For most of the year, most land-based casinos and poker rooms have been forced to close their doors and live tournaments were cancelled, even the 2020 World Series of Poker wasn't spared, due to the viral pandemic. As a ripple effect, live streams and live poker on TV also suffered.
Amid the challenges, PokerGO found a way to offer fans a new show to watch - High Stakes Duel. Two episodes have been aired already, and based from this the show has proved to be quite popular within the poker community.
With the 2019 WSOP currently ongoing, the WSOP has announced this Sunday, June 23, the top 10 finalists eligible for the 2019 Poker Hall of Fame. Just one or two will be inducted.
The list of 10 poker players was created after a process of public nomination and a vetting of these nominations by the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council. The decision now falls in the hands of 30 living members and 21 poker-industry media experts to determine who gets inducted.
Both of them were 39 years old when the prop bet was struck. Kevin Hart only stands at 5 feet 4 inches (according to his Wiki page), whereas Esfandiari's height is around 6 feet tall (there's no official height info for him available online).
Vince Van Patten, an announcer for the World Poker Tour, who co-wrote and starred in an upcoming poker film.
After the movie Molly's Game that was released last year, poker fans have a new movie coming their way very soon and its main cast is the World Poker Tour's Vince Van Patten. According to IMDb.com, "Walk to Vegas" is based on a true story about Hollywood big shots who will bet on anything.
Tom Dwan explains in his own way what's wrong with playing Texas Hold'em live these days. In the interview he wishes to keep recreational players active in the game and shares his insights on what else is wrong with poker tournaments.
Antonio Esfandiari sure has made many knockouts at the poker table, but when it comes to the boxing ring, he may have a difficult time landing his punches against comedian Kevin Hart.
Poker After Dark's pro/celeb week, entitled "Moving Violations" featured a lineup of poker pros and Hollywood celebs such as Jennifer Tilly, Don Cheadle as well as producer Randall Emmett.
The 2018 World Series of Poker schedule has just been announced this Tuesday, and 78 official gold bracelet events will be up for grabs. Also, after four years, they are finally bringing back the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop! The 2018 WSOP is scheduled from May 29 to July 17, 2018, with the Main Event on July 2 to 14, 2018, and the Big One for One Drop on the last day, July 17.
The all-new Poker After Dark show started on Monday August 14th and it seems like poker legend Tom "durrrr" Dwan is already on fire, as he has created some excitement already after winning a $700,000 pot against Antonio Esfandiari on the first day of play.
You can catch all of the all-new Poker After Dark action exclusively on PokerGO. Subscribers can also view the past seasons they missed via the on-demand library.
Antonio 'The Magician' Esfandiari is one of the poker world's most well-known player. He has become a big name in poker thanks to many things, however, he's perhaps best known for his appearances on TV show High Stakes Poker and for winning the $1 million buy-in WSOP event BIG ONE for ONE DROP in 2012.
In case you missed it, a unique event called WPT Monster Invitational took place last Sunday at Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. The invited players were Scotty Nguyen, Antonio Esfandiari, Tony Dunst, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Laak and David Williams.
The survivors from Day 1 A & B continued their play in this year's main event on Tuesday. The two fields were seated in different rooms in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino; survivors from Day 1a played in the Amazon Room while the B's were playing in the Brasilia and Pavilion rooms. Once Day 2 was concluded, approximately 700 players survived from both fields out of the +1,900 players that came through from Day 1.
The chip leaders from Day 1, Martin Jacobson and Trey Luxemburger, could not hold on to the top through Day 2 although Jocobson played very well most of the day and finished 9th on 342,700 chips. Luxemburger finished the day on 64th with a stack worth 186,800. The man that bagged the most after Day 2 is a relatively unknown player called Tim Stansifer who took over the lead with a chip count of 481,500.
In case you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, we are happy to inform that the one million dollar buy-in event BIG ONE FOR ONE DROP will be back at the 2014 World Series of Poker after a year of absence. The event will take place over three days, from June 29 to July 1, 2014, with all play being filmed for television.
Cards are in the air at the Emperors Palace in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to WPT's website, 7 players (Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Dan Cates, Jeff Gross, Max Altergott, local player Kinesh Pather, and back-to-back Alpha8 champion Philipp Gruissem) have registered for the Day 1 of the $100,000 buy-in tournament.
A big congratulations to Fabian Quoss, the winner of the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller! The German pro bested an extremly tough field of 45 players (54 entries), including the final table with poker stars such as Dan Shak, Vanessa Selbst and Antonio Esfandiari, over three days of poker in the Bahamas to lay hands on $1,629,940 in prize money! According to PCA's webiste, 2013 was a rough year for Quoss on the tournament circuit, so the prize money will most probably come in handy for him.
PCA 2014 $100,000 Super High Roller Date: January 5-7, 2014 Buy-in: $100,000 Entries:: 56 (45 unique) Prize pool: $5,433,120 1st: Fabian Quoss (Germany) $1,629,940 2nd: Dan Shak (United States) $1,178,980 3rd: Vanessa Selbst (United States) $760,640 4th: Antonio Esfandiari (United States) $575,920 5th: Matt Glantz (United State) $445,520 6th: Tony Gregg (United States) $347,720 7th: Ole Schemion (Austria) $277,080 8th: Mike McDonald (Canada) $217,320
The final table at the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller ($100,000 buy-in) is set after two days of intensive play in the Bahamas. The event saw a total of 56 entries creating a prize pool of approximately 5.4 million dollars, and the 7 finalists of tonight's final table are guaranteed a minimum cash of $217k - with the chance of going all the way to the first place prize of an incredible $1.6 million!
Event #8: €25,600 High Roller, the final bracelet event at the 2013 WSOPE in Paris, kicked off yesterday and attracted 75 entrants. The first day lasted for six levels and approximately 62 players made it through the day. Canada's Sorel Mizzi will be leading the way with 268,800 chips to the second day, and not far behind are big names such as Scott Seiver (248,200), Antonio Esfandiari (229,000) and Phil Ivey (182,800)
The cards will be back in the air at 1.00 PM local time and registration will remain open for the first 5 levels, so hopefully Phil Hellmuth will join in on the action and take a shot at bracelet number 14!
Here's one of the craziest prop bets in history. According to several news sites, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, the winner of The Big One for One Drop in 2012 ($18.3 million), has made a bet with millionaire businessman and poker amateur Bill Perkins that he will get $500,000 if he doesn't have sex for 1 year.
The bet followed another prop bet made the same day. That bet was that Esfandiari would get $150,000 from Perkins if he didn't eat bread for a whole year. If he failed, he would have to give $25,000 to Perkins. Now, that bet didn't last for long as Esfandiari asked Perkins after just a few minutes to buy out of the bet - Perkins accepted 90 minutes later for a small fee of $5,000
A total of 166 players entered the $111,111 buy-in One Drop High Roller and created a prize pool of $17,891,148. The final table began during Day 3, but due to time constraints, the last four players had to return for a fourth day.
Bill Perkins 14,700,000 Anthony Gregg 13,900,000 Chris Klodnicki 12,000,000 Antonio Esfandiari 9,200,000
Day 2 of the One Drop High Roller saw 108 players returning to the tables with Brandon Steven and Tobias Reinkemeier being the only players with over 1 million chips. Steven played did well during Day 2 and will bring 3.1 million chips to Day 3. Reinkemeier, on the other hand, was eliminated in the final stages of the day after losing a massive pot against William Perking (AA vs a set of queens).
Martin Jacobson from Sweden will bring the largest stack (3.2 million) to Day 3 of the tournament. Jacobson will be joined by poker stars such as Antonio Esfandiari (winner of the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop last year), Oliver Busquet, Mike Sexton and Phil Laak. Only two of the remaining 26 players need to be eliminated before everyone's guaranteed a minimum payday of $173,723 - with the chance of winning millions of dollars on the final table!
Event #1: Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em ($500 buy-in) 898 players (a larger field than expected) signed up for Event #1: Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em and, after 11 levels and over 14 hours of play, only 55 made it through to Day 2. The chip leader is Michael Trivett with 133,900 chips, putting him about 30k ahead of Sean Small's second-place stack of 103,700. Play will continue at 1 p.m. local time tomorrow in the Amazon Room at the Rio, Las Vegas. The winner will take home $84,915 and a WSOP bracelet!
Event #2: No-Limit Hold'em / Eight Handed ($5,000 buy-in) Day 1 of this event kicked off yesterday and saw a 481 players battle it out for eight levels of play. 232 players remained at the end of the day and the chip leader is Tom Marchese, who bagged up 153,975 chips. Only a few other players accumulated six-figures stacks, including David "Doc" Sands (110,825) and Scott Baumstein (111,100).
In addition to the players already named above, poker stars such as Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Moorman, Vanessa Selbst and Barry Greenstein will bring healthy stacks to Day 2. Here are some big names that, unfortunately, were eliminated during Day 1: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Jason Mercier, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Duhamel and Marvin Rettenmarier.
A total of 146 players signed up for the 2013 World Poker Tour World Championship. The tournament kicked off last Saturday at Bellagio in Las Vegas and now, after two days of play, there are 66 players left. Mike Linster will bring the largest stack (744,000) to the tables tonight and Dan Shak (617,300) and Antonio Esfandiari (536,100) are ranked second and third.
Apart from Linster, Shak and Esfandiari, there are quite a few poker stars alive and kicking, including Jake Cody (Day 2's Players of The Day) Phil Hellmuth (307k), Matt Salsberg (130k), Erick Lindgren (124k), Daniel Negreanu (124), Jason Mercier (109k) and Scotty Nguyen (81k).The money bubble will burst when 15 players remain ($49,210 minimum cash); the winner will take home an incredible $1,150,297!Read more » WPT World Championship: 66 Players Remain After 2 Days of Play
In case you didn't watch the live stream yesterday: It was a really thrilling final table of PartyPoker Premier League VI! Over the course of the final table 6 of 8 players took turns at holding the lead, and it took almost 5 levels before the first player (Talal Shakerchi) was eliminated.
Jennifer Tilly, Tobias Reinkemier and Daniel Cates all busted out during the 5th level, which left 4 players fighting for the top prize of $450,000. When four-handed play kicked off it was Jonathan Duhamel who had the biggest stack. However, he was out next after doubling up Sam Trickett and then losing his remaining chips to Dan Shak
The second day of World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star is over and now there are only 44 players left , all of whom are guaranteed $16,890 each. Paul Volpe, a well-known online grinder who finished second in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic last week, is in a decent lead with 1,394,00. In fact, his closest opponent, Brendon Rubie, has less than 900k.
Volpe is not the only poker star who's doing well. Mario Ho, Antonio Esfandiari and Erik Seidel all have about 800,000 chips and all are looking very strong. It will be interesting to see how Day 3 plays out. Right now it looks like we have some big names on the final table - where a $1,138,350 first prize is up for grabs!
On Monday, the first starting day of World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star (San Jose, California) kicked off with 270 players. The field included some of the biggest stars in the game of poker, however, only 109 made it through the day and, unfortunately, many big names hit the rail: Phil Hellmuth (picture), Daniel Negreanu, Michael Mizrachi, Scotty Nguyen, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst (to mention a few).
2012 has been a very interesting and eventful year on the poker front. We have really enjoyed keeping everyone up to date with the latest poker news and, of course, we are very happy and thankful that so many of you comment on it and discuss it in our forum. Now we are looking forward to 2013 and what it has to offer. Until then, make sure to check some of our favourite news of 2012.
BREAKING NEWS: Full Tilt Poker Open For Business This news article had nothing to do with the actual re-launch of Full Tilt Poker about 2 months ago, but instead it was already posted on April 1. We know that it was a pretty mean April Fools joke, but we just couldn't help ourselves :) Click here to read the full story
Ilari Sahamies: "I don't have any money left" It has been an extremely turbulent year for the Finnish poker pro Ilari Sahamies, who was the biggest winner on PokerStars in 2011. At the moment he's only down about $28k this year. However, he was in pretty bad shape for some time. Click here to read the full story
Viktor Blom won PCA Super High Roller ($1.2 million) Viktor "Isildur1" Blom is best known for playing high stakes cash games online, but in the beginning of 2012 he also made a name for himself in the live tournament world by winning the Super High Roller Championship at the 2012 PCA. The win was worth about $1.2 million and, to add to that, the poker community finally got to see a video interview with their favourite Swede. Click here to read the full story
Jens Kyllönen is Going to Space Many professional poker players love to travel and see new places. The Finnish poker pro Jens "Jeans89" Kyllönen is no exception, but the question is if his upcoming journey in 2014 takes the cake. Click here to read the full story
Antonio Esfandiari Wins One Drop and Mind-Blowing $18 Million! Who can forget when "The Magician" took down the most expensive tournament in poker history at the 2012 WSOP? The $18 million first place prize sent Esfandiari right to the top of the all-time tournament winnings leaderboard, but even today people are speculating about how much he got to keep of it. That's right! Esfandiari revealed after the win that he didn't pay the buy-in of $1,000,000 all by himself. Click here to read the full story
The third day at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic came to a close with 60 players and Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari as the chip leader (918,500). Esfandiari won this tournament 2 years ago and finished 6th last year. Now he has about 300k chips more than his closest opponent, Freddy Deeb, and more than 3 times the average stack. In other words, he has a fantastic chance of winning a second title!
The first day of play at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic ($10,000+$300 re-entry event at Bellagio, Las Vegas) attracted 374 players. After several hours of play, Day 1 concluded with 306 survivors and Jeremy Kottlet as the overnight chip leader with 134,975. Lots of well-known pros made it through the day with healthy stacks - just to mention a few of them: Joe Serock (77k), Tony Dunst (76,7k), Antonio Esfandiari (75k) and David Baker (75k).
In case you missed it, the World Poker Tour Montreal main event saw a record field of 1,173 entries - the biggest tournament with a buy-in of $1k or more in Canadian history. While the event was played, some of the well-known players took part in the WPT Montreal Playground Poker Hockey Challenge.
Big One for One Drop, the biggest buy-in tournament in poker history, took place in Las Vegas during the 2012 WSOP and attracted a field of 48 professional players and amateurs who put up $1 million each. The tournament was won by Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari ($18.3 million) and raised a total of $10 million for charity.
On Tuesday, the fifth day of World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes, France was played and it turned out to be a very thrilling day of poker. Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, the winner of the biggest buy-in tournament in history (Big One For One Drop), defeated a field of 626 to capture the title of Event #2: €1,1000 No-Limit Holdem (€126,207). This was Esfandiari's third WSOP bracelet, and he now has the WSOP Player of the Year lead.
Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari was on Howard Stern's radio show the other day. Stern, an American radio personality, television host, author and actor, asked Esfandiari about his win of of Big One For One Drop ($18 million first price), whether or not poker is a game of skill, if he ever had two women at once, and many other personal questions.
Ever wondered what the most successful surname in tournament poker is? Speculate no more! An American poker news site, together with Hendon Mob (a statistical database), have checked which surnames have won the most money in international poker tournaments and created a list of the top 100 surnames, the number of players, and the total amount won.
The most expensive tournament in poker history has come to an end - The Big One for One Drop ($1,000,000 buy-in). Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari ended up taking home the whole thing and bank-account busting $18,346,673 - the richest prize in poker history. Besides that, he received his second gold bracelet after winning the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event in 2004 for $184,860.
The Big One for One Drop ($1,000,000 buy-in) is now down to only 8 players. Antonio Esfandiari holds the lead with 39,925,000 chips, and Sam Trickett is not far behind with his 37,000,000 stack. Brian Rast, the Day 1 chip leader, is still in the tournament, but he's now in 4th place with 11,350,000 million chips.
Thursday night delivered some of the best poker action so far in the 2012 WSOP. It was the No-Limit Hold'em Shootout event that brought on some of the loudest crowds at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in this year's WSOP. UK's Craig McCorkell was the last man standing after the battle. The victory resulted in 2012's first British Gold Bracelet and a healthy bag of money for McCorkell - $368,593.
When only three players remained in the game, the 2004 Pot-Limit Hold'em winner Antonio Esfandiari was holding an estimated 80% of the chips. Then something happened... WSOP.com reporter Nolan Dalla explains the events: "the most stunning turn of events at this year’s WSOP took place when Esfandiari not only lost the chip lead, he was ultimately knocked out of the tournament. All it took were three brutal hands for “the Magician” to completely disappear from the ESPN Main Stage".
Esfandiari went all-in with a pocket of 9's facing Jeremiah Fitzpatrick's pocket 7's. The flop showed a 7 and Fitzpatrick, who's best WSOP record shows a 102nd placement in 2009's No Limit Hold'em event 11, terminated Esfandiari. Fitzpatrick was in a great position for the Gold Bracelet.
Thirty minutes into the heads-up between Fitzpatrick and McCorkell, the chips had turned to McCorkell's favour. The final hand gave McCorkell the bracelet with a pair of eights. Nolan Dalla describes the last hand of event 36 as "Oddly enough, the final board was an inappropriately anti-climatic swan song of a thrilling final table that included nine full hours of ecstasy, tragedy, jubilation, and heartbreak".
The third day of the WPT World Championship has come to and end with about 45 players (WPT is still verifying the number of players). Michael Mizrachi, who lead the way into Day 3 with 428k, is among the players who are through to Day 4.
But he will "only" bring 171,700 chips to the tables when play continues again today. Isaac Haxton was in 5th place when the day started, but unfortunately nothing worked out for the American High-Stakes Pro as he was eliminated during the day.
The American poker pro Antonio Esfandiari is a well-known face in the poker world under the nickname "The Magician. But it's not only at the poker table that Esfandiari can perform magic and trick his opponents. In the radio show Donkr Radio Show Esfandiari talked about a trip with his friend to Tanzania, Africa, where they went out hunting and also played some home games of poker.
Kenneth Griffin started day of Event #45: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em second in chips out of 21 players (Antonio Esfandiari, David Baker, Andrew Teng etc). Griffin played extremely well and his aggressive style of playing poker really worked against his opponents since he ended up taking down the whole tournament for $455,356 and received his first gold bracelet.
Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari is the champion of WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic after a very thrilling heads-up match against Andrew Robl. This is how the final hand was played out.
Esfandiari raised to 800,000, and Robl quickly moved all in. Esfandiari called straight away with K[c]J[d]. Robl showed Q[d]10[c]. Robl needed to win the pot to stay alive.
When Phil Laak, 37, and his friends (Antonio Esfandiari and Brian Rast just to mention 2) rented a few quad bikes and decided to race against each other, it was supposed to be a fun and thrilling experience. But it ended up being one of Phil Laak's worst nightmares after that he crashed with his quad bike and ended up at the hospital with 7 broken legs and other injuries.
With the 2019 WSOP currently ongoing, the WSOP has announced this Sunday, June 23, the top 10 finalists eligible for the 2019 Poker Hall of Fame. Just one or two will be inducted.
Vince Van Patten, an announcer for the World Poker Tour, who co-wrote and starred in an upcoming poker film.
Tom Dwan explains in his own way what's wrong with playing Texas Hold'em live these days. In the interview he wishes to keep recreational players active in the game and shares his insights on what else is wrong with poker tournaments.
Poker After Dark's pro/celeb week, entitled "Moving Violations" featured a lineup of poker pros and Hollywood celebs such as Jennifer Tilly, Don Cheadle as well as producer Randall Emmett.
The 2018 World Series of Poker schedule has just been announced this Tuesday, and 78 official gold bracelet events will be up for grabs. Also, after four years, they are finally bringing back the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop! The 2018 WSOP is scheduled from May 29 to July 17, 2018, with the Main Event on July 2 to 14, 2018, and the Big One for One Drop on the last day, July 17.
Antonio 'The Magician' Esfandiari is one of the poker world's most well-known player. He has become a big name in poker thanks to many things, however, he's perhaps best known for his appearances on TV show High Stakes Poker and for winning the $1 million buy-in WSOP event BIG ONE for ONE DROP in 2012.
In case you missed it, a unique event called WPT Monster Invitational took place last Sunday at Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. The invited players were Scotty Nguyen, Antonio Esfandiari, Tony Dunst, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Laak and David Williams.
The survivors from Day 1 A & B continued their play in this year's main event on Tuesday. The two fields were seated in different rooms in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino; survivors from Day 1a played in the Amazon Room while the B's were playing in the Brasilia and Pavilion rooms. Once Day 2 was concluded, approximately 700 players survived from both fields out of the +1,900 players that came through from Day 1.
In case you have been hiding under a rock for the past few months, we are happy to inform that the one million dollar buy-in event BIG ONE FOR ONE DROP will be back at the 2014 World Series of Poker after a year of absence. The event will take place over three days, from June 29 to July 1, 2014, with all play being filmed for television.
A big congratulations to Fabian Quoss, the winner of the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller! The German pro bested an extremly tough field of 45 players (54 entries), including the final table with poker stars such as Dan Shak, Vanessa Selbst and Antonio Esfandiari, over three days of poker in the Bahamas to lay hands on $1,629,940 in prize money! According to PCA's webiste, 2013 was a rough year for Quoss on the tournament circuit, so the prize money will most probably come in handy for him.
Thursday night delivered some of the best poker action so far in the 2012 WSOP. It was the No-Limit Hold'em Shootout event that brought on some of the loudest crowds at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in this year's WSOP. UK's Craig McCorkell was the last man standing after the battle. The victory resulted in 2012's first British Gold Bracelet and a healthy bag of money for McCorkell - $368,593.
