Joe Hachem Playing in WPT Event

Ok, so last year’s World Series of Poker champion is playing in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Big deal!

Actually, it IS a big deal.

Hachem is one of seven professional poker players suing the World Poker Tour for violating state and federal antitrust laws. In addition to the lawsuit, the players are boycotting all WPT events until the problems are fixed. So, his participation in the event is bound to raise some eyebrows.

The Aussie chiropractor-turned-poker pro has not commented on anything yet, except to say he did sign the WPT’s release form for this event. One of the major issues the players in the lawsuit have with the WPT is that they feel the release form allows the WPT to do whatever they want with the players’ likenesses, without any benefit for the player.

This is interesting, to say the least. If anything develops with this story, we’ll be back with updates.

Originally published December 15, 2006