Angel Guillen Tops Joe Hachem To Win World Poker Tour Prime Gold Coast AUD $5,000 Challenge

Angel Guillen – Photo Credit: Poker Media Australia

One of the preliminary events at the World Poker Tour Prime Gold Coast tournament series at the Star Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia featured a very interesting heads-up final between poker professional Angel Guillen and Australian poker legend Joe Hachem that concluded on Feb. 28.

The chip lead changed hands six times over the course of two hours before Guillen emerged victorious in the final match to win the top prize of AUD $182,594. Guillen is originally from Mexico, but he has been a long-time resident of Australia as the husband of WPT Anchor Lynn Gilmartin.

The victory was the first tournament win for Guillen in nearly a decade, and it was also the fourth largest cash of his tournament poker career. Guillen now holds just shy of $2 million in total earnings. His largest cash came when he won his World Series of Poker gold bracelet along with the top prize of $530,548 in a $2,000 no-limit hold’em event back in 2009.

The AUD $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament had a prize pool worth AUD $653,300 thanks to a total of 139 entries. The top 18 players all cashed for at least AUD $11,923 in prize money. There were 41 players that returned for the second day and final day of the tournament.

The chip counts at the start of heads-up play saw Guillen facing a large disadvantage with his stack of 10,575,000 heading into battle against the 17,625,000 of Hachem. The chip stacks evened out and changed hands half-a-dozen times before a winner was crowned, and play stretched late until after midnight before play came to a close in the final battle.

Hachem raised to 1.2 million preflop to open the action on the final hand, and Guillen reraised all in. Hachem called all in with K9, but he was behind the AQ of Guillen. The board was dealt A4275, and Guillen won the pot and the tournament.

Hachem took home AUD $114,981 in prize money for his deep run in the tournament, and the former WSOP main event champion and WPT Champions Club member saw his career earnings climb above $12.5 million.

“Lynn just called me (from Melbourne), she’s so happy!” Guillen told the Poker Media Australia reporters after the win. He continued, “It always feels like she’s here, even if she’s not. I also had Lynn’s parents here, and my friends … I didn’t feel like she had missed this at all.”

The other players that cashed in the tournament included Emanuel Seal (10th),Tony Hachem (11th), Leo Kamiya (12th), Chao Duan (13th), Daniel Hachem (14th), Gautam Dhingra (15th), Sean Ragozzini (16th), Gary Lin (17th), and Liam O’Rourke (18th).

Here is a look at the payouts awarded at the final table (note that all earnings are listed in Australian Dollars in the table below):

The WPT Prime Gold Coast tournament series continues until Mar. 6, and the AUD $2,000 buy-in main event runs from Mar. 2-6. You can see the full schedule for the tournament series right here.