Alan Pham Comes From Behind To Win 2025 WPT Australia Championship
Melbourne’s Alan Pham on winning the 2025 WPT Australia Championship Event:
“It was an incredible experience. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed playing poker as much as I did during those five days and especially the last few days. It was so fun playing for such large amounts of money and on a big stage such as WPT Main. I had lots of support throughout the tournament and people cheering me and I’m very happy to come out on top.”
| # | Payout | Player |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A$558,211 $367,876 | AP Alan Pham ![Australia [AUS]](/assets/images/flags/4x3/au.svg "Australia [AUS]"){kind=small} Australia |
| 2 | A$371,693 $244,956 | JB Jordan Bautista Australia |
| 3 | A$273,928 $180,526 | JT Jarrod Thatcher Australia |
| 4 | A$203,971 $134,422 | LM Luo Ming Liu Australia |
| 5 | A$153,458 $101,133 | CK Corey Kempson Australia |
| 6 | A$116,656 $76,879 | JC Jiaxu Chen Australia |
| 7 | A$89,601 $59,049 | SJ Seve Jarvin Australia |
| 8 | A$69,536 $45,826 | YZ Yifeng Zhang Australia |
| 9 | A$54,527 $35,935 | ZZ Zheming Zhu Australia |
Alan Pham Wins 2025 WPT Australia Championship Event
The 2025 WPT Australia Championship at The Star Sydney ran from September 18 to October 1 with the Championship Event as the main highlight running on the final week. This was the first time the Main Tour was being held in the iconic city.
In stunning fashion, Alan Pham completed an incredible comeback against runaway chip leader Jordan Bautista to capture the title, a career-high payout of AU$ 558,211 (~US$ $364,958), plus a seat worth US$10,400 to the season-ending WPT World Championship in Las Vegas.
Along with the championship, Pham is now inducted into the WPT Champions Club and will see his name etched on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup for all eternity.
From Shortest to Second In Chips
However, Pham’s road to victory was no walk in the park. Entering Day 4 with just 11 big blinds and 19 players left, he was the shortest stack. Survival appeared to be the only goal. In a post-win interview with the champ, he shared,
Heading into Day 4 I didn’t have much hope honestly, but I got very lucky and was able to spin my stack. The WPT structure for this main was great, which allowed me more opportunities to build my stack.
By the end of that day, the official WPT Final Table of 6 players was formed. Pham had climbed to second in chips and was in the best position to challenge Bautista’s towering stack (235 bb vs 124 bb) as everyone else seemed short in comparison.
Final Table
Bautista remained the dominant force, applying pressure and eliminating opponents. Pham adjusted his game to avoid unnecessary confrontations and conserve ammunition for the key moments.
I was trying to keep pots small against him and take more passive lines and pot control in hands against him. I defended less hands in the big blind against him but in hindsight I should have defended more hands against him with such a big stack also. He did lots of work knocking people out so I was kind of just staying out of his way and letting him do his thing.
The strategy worked. While Bautista bulldozed others, even delivering a crushing defeat to Corey Kempson when he rivered two pair, Pham quietly maneuvered into heads up with enough chips to stage a legitimate fight for the title. He entered with 54 bb versus Bautista’s 247 bb.
Heads-Up
When heads up was underway, Bautista continued the aggression and grinded Pham down to around 30 bigs yet still very playable despite Bautista’s commanding 268 bb.
At the start of the match I was just feeling him out and playing my game. I know from other days and playing with him he is very aggressive and not afraid to put it in with nothing. Quite a few of the hands just involved Jordan going all in and me calling with the nuts. Besides that I was able to extract value when I had good hands the majority of the time, and when I had a bluff I was able to get him to fold. Very good recipe to win heads up.
It took three double ups for Pham to take the lead with the third one posted below:
Alan Pham continues to chip up over the next few hands before finding himself on the button once more and limps. Jordan Bautista checks to see the 4♣4♠2♠ flop. Bautista leads then calls Pham’s raise. On the turn 3♥ Pham fires again and Bautista check-raises. Pham contemplates then makes the big call. On the river Q♦, Bautista shoves, Pham snap-calls, Bautista shows K♥2♦ bottom pair, Pham flips over Q♥4♥ full house to take the lead for the first time.
Alan Pham – 20,200,000 (134 bb)
Jordan Bautista – 9,800,000 (65 bb)
For Bautista, despite the drop in chips, he remained aggressive but ultimately was unable to shave down Pham’s towers until the final hand was dealt. Pham called a preflop raise with 7♣4♥ then landed both at the flop 4♠7♦9♦. Bautista shoved with A♣K♥. It was all over on the turn J♣. On winning, Pham expressed,
It‘s pretty cool there is quite a lot of prestige and glory in winning this tournament especially in my home country. So yeah it’s pretty cool.
Links:
2025 WPT Australia – Festival Results
2025 WPT Australia – Photos
*Photos by World Poker Tour and The Star Sydney
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