Meet Antonio Esfandiari
Meet Antonio Esfandiari
The Poker Player with a Magic Touch
Question: Antonio, tell us about your life outside of poker.
Answer: I wake up in the morning and say to myself, 'what do I want to do today' and that's what I do. Life is short, you should do what you want to do. I don't really play that many cash games anymore. I'm mostly a tournament player now. I travel a lot and I like to go out and party.
Question: How did you start playing poker?
Answer: My roommate, Scott Stewart, got me started when I was 19 years old. I started going with him to the casino and then he gave me a book to read, and then that was it.
Question: What book was that?
Answer: Winning Low-Limit Hold'Em by Lee Jones. It's a good book.
Question: What did you start out playing?
Answer: In the beginning I started out small, 2/4, 3/6, 6/12. As I got better, I bet more, 15/30 and then no limit.
Question: What's your favorite hand?
Answer: 7-9, 'The Persian Carpet Ride'. When I started playing poker a good friend of mine told me that I had to come up with a hand that people would know me by. Right after that, I won 3 monster pots with 7-9, and I was like well "Ok", 7-9. My friends always used to tease me for riding carpets, cause I'm Persian. So I started calling it 'The Persian Carpet Ride.'
Question: Do you have a most memorable win?
Answer: Yeah, I have a couple. The most memorable is when I won the final event at the Commerce Casino in the World Poker Tour in 2004. It was heads up and I had two aces on the very last hand. I raised and my opponent, Vinny Vinh, just moved in on me. I held up my aces like it was gold, and I won. I won the $1.4 million. I was the youngest player to ever win a million and a World Poker Tour title at the same time, so that was nice.
Question: How has your life changed?
Answer: It's an enormous change. Being on TV is so cool, you know? I'm glad that it's on the level it is, and not much bigger, because if it were anywhere near, like, movie star fame, I couldn't take it.
Question: Do you ever get bored playing poker?
Answer: No. Every hand is different. There's no repeat situation in poker, so it can't ever get boring. There's always a new problem, a new challenge.
Question: What about at a tournament when you are sitting there 7 days straight for 9 hours at a time?
Answer: It is what it is. I mean it's worth it when you win.
Question: What would you be doing if you weren't playing poker?
Answer: I was a professional magician before I started playing poker, but I don't know if I would still be doing magic. My dream actually is to go into restaurants. I want to open restaurants and bars.
Question: Where?
Answer: Probably San Francisco, maybe LA or New York.
Question: Is the Bay area where you want to live for a while?
Answer: Yeah. I love the Bay Area. So I'll probably go to culinary school just to learn the kitchen and then go open up some restaurants.
Question: Did you ever think your poker career would be this big?
Answer: No, I never knew, I never knew it was going to be like this.