Profiling Joe Hachem
Joe Hachem was born on 3rd November 1966 in Lebanon. His family moved to Australia in 1972, settling in Melbourne. Joe was a successful Chiropractor before becoming a poker professional. He decided to become a professional poker player because he developed a rare blood disorder that made carrying on his career very difficult as it made the use of his hands for his Chiropractor work almost impossible. This was around the year 2000 and Joe needed a way of making money, so he turned to poker to support his family of his wife of 16 years and four children. Joe had been playing seriously since the mid 1990s so he was happy to consider himself a professional poker player and was confident that he would be at an advantage at the tables.
Joe went to the World Series of Poker in 2005 to fulfil a life long dream of participating in the event. 2005 was the second year of the poker boom and the potential prize money had never been better in the events, it seemed like each event had thousands of entrants. Joe managed to come 10th in $1000 No Limit Holdem event and won himself $25,850. He used this money to buy into the main event, costing him $10,000. He had always dreamed of playing the main event of the World Series, so he had no problems putting down the money to make this happen.
The rest of the story you may know. Joe bested 5618 players to win the main event and $7.5 million in prize money, which he got to keep in full as he had not been staked into the event. At the time this was the biggest single prize ever awarded in any sporting contest, not just poker. As Joe won the final hand, where his 7 3 off suit was greeted with the perfect flop of 4 5 6 he managed to get opponent Steve Dannerman all-in and take the title. Joe had been short stacked for much of the final table and it was not until the play was down to three players that he managed to take a chip lead in the tournament. Joes catchphrase when winning a pot was Pass the Sugar which he has been known to type into the chat box when winning a pot online.
Winning the 2005 main event was only the start of his poker success. In the World Series of 2006 Joe finished runner up in a short handed event losing to a bad beat to Dutch Boyd. He also had another deep run in the main event but lost again to a bad beat when his AA was out drawn by JJ. He finished 238th in this event but could and possibly should have gone much further. For his deep run Hachem earned $42,882 and statiticians pointed out that in his pursuit of the defence of his title he outlasted 97.2% of the field. A great accomplishment.
At the Five Diamonds Poker Classic in December 2006 Hachem won the World Poker Tour tournament for another massive payout of $2,207,575. Only a few very notable players have ever won a WSOP main event and WPT title. Joe can certainly not be thought of as a lucky winner of these events! His prize money to date totals over $10,000,000 with most of that being profit.
For the past couple of years Joe has been seen in many WSOP events, actively online where he is sponsored by a major site and he still travels the world playing poker. He is not the most likable guy at the poker table and is not afraid to berate his opponents when they make a bad play or go all-in against him, forcing him to fold. But he remains one of the most successful and profitable tournament players of the modern era and you would be foolish to say he will not enjoy further success in the near future as he has not had a big win in some time.
