ellow high-stakes poker players call Antonio Esfandiari "The Magician." But this is not only due to his uncanny knack for pulling seemingly impossible poker hands out of thin air. It's also because he literally is a magician, the kind of guy who does card tricks and makes quarters come out of people's ears.
But perhaps the most apt reason for his nickname would stem from the way in which Esfandiari has used poker to transform himself from a college dropout to one of the game's pot-nabbing, action hungry, highly telegenic rock stars. While other people are content with merely stealing antes, Esfandiari likes to steal the spotlight as well as the money, such as when gossip sites noted that NBA star Kobe Bryant dropped $21,000 on Cristal at a club after spotting Esfandiari's lavish spending on bubbly. His flashy personality and aggressive play have combined to make him a fan's favorite when he finds his way to the World Poker Tour's final tables.
Long before he could have dreamed about Texas hold'em's most financially rewarding competitions, Esfandiari earned his keep by waiting tables in Northern California's Bay Area. At the same time, he was building up a burgeoning magic career. Then, when a poker-loving roommate suggested that he tag along to Graden City Casino, in San Jose, Esfandiari got his first taste of the game. Taking the advice of his roomie, he read Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones before attempting another shot at snagging other people's money. "I read the book in one day and won a tournament the next day," he remembers. "The buy-in was $110 and it paid $4,300. A day later I bought two tickets to Hawaii and took my girlfriend on a vacation."
That early success proved to be an encouraging start to a profitable career for a man who would go on to win nearly $3 million in tournaments alone since 2004. Though Esfandiari has had plenty of successes at poker, one of his most memorable experiences came upon finishing third during a WPT event at Lucky Chances, a poker joint near San Francisco. It was his first time on TV, and, as he gleefully puts it, "I beat up on Phil Hellmuth in my home casino. Every time he raised, I moved in on him. He mucked one hand and I showed him Queen, 5. He said, 'Keep coming at me, kid.' I ended up busting him; he was red-faced and crying. Phil finally stood up and said, 'Show some class and shake my hand.'"
Nobody could have known it at the time, but the destruction of Hellmuth marked the coming out of Esfandiari. And a brightly burning poker star was born.
