Also known as “The Magician”, Antonio Esfandiari is a professional poker player born in Iran on the 8th of December 1978. He didn’t get this nickname from his ability to make the other player’s money disappear, but because he actually was a real magician, famous for his complex chip tricks. In this article we’ll take a look at his life and the Antonio Esfandiari net worth.
He was the face of Ultimate Poker for many years, he appeared on many poker TV shows, but most important of all, he won 2 WPT championships and 3 WSOP bracelets.
As mentioned before, he was born in Iran, but he moved in San Jose, California together with his family when he was just a child. He graduated high school there and even went to jail for selling marijuana.
His real name was Amir, and at the age of 19 he decided to change it to Antonio, since it sounds much more interesting as a magician name. He worked as a professional magician for a few years, but then tried a game of poker once and felt in love with it.
Seven years later, he played his first World Poker Tour in 2004, where he won 1.4 million dollars. A few months later he also won his first WSOP bracelet. He also appeared in the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. The first year he finished last, but the next year he was second.
Other TV poker shows where he played are the GSN’s High Stakes Poker and the NBC’s Poker After Dark. In April 2008 he made it in the final of the PokerStars EPT. He finished 8th and won $266,000.
At the WSOP Main Event of 2009 he was 24th and won $352,832. But the next year he managed to win the title, cashing in $870,000. He also holds the world record for the biggest cash prize in poker history, which was won at the largest buy-in tournament in history.
The buy-in was of $1,000,000 and he earned 18 million dollars. But it is well known that most players were backed off by investors, including Antonio. Many people have speculated his share of the total prize, which may have been 10% to 45%.
Assuming that it was 15% and then deducing the federal taxes, he probably kept around 1.6 million dollars of those 18. Which is still not bad after all. The same year, he also won a bracelet at the 2012 WSOP Europe. In the final he defeated Remi Bollengier and won a total of 126,207 Euro.
He won many other tournaments and cash games along the way, and the Antonio Esfandiari net worth is estimated by many at 20 million dollars. But a more realistic number would be 5 to 10 million.
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