Holding a comfortable 300K chip lead over the field, poker pro Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari is in a good position to take the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Online poker pro Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron, Johnyy Lodden, Joe Hachem, Luca Pagano and Raymond Rahme are also high up on the leader board.
Day 4 is currently underway and if it’s anything like Day 3, well…let’s just say things could get extremely interesting. According to the folks over at Pokerkingblog.com, “Salty” Joe Hachem got into a “thing” (i.e. a fight) with one of the other players. Here’s the scoop:
“Joe Hachem was involved in a hand with Peter Traply. On a board of A-6-J-A-3, Hachem bet out 80,000 and Traply called, showing A-10. Hachem tapped the table, said “nice call”, and mucked his hand. This is where things got heated.
Woody Deck, who was not involved in the hand, asked if he could see Hachem’s cards. Hachem objected, saying that he didn’t have to show because the winning hand had already been shown. The dealer agreed, and mucked Hachem’s cards. Deck, according to Pokernews, then asked Hachem if he was trying to angle shoot, and said ‘Don’t be an asshole.’”
Most professional poker players spend the lion’s share of their playing time in live games. The big-name tournament players are famous because of the television coverage of their live play. Lots of these players play online, but it’s not like the live tournament scene. Most celebrity poker players are sponsored by an online poker site. They wear the site’s logo in live events and play on the site for periodic promotions or whenever they want to.
Full Tilt Poker has professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowan, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham on their team.
PokerStars has Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rouso, and Humberto Brenes.
UltimateBet sponsors professionals Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jim Worth, Devin Porter and Annie Duke.
As a trained magician, Antonio Esfandiari is highly skilled at making things disappear. As a professional poker player, Esfandiari is just as skilled at making his opponents’ chips disappear.
Esfandiari immigrated to San Jose, California from Tehran, Iran when he was nine years old. In his new home, Esfandiari stumbled upon what would become two of his great loves in life – magic and poker. When he was 16 and working as a waiter, a bartender at the restaurant in which he worked showed Esfandiari a card trick. That one card trick was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with magic. Esfandiari began learning all he could about being a magician and went from entertaining customers at the restaurant to performing his own shows.
Esfandiari’s introduction to poker also came by chance after he followed a friend to a poker tournament. Esfandiari was introduced to the game that day and started developing the same affinity for poker that he had for magic. At first, Esfandiari went through many ups and downs at the poker tables, but through study as well as some help from his friend and sometimes roommate Phil Laak, Esfandiari began winning with regularity as he gained more and more experience with the game.
It is widely reported that in 2004 Esfandiari won $1.4 million in the Commerce Casino poker rooms. He also found great success on the tournament circuit that same year, with his WPT main event title in the L.A. Poker Classic and his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the Pot Limit Hold’em event.
An example of Esfandiari’s persistence and ability to improve is illustrated by the fact that he finished in last place in his first appearance in the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. The next season, undaunted, Esfandiari returned and this time chalked up a second-place finish.
