Tony Hachem takes 2 on the ANZPT Player of the Year

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[ Posted July 1st, 2026 ] by admin

This year’s ANZPT Player of the Year Tony Hachem, centre, celebrates his win.

Tony Hachem

Last night at Sky City Darwin, Team PokerStars PRO Australia’s Tony Hachem achieved one of the great feats in Australian poker history. He has for the second year running won the pokerstars ANZPT Player of the Year.

The ANZPT is league based which means there is a point system awarding players for every event they enter as well as for the position they finish in each tournament. The Player of Year represents the tour’s most consistent performer over the year. This season the ANZPT travelled to Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Queenstown, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney.

Tony began the season strongly when he finished 7th at the ANZPT Adelaide. He followed this up with his first victory in the ANZPT at Perth’s Burswood Casino. After cashing in ANZPT Sydney his place seemed secure, Tony had incredibly cashed in seven of the first eight ANZPT tournaments. This was before an amazing run from John Maklouf. John final tabled Sydney he then came second in Canberra and 8th in Queenstown, a remarkable three consecutive final tables. At Jupiter’s Casino in the Gold Coast John over took Tony for Player of the Year when he made it into the points. It was not until the final event of the year that Tony was able to reclaim his title when he made the money and points finishing tenth.

Before ANZPT Darwin started there were six players who could finish as Player of the Year and the first and second place was separated by just 1.15 points. Amazingly John Maklouf and Andrew Scarf were eliminated on Day 2 on separate tables almost simultaneously. This left the door open for Tony Hachem and Aaron Benton who were still in the tournament. Aaron Benton put in a valiant effort but could only manage 15th which meant he was unable to affect the Player of the Year standings.

The pokerstars ANZPT has burst onto the poker scene in Australia and New Zealand. In the first season the tour saw 1,309 players take part with 25% qualifying on PokerStars and it awarded $2,982,196 AUD. This time around the ANZPT attracted 1,901 players from 37 countries awarding $4,318,979. There were three events added in season two: Perth, Canberra and Darwin all of which broke records for the largest fields and prizepools ever seen in each respective venue for poker tournaments.
The prize for the ANZPT Player of the Year is a pokerstars sponsorship to four Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) events and either the Aussie Millions Main Event or the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event. The Player of the Year runner-up wins sponsorship to five Season 3 ANZPT events.
The third place finisher on the Player of the Year leader board receives a combination of Main Event entries in the Asia Pacific region which are held in 2026 up to a value of AUD$10,000.
Season 3 of the ANZPT will start with the first event back at Adelaide Casino from 2-6 February 2026. All stops will be returning to the tour and there is a strong chance there will be one more event added to the schedule.

Terms and conditions apply. In particular, in order to claim a prize the winner:

must have complied with all terms and condition of participation in ANZPT events;
will be required to sign a pokerstars Sponsored Player Agreement. (This will require the player to wear clothing that displays pokerstars logos exclusively for all tournaments in which the player will participate as a sponsored pokerstars player.)

Failure to do so will result in the winner no longer being entitled to claim the prize and the relevant prize will be awarded to the next leading points player.

Qualify for the next ANZPT at PokerStars