Prop bet with businessman leads to Esfandiari doing the wrong sort of business at the poker table during $5k buy-in Main Event, gets disqualified immediately
One of poker’s heavyweights, Antonio Esfandiari, has been disqualified from the 2016 PCA Main Event. PokerPlayer understands that The Magician was nixed for urinating into a container at the table – albeit with blockers with towels. Esfandiari was in the middle of a big prop bet with businessman Bill Perkins – for a sum significantly more than the $5k buy-in – that meant he had to lunge everywhere for 48 hours.
An official announcement from the PokerStars blog said: ‘We’ve just been informed that Antonio Esfandiari has been disqualified from the Main Event. According to Edgar Stuchly, Esfandiari was removed for a serious breach of tournament etiquette.’
Esfandiari decided the pain of lunging to the restroom was far worse than the embarrassment of doing his business at the table and enlisted some helpers. Unfortunately the tournament director didn’t see the funny side of his antics and disqualified him. Esfandiari was looking at a deep run – he had a good stack of 100k when he was given his marching orders.
To make a pretty funny story even more hilarious, Esfandiari was forced to lunge from the table after his disqualification, which gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase ‘the walk of shame’.
Talking after the event, Esfandiari admitted it had been a huge error of judgement and apologised for his behaviour. He also Tweeted the following:
WHAT a day.Some highs,definitely some lows,but in the end my bet w @bp22 is over. A lot of lessons learned tdy. A LOT. #PerkeeGotTheBEstOfMe
— Antonio Esfandiari (@MagicAntonio) January 11, 2016
Esfandiari has lunged away from the top prize of $833,260 at this year’s PCA Main Event. Brazilian Leonardo Pires is the current chip leader with 524,000, but the headlines are all about the man in third place, Steve O’Dwyer. He played Day 1a of the Main Event, won the $50k Single Day High Roller during Day 1b and came back to run his 30k stack up on Day 2 to 430,900 – good for a fourth place finish. 200 players are left in the running and 135 get paid. You can watch the bubble burst from noon local time (5pm UK time).
