Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari

[wm r the rake]

I was able to meet him on thursday...he was very nice to me as well as the people that were coming up to him....when i meet Johnny chan on the other hand he was a prick and didn't even say "hi"..hope his orange goes bad in the main wsop!!!!

[Beavis68]

What about Gus "Easter Island Head" "uh - I call" Hansen?

Maybe it is just the choice of highlights they show, but I agree with Freddy Deeb on this guy.

And Antonio, he is a little weasle, it was fun watching TJ mess with him at the SANDS

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Phil Ivey is a far better player, yet gets nowhere near the publicity that Antonio does because he's just too quiet and not flamboyant enough.

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[rant] This reminds me of another thing, while we're on the subject of annoying crap. I like Phil Ivey (my fiance does too - I don't know how much I like him anymore), but I hate it when every time they say his name, they have to say "The Tiger Woods of Poker". He's not the [censored] Tiger Woods of anything - he only looks like he could be his brother. It's about time to let this one drop. I wonder how he feels about being called the Tiger Woods of poker. [/rant]

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Why would anybody object to being compared to Tiger Woods?

Actually, the dumbest thing about the comment (and the backlash) is that Tiger Woods has more in common ethnically with John Juanda than with Phil Ivey.

[Lou]

I played pot-limit with Antonio (and Paul Philips) last November at the Borgata. They were both very nice guys. Very aggressive.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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Why would anybody object to being compared to Tiger Woods?

Actually, the dumbest thing about the comment (and the backlash) is that Tiger Woods has more in common ethnically with John Juanda than with Phil Ivey.

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Even when they're compared to somebody 'good', people still get sick of not having their own identity. And yes, we're all aware of your clever bit of knowledge and ability to see through the crap to know Tiger's partially Asian. The fact is that he still looks very much like Phil Ivey. That's entirely what the connection is based on - it's not just because people think they're both black and nothing else.

[redwings03]

A lot of those guys seem arrogant (Antonio, Hellmuth, Negreanu and so on), though I hear many of them are pretty nice dudes. You HAVE to be confident to play poker. There is no way around it otherwise you will get run over. Confidence is only a few small steps away from arrogance though and it's not hard to cross the line in a moment of weakness, plus there is some pressure with being on TV and such...not everyone knows how to respond in that situation especially after they have won or lost a huge pot. Just my random thoughts on the issue.

[RollaJ]

I never made any comments about his skill level, his results speak volumes. I just have a feeling that in a few years he'll regret his behavior. Daniel N and Gus H never act like Antonio when they win (at least from what I 've seen, so I may be a bit off)

[inayat]

Antonio may be a very nice person and maybe a great poker player, but his behavior at the poker table can be a little insensitive, to say the least.

Check out this clip from the WPT:

(click on either hold’em or fold’em, it doesn’t matter, the clip is the same)

http://travel.discovery.com/fansites...ge2_zoom6.html

In the clip Phil Hellmuth goes all in preflop with KJo for 200K, Antonio has 300K and ends up calling with KQo. The board offers no help for Phil and the river is a Queen, giving Antonio the pot and knocking Phil out of the tournament.

For the duration of this all in showdown, Phil looks pretty devastated as he knows he is in bad shape, which only gets worse as more cards offer no help. After the final queen hits, Phil is crushed, but appears remarkably accepting of what has happened. He pulls none of the tantrums or other familiar Phil antics he is so infamous for, and though disappointed, he turns with a weak smile towards Antonio, to shake his hand before exiting the final table. However, he is unable to shake Antonio’s hand as Antonio is standing with his arms up in victory. Then, while Phil is looking towards Antonio, basically waiting to shake Antonio’s hand, Antonio does the poker wave.

Although I am sure this is not deliberately mean spirited, I can think of nothing more offensive than doing this poker wave while a newly minted tournament loser is waiting to politely shake your hand and exit the arena. It is one thing act like that when you win a pot, but the other player still has a stack. That’s all in good fun and maybe serves a psychological purpose (maybe causes them to sizz a bit). But to pour salt on the wound of someone freshly eliminated is, to say the least, certainly bad sportsmanship.

Phil can be heard saying as he finally shakes Antonio’s hand (in a uncharacteristically controlled voice for a losing Phil), “Show some class and shake my hand, kid, don’t do the wave (inaudible . . .)”

Antonio: “I always do the wave.”

Even you Phil haters can feel for him a little here, he really looked heartbroken and took the loss with a lot of class (for him at least). I don’t blame him for his poker wave comment, considering the circumstances.

I agree with RollaJ, and hope that maybe someday he’ll see what a bad form that poker wave is when you knock someone out of a Tourney.

Here’s to a kinder, gentler Antonio.

[magic_man]

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Phil can be heard saying as he finally shakes Antonio’s hand (in a uncharacteristically controlled voice for a losing Phil), “Show some class and shake my hand, kid, don’t do the wave (inaudible . . .)”

Antonio: “I always do the wave.”


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I'm pretty sure the last part of that is "don't do the wave in my face like that." I've always hated these celebrations when knocking a player out. Like you say, it is one thing to do it when the other player is still in afterwards, and you would have been knocked out, but altogether different when you would be surviving. There's just no reason to rub it in another person's face like that. A similar celebration was in the 2002 WSOP when Julian Gardner stood on top if his chair and screamed after ::gasp:: his aces actually held up after being ahead on every street. Amazing. (Actually I think it was a coin flip after the flop but who cares, they were all-in already.) I think this kind of thing has no class; I know it's probably the most exciting poker moment of their life, but I'd like to think that in the same position, a simple fist pump or "Yeah!" would do.

~Magic Man