HOMERIC HAND: ESFANDIARI VS NEGREANU
Published September 26, 2011Yesterday I really saw one of the most funny hands in poker history between two of my favorite players: Antonio Esfandiari and Daniel Negreanu. Sick thing in this hand: Antonio Esfandiari ends up folding a straight flush!!
The hand was played during an Event of the World Series of Poker 2010. Look at this total madness:
So in the end there’s a STRAIGHT FLUSH on the board. What happens next is awesome television: Antonio tries to take the pot with a 3k bet, but then Daniel raises to 9k 
. Antonio knows of course that they will always chop this pot except if Daniel is holding the six of spades. Whether Daniel had it or not, we’ll never know, but fact is that Antonio Esfandiari is folding a straight flush here. I guess you’ve never done such a thing before in your poker career.
This fragment also reminded me of an earlier clash between those two awesome players, when they played at High Stakes Poker. Look at one of the finest moments in this show’s history:
Till next time!
You’re outta line Phil
Published November 18, 2010As it may be obvious: I’m a fan of Phil Hellmuth. No World Series, no poker at all without the Poker Brat. And we all had moments on the poker table when we feel like Phil after a bad beat. Maybe we don’t all act in the same way. Although I have to admit I sometimes do. But I was watching the WSOP Europe 2010 and this time I even thought Phil was crying like a baby.
It was against one of my other favorite players, Antonio Esfandiari. Esfandiari shows the opposite in this movie, he takes the pot like a gentleman and somehow makes fun of Phil’s reaction, that’s why it’s an interesting movie in my humble opinion. Let’s have a look (at a not THAT interesting hand):
Pretty standard play going on, with Antonio raising it up in this shorthanded game with QJ. Phil calls and makes his typical play by checking in the dark. As you see, Phil is behind the whole hand, and of course it sucks that he also fills up to a full house on the river, but I’ve seen worse poker situations to complain about. But maybe that’s just why we love Phil.
The WSOP 09: some results (2)
Published July 21, 2009Last time I showed you the results of Phil Hellmuth and Eli Elezra, today it’s Daniel Negreanu’s and Antonio Esfandiari’s turn. Well, especially Daniel’s turn 
.
That’s because Antonio only cashed one time, while Daniel made it EIGHT times to the money! But hey, the one cash-out the Magician made was in a very special tournament, finishing 24th (in a field of 854) in Event 52: Triple Chance NLHE (3k), cashing $14.967. What does triple chance mean? It means you get three stacks from each 3000 chips. You can play with those 9000 chips alltogether from the start or start with one and use the other two as rebuys.
So Daniel cashed eight times, and there were some serious ones among them. Daniel had a GREAT run this year, resulting in a total prize money of $331.860! Daniel cashed playing a wide arrange of games:
- Event 6 (World Championship 7 Card Stud, 10k buy-in): 10/142
-Event 10 (PL HE/O, 2,5k): 43/453
-Event 14 (LHE (6-handed), 2,5k): 2/367
-Event 18 (World Championship PLO H/L 8 or better, 10k): 4/179 (Daniel Alaei won this event, cashing $445.898, Annie Duke finished 8th)
-Event 38 (LHE, 2k): 26/446
-Event 47 (Mixed Hold’em (L/NL), 2,5k): 37/527
-Event 53 (7 card stud H/L 8-or-better, 1,5k): 47/467 (Chad Brown finished 4th in this event, cashing $44.589)
-Event 55 (2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), 2,5k): 16/258
Look here for a definition of 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. Looking forward to the results of the pros in the Main Event!
“Oh boy”: beating the best
Published July 7, 2009That’s what I saw David Benyamine doing the other day during an episode of High Stakes Poker (season 4 episode 17). He’s playing against one of my absolute favorite players, Daniel Negreanu. The actual hand starts towards the end of the fragment you can see right here and continues here .
Daniel calls David’s preflop Aces raise with T9 off and hits toppair on the flop. When Benyamine makes a continuation bet on the flop, Daniel just calls. I think he doesn’t really think he has the best hand here, but thinks he can make a move on the turn. After all, Benyamine didn’t play that many hands so Daniel must give him credit for like… Kings?! That’s exactly his speech on the turn when he raises another big bet from Benyamine.
I think Daniel thinks he can perfectly represent TT or 88 in that spot. Then the speech even gets better: “I don’t say I have Kings beat.”, actually true . However Benyamine shows some serious guts when moving all-in over the top and the “oh boy” from Daniel already is a classic^^.
Later on in the episode, Daniel himself shows some serious skills, when guessing exactly Doyle Brunson’s hand (a set of 3′s), right after Antonio Esfandiari exactly says what Daniel had in the hand before, where Daniel’s 88 was quiete disguised. I love those guys!
The pro versus the billionaire
Published May 28, 2009I watched the next episode of season 4 of High Stakes Poker and I saw another interesting hand where the French player Guy Laliberté is involved. This time he faced a cunning trick from a real poker pro, Antonio Esfandiari.
You can watch the hand below, it starts at 16′:
Antonio limps preflop with AK because there was a lot of action going on and he was probably hoping he could limp-reraise. Instead a lot of players enter the pot but Antonio flops his Ace and leads out. Laliberté is the only caller and a scary diamond drops down on the turn. Now Antonio checks and Guy bets here, so Antonio has to be scared of a flush. But the Magician just pays $1k to see a card and the amateur shows him the 7 of diamonds. From that moment Antonio knows Guy doesn’t have a flush. Besides, if the river was a diamond, Antonio was sure he was beat. Nice move there.
Mike Blow-up
Published May 7, 2009Why is Mike Matusow still called The Mouth? OK, he trash talks a lot and laughs a lot with his own retarded jokes but maybe it’s time to give him a nickname which corresponds better with his skills as a poker player. Once in a while, wherever he’s playing, he just blows up, throws his money in the middle with a marginal hand and goes broke.
It was still the same table on PAD I was watching and it’s funny to see how the real pros immediately see what’s going on if Mike makes his famous move again. Watch (around 2’30″):
Now Antonio insta-calls here with AJ offsuit, which is not a standard move of course, just because he KNOWS Mike isn’t that strong. A really good move, considering there was some really tight play going on here and especially from Matusow himself. Luckily there’s still some justice now and then…
King Esfandiari
Published May 2, 2009Sounds like the leader of an exotic country somewhere in the Caribean no? Well of course that’s not the case and we’re talking about the great poker player Antonio ‘the Magician’ Esfandiari here. He really showed what separates the men from the boys in a PAD-episode I watched the other day.
It was an episode with an absolute dream table, besides Antonio there were Hellmuth, Negreanu, Matusow, Sheikhan and Laak. Now they are all famous pros, but there really is a difference in skills between those guys. I mean, what’s Phil Laak doing there? He’s just observing the other guys, positive thing is the fact he realizes this. Now look at this hand:
So Phil asks how he can never beat Antonio after he was outplayed again (the weakness was just all over the table), and Antonio just tells him the truth: he can only win when he has the cards. It happens all the time to Laak, also in High Stakes Poker, why do people give him action? What happens in the next hand is really funny: Laak gets a decent hand (AsTs) and says everybody they’ll see on TV he had the 94 off . Sure Phil!