Antonio Esfandiari wins WPT Five Diamond Classic

Antonio Esfandiari wins WPT Five Diamond Classic

Thursday, 9 December 2010

“Antonio Esfandiari is called ‘The Magician’”, said the WPT announcer prior to the start of one of the most star-studded final tables in recent memory. “He won a tournament eight years ago and then disappeared from the winner’s circle!”

POOF! He’s back. Antonio Esfandiari has claimed his second World Poker Tour title and joined the exclusive list of notable pros to have won the longest-named tournament in poker; the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. It was a good day for Dan Fleyshman and Victory Poker when Victory pros Esfandiari and Andrew Robl reached the heads-up stages (we called it).


Ted Lawson, the table shortstack, was the first to leave. He was followed by November Nine third place finisher John Racener and shortly after Kirk Morrisson. This left PokerStars versus Victory as PokerStars pro Vanessa Rousso tried to get back the momentum she had the previous day when she took the chip lead after making the “sickest call of [her] life” with pocket tens on an eight high board. We don’t know, either.


Eventually, Rousso was eliminated leaving Robl and Esfandiari to guarantee a Victory Poker... well, victory! Finally, Esfandiari found K-J when Robl moved in with Q-T and a king on the flop pushed him further ahead, though it gave Robl a gutshot and diamond draw for a big sweat. Fortunately for The Magician he faded the outs and took down his second WPT title for over three-quarters of a million.


Oh, and he did all this on his 32nd birthday, no less. So happy birthday and congratulations to two-time WPT champion Antonio Esfandiari! The full final table payouts were as follows:


1. Antonio Esfandiari - $870,124
2. Andrew Robl - $549,003
3. Vanessa Rousso - $358,964
4. John Racener - $232,271
5. Kirk Morrison - $168,924
6. Ted Lawson - $126,693


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Tags: Poker News, Antonio, Esfandiari, wins, WPT, Five, Diamond, Classic