Drunk Magician (Antonio Esfandiari) play's 1,2NL
So my brother is in Vegas for a bachelor party.. he's staying at the Venetian and play's 2,5NL. He wins a nice 800 when in 6 hands he get AA, KK, QQ, AJ, QQ, and then KK. Truly sick run.
So after dinner he meets some of the guys and sits at 1,2NL for some "relaxing" play with the total donks. After a bit a young girl (22?) sits in seat #1 and Antonio Esfandari (call him AE) is sitting behind her, drunk as hell.
My brother says, "Antonio, you have a bit to drink?" He slurs a response "yeeeaahhh, immm a bit drunnnk".
My brother than says "Anotnio, I bet you can't recite the alphabet". Antonio says "How much?". My bro says "$15" and AE asks for 2:1 odds. My bro agrees. So AE starts "A, B, C, D... E, F, G, H.. Y, X.."...
he then pays up. He says, "What's your name?"
My bro answers "Myles". AE sits in an open seat and says.. "I'm gonna bust you Myles", and buys in for $200. He goes all in first hand. Everyone folds.
AE then puts $100 back in his pocket... "You going south on us, pulling a Freddy Deeb?!" asks my brother. AE laughs and says that no one should mind.
The next hand AE goes all in in the dark. My bro see Ac9c and calls. AE shows an 8, my bro shows an Ace. Flop is 348, turn is a 9, river a Jack. My bro then shows the 9.
AE rebuys for $100 and does this 2 more times. My bro busts him both times. $300 total.
It was a very funny happening. About 20 spectactors were watching.
After it was all over one of the fish at the table says.."How do all of you know that guy by his first name?" He had no clue who it was.
Glad I could share this. Wish I was there.
Great story, but not uncommon in Vegas. Some of the young guns like Brandon Cantu and Brian Devonshire are famous for going to play drunk 1/2 NL, generally several together. They play until they cause so much trouble the floor kicks them out until they sober up.
Never had a poker experience with drunken poker celebs, but i have played inebriated Pai Gow with Scotty Ngyuen and Men the Master
This story is hysterical.....I saw AE once while I was playing Venetian...I literally almost followed him through the casino I was so "star-struck" haha....
Interesting that until they started televising poker, none of these guys were viewed as "celebrities"....
minton wrote:
Around 2004 I played about an hour of 5-10NL with Scotty Nguyen and Mike Caro. We were in the newly opened Casino Morongo and they were in for a taping of one of those only for TV celebrity poker tournaments that were just becoming popular. They had crashed out early and just wanted to play - 5-10 NL being the highest stakes available right then.
Mike Caro was really cool, was actually giving lessons to one guy who was with him. I tried to bluff Mike and he spent about three minutes explaining to his buddy at the table why he didn't think my Turn raise made sense (ooops!!!!!
), and Scotty was friggin hilarious.
That's a great story, I can relate to being star struck. I literally bumped into Gus Hansen in the early stages of this year's WPT Championship in April. I came into the Bellagio Poker room through the side entrance (beside the raised area) and he was leaning against a pillar, taking a break from the table. (They had overflow tables from the WPT in the main room still.) His table had Scotty in Seat 1, Gus in Seat 3, Davin Benyamin seat 6 and Sammy Farha in Seat 10.
I guess some of my bad luck must have rubbed off on hm, as he went all in on th final hand, while he was ahead, but finished an unlucky second. Hopefully the 1.6 mill or so took away a bit of the sting!