Daniel Hachem Is 14 Players From a Bracelet His Father Never Chased

Twenty-one years after Joe Hachem won the Main Event, his son Daniel is 14 players away from a bracelet of his own — in Pot-Limit Omaha, a game his father never played on the big stage.

Daniel Hachem has $19,189 in lifetime tournament earnings. That's less than a min-cash in most High Rollers. It's less than the $28,549 belonging to Nuno Duarte, the Portuguese grinder who just busted in 15th from the same event. It's a résumé that, on paper, belongs to someone still figuring out whether tournament poker is a hobby or a career.

And yet here he is — alive on the final day of Event #57 at the 2026 World Series of Poker, the $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha, with two tables left and the gold somewhere in the room.

Daniel Hachem has $19,189 in lifetime tournament earnings — and he's closer to a bracelet right now than players with ten times that number.

The Name on the Back of the Jersey

Joe Hachem's 2005 Main Event victory is one of the defining moments of the poker boom. The Australian chiropractor turned $10,000 into $7.5 million at Binion's, and his "pass the sugar" call became one of the sport's most replayed clips. Joe's career earnings sit north of $12 million. He's a household name in Melbourne, a legend at Crown Casino, and the reason an entire generation of Australians started playing cards.

Daniel grew up inside that. The Hachem surname in Australian poker is inherited gravity — part advantage, part expectation. But he didn't follow his father into No-Limit Hold'em's biggest arenas. He's here in the $1,000 PLO, a four-card game that rewards hand-reading across different board textures, where the variance is higher and the edges are thinner. It's a deliberate choice, or at least a revealing one.

The Table He's Up Against

The chip leader with 14 remaining is Sasha Guerin, who holds 9,300,000 chips and has $234,680 in lifetime earnings across five career final tables. Guerin isn't a household name either, but five final tables means he's been in the pressure before. He knows what the short stacks feel like from the other side of the table.

Christopher Hannel sits behind him at 6,000,000 chips on just $9,944 in career earnings — another thin résumé that proves this field isn't stacked with seasoned PLO crushers. This is a $1,000 buy-in. The sharks are circling other waters. The path is as open as it gets.

The most decorated player left is Thomas Skaggs, who busted in 17th but leaves behind context: one bracelet, one ring, $257,563 in lifetime earnings, and four final tables. Skaggs was the closest thing this final stretch had to a proven closer, and he's already gone.

That's the landscape Daniel Hachem is navigating. No dominant force at the top. No former champion lurking. Just a room full of players who all smell the same opportunity.

What Makes This Different

Bracelet hunts by second-generation players aren't new. But most of them happen in Hold'em events where the family legacy started. Daniel choosing PLO — or PLO choosing Daniel — adds a wrinkle. He's not trying to relive his father's moment. He's building something in a different game, at a different buy-in level, with a career bankroll that wouldn't cover a single bullet in most Super High Rollers.

The chip counts for Daniel and the remaining players haven't been published yet, which means the stacks are still being counted down and consolidated. What we know: 14 players remain, the field has thinned past the players with the longest résumés, and a 26-letter surname that echoes through Australian poker history is still on the board.

Fourteen players to go. One of them carries a name that changed poker in 2005.

The question now is whether that name gets its own line in the record book — or whether this stays a story about almost.