World Poker Tour – L.A. Poker Classic 2004

Antonio Esfandiari won the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic No Limit Hold’em Championship in 2004 to record his largest ever tournament win of $1,400,000.

This event is one of the biggest and most prestigious on the WPT with entrants paying $9,900 to take part. He would have to battle his way through a massive field of 382 entries in order to claim the million dollar prize!

World Class Event with the Best Players

The World Poker Tour L.A. Classic Championship event is one of the most popular on the circuit and with such a big prize pool, it is a major WPT event that all of the world class players come out to play at.

Some of the famous players that made it to the final three tables and into the money include Amir Vahedi, Andy Bloch, Paul Wolfe, Alan Goehring, Jeff Shulman, David Benyamine, Bill Baxter, Young Phan and Steve Zolotow.

He battled through a tough field to become the youngest player to win a WPT title at that time.

He was a youngster only a few years into his poker career and this win would change his life forever.  His biggest cash prior to this was for just $44,000. $1.4 million would be a big jump and he would be living large.

The Dream Final Hand

When the action got down to heads up, it would be Antonio Esfandiari against the then more experienced Vinny Vinh.  Both were playing for a record amount of money.

His final hand would be an absolute dream come true. He was lucky enough to be dealt pocket Aces!

What made this golden was that Vinh tried to put a move on him and pushed all in with an absolute trash hand – J4 – in an attempted bluff that would go terribly wrong.  Antonio would insta-call, holding his Aces sky high as the crowd cheered him.  Vinh would shake his head in disbelief as he got the bad news.

Here is the video clip of the final hand as it went down:

His pocket rockets would hold up and he would become an instant millionaire. On the rail cheering him on and congratulating him was his good buddy Phil Laak and Gus Hansen.

When he was interviewed by Mike Sexton after this amazing win, he said “I’m the happiest I have ever been in my life. This is awesome.”  With $1.4 million in cash, who wouldn’t be?

The cash payouts at the final table were:

1st	Antonio Esfandiari	$1,400,000
2nd	Vinny Vinh	$718,000
3rd	Michael Keohan	$359,000
4th	Bill Gazes	$227,000
5th	Adam Schoenfeld	$170,000
6th	David Benyamine	$132,000
7th	Justin Cuong Van Tran	$95,000
8th	Bill Baxter	$76,000
9th	Young Phan	$61,000

After this huge win, there would be no looking back.

The Magician was here to play cards and he played to win!