker Championship itself has become an important fixture on the Australian calendar, offering a broad schedule of events at different buy-ins and in a range of formats, from no-limit hold'em to mixed games such as HORSE and Triple Draw. That variety attracts both local recreational players and experienced professionals, and it gives players like Hachem the chance to compete in the split-pot and limit games where experience counts for so much. With the Main Event still to come, and a special feature event bearing his own name on the schedule, the week could yet deliver more for the former world champion and his many supporters at Crown.

Event #9 final table results

Chenyang Huang leads the early winners

Hachem is not the only player with something to celebrate after the first week. Chenyang Huang has been the standout performer of the series so far. He won the A$1,250 Opening Event, which drew 383 entries, for A$90,000, and then added the A$600 Terminator for another A$10,450. That puts him past A$100,000 in winnings before the Main Event has even begun.

Sean Ragozzini, who finished 11th in the 2021 WSOP Main Event, won the A$1,250 Van Marcus Special for A$28,125. Eng Chhor took down the A$600 Freezeout Blitz for A$18,300, and Xiuming Huang won the A$1,250 HORSE.

High Roller cashback offers

Organisers are offering cashback to players who register early for the two biggest buy-in events of the series:

• A$5,000 High Roller Challenge: A$300 back if you are registered and seated before Level 1 starts, or A$200 if you are seated before Level 1 ends.
• A$10,000 Super High Roller: A$400 back if you are registered and seated before Level 1 starts, or A$200 if you are seated before Level 1 ends.

What's next at the Victorian Poker Championship

The series runs until October 27. The headline A$2,500 Victorian Champs Main Event has four starting flights from October 21 to 24, with Day 2 on October 25. That same day, the Joe Hachem Special Feature Event begins, giving the newly crowned Omaha Hi-Lo champion another reason to stay busy.