Antonio Esfandiari
Name – Antonio Esfandiari
Birthday – December 8, 1978
Location – San Francisco, CA
Online Screen Names – Magician and MagicAntonio (Ultimate Bet) Antonio Esfandiari (Victory Poker)
Endorses – Victory Poker
Website – magicantonio.com
Antonio Esfandiari worked his way up from the very bottom of life to become one of the most promising stars in the world of poker today. Born in Tehran in Iran, he was forced into the hardship of everyday life there from an early age. Luckily for Esfandiari, his family moved to California in the United States before he reached his teens and he acclimatized well to life in the USA. He liked life in San Jose and set goals for himself that very few of those around him thought would come true.
At age sixteen, Esfandiari got a job as a waiter and spent all of his spare time learning to become a magician. With card tricks that amazed people in his repertoire, Esfandiari began to perform in the restaurant and hired himself out for private parties. It was just three years later when he discovered poker purely by chance.
He accompanied a friend to a card room in San Jose and was mesmerized by the game of poker. His friend competed whilst Esfandiari had a go in a friendly game. For his first time, he did well and found that he quickly became addicted to the challenge. It was the bluff that had him hooked and from then on, he began to work his way up. In a few short years, he managed to work his way up to the bigger tournaments by way of the smaller games in San Jose and the surrounding area. As soon as he had enough cash behind him, Esfandiari went to Vegas.
However, when he got to Vegas, he lost everything he had in the Main Event. If it wasn’t for Phil Laak taking him under his wing then he would have had to work his way up again. Laak became his tutor and gave Esfandiari the drive and desire he needed to push his way back up again. In 2002, Esfandiari entered his first World Poker Tour tournament, coming third after making it to the final table of the Gold Rush event, and has never looked back since.
In the second season of the WPT, Esfandiari won the LA Poker Classic. The next day, he placed sixth in the WPT Invitational. A photograph of Antonio Esfandiari’s LAPC Classic winning moment now hangs in the stairway of the famous Commerce Casino in Commerce, CA. This gave him the impetus that he needed to enter the 2004 WSOP Pot Limit Hold ‘Em event. He actually won it and got his first WSOP bracelet as a result.
Still very young, Esfandiari has the world at his feet and will no doubt become one of the greatest poker players in the world. Antonio is well known in the nightlife culture of Las Vegas, NV and is known to throw some extreme parties.
Antonio Esfandiari was also one of the founding members of Dan Fleyshman’s Victory Poker, to which he’s added some extremely strong mometum too. Team Victory has kicked off their brand with amazing stunts such as blowing up Winnebago’s and having parties with extremely attractive models and former Playboy playmates such as Sara Jean Underwood.
If you’d like a chance to play with Antonio Esfandiari, head on over to Victory Poker.