Antonio Esfandiari – Magic to Poker

Antonio Esfandiari would learn magic while waiting tables and working the bar scene in San Jose.  

One of the bartenders did a magic trick and from there on he was hooked. He headed to the nearest magic store to learn how the trick was done and to buy some tricks of his own.

He enjoyed magic so much that he would spend all his free time away from work practicing his tricks and learning new ones.

Magic is Money

His passion for magic would also earn him a lot more money as he performed tricks for customers in the restaurant which lead to much bigger tips.  He would also give out business cards to the corporate clients at the restaurant who would then hire him to perform magic at their parties.

Magic went from being a hobby to becoming a new source of income and a means for him to move up the financial ladder.  His magic business would take off with corporate clients paying big money.  Magic Antonio would eventually become a full time magician by the age of 20.

Discovering Poker

It was around this time that he discovered poker through his roommate who would go to play poker tournaments at a nearby casino.  Although only 20 years old and still too young to be allowed into the casino, he decided to give it a shot and walk through the casino doors like he owned the place.  He was successful getting in and would go on to win the very first poker tournament that he ever played in!

He would then read a poker book and learn more about the game.  He continued playing and improving his poker game until he was making good money from poker.  Eventually, he was making so much from poker that he decided that he would play poker fulltime and quit his magic business altogether.

Meeting Phil Laak

Antonio Esfandiari would meet Phil Laak in Las Vegas when they were both starting out their careers and playing in the World Series of Poker.  Laak was at Esfandiari’s table during the WSOP and as the Magician entertained the table with magic tricks, the Unabomber studied his hands and tried to figure out the tricks for himself.

Magicians don’t like it when people try to figure out their tricks and Antonio wasn’t overly impressed with Phil’s attempts to learn them while they were at the table.  He would move to another table and Phil would end up following him!

Being unable to shake Phil, they started chatting and began hanging out. Antonio would even travel to New York to party with him.  He would eventually convince Laak to come and play poker with him in the Bay Area in order to check out the soft and very profitable poker games over there.

Phil Laak was very impressed by how good the poker games were in the San Francisco Bay Area when he visited.  He decided to rent an apartment with Antonio immediately and move west from New York.

They would live for poker over the next two years and would play at the Bay 101 making a fortune off the big fish in the game.

Being good friends and very competitive, they would always compete against each other and this rivalry would push them to improve their poker skills to get better and better.

The years that they spent playing together at the Bay 101 would serve as a training ground for them before the poker explosion in 2003.  

By the time poker exploded, both Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak had years of experience playing in high stakes poker games and would go on to be two of the most successful poker players around.