Just days ago, Garrett Adelstein made a return to poker live streams and walked away with a $180k win. Perhaps enticed by Adelstein’s big win, Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari made his first TV poker appearance in a year, which culminated in a $300k victory.
Esfandiari appeared on a high-stakes Hustler Casino Live stream along the likes of Ryan Feldman, Mike X, Britney, and Peter, along with a few other HCL regulars.
The group played $100/200 No Limit Hold’em with a $200 big blind ante, but pots quickly grew out of proportion, with Antonio and Peter in particular pushing the action.
Despite being the game’s biggest winner, The Magician also lost the biggest pot of the night to amateur player Kennen, worth over $300,000.
You can check out the entire Hustler Casino Live stream that features Esfandiari’s return in the video below, or keep on reading to get the highlights and our analysis of the key pots of the night.
Esfandiari and Peter Mix It Up Early
The game was off to a quick start, as Peter bought in for $100k to get things going, and both Antonio and Ryan brought $50k in chips to the table.
Peter was quickly involved in a 3-way all in with 10♥10♦, and was up against the A♠K♣ of Dylan and 8♥8♣ of Britney, who was in a really bad shape.
Dylan ended up scooping up the first big pot of the night, and this started a flurry of big hands and rebuys, which quickly made the game grow well above its $100/200 parameters.
Known for his reputation of a wild action player, Peter was always going to be the one carrying the bulk of the day’s action. An hour and a half into the stream, he faced off in his first big pot against Esfandiari.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was Antonio who held just ace-high all the way to the river, while Peter flopped top pair with his K♦Q♥, and got two big streets of value from The Magician.
Yet, the river A♣ bailed Antonio out, as he scooped up a $90k pot when action on the river went check-check.
Esfandiari’s good run continued over the next couple of hours, as he won pot after pot, including a massive cooler against Dylan that saw Antonio turn a gutshot straight and Dylan make two pair.
Four hours into the stream, Antonio was up about $250,000 from his starting $50k stack, when he played the biggest pot of the night against Kennen.
The Magician Fails to Pull a Rabbit Out of the Hat
The atmosphere at the table was good, and Antonio was seated to the immediate right of Kennen, an action player from China who doesn’t speak much English, but let’s the chips speak for him.
Several players limped into a pot, including Antonio with his A♠8♠, when Kennen decided to bump it up to $5k from the $400 straddle. This forced other players out of the pot, and left Kennen heads-up with The Magician himself.
Kennen’s 5♣5♦ missed the A♣J♠8♣ flop quite heavily, while Antonio flopped two pair. Antonio checked in flow, and Kennen fired out a small $3k c-bet, which Esfandiari promptly called.
It seemed like this hand would be quite a boring one, before the dealer turned 5♥, giving Kennen a disguised set of fives and putting The Magician at risk.
The two were very deep, as Kennen had a further $153k behind, but with both holding such strong hands, all the money was certain to go in, barring action killing rivers.
Kennen bet out for $12k, and Estandiari decided to spring the trap and raise it up to $39 with his strong two pair combo. Little did he know he was the one getting trapped.
After announcing raise and considering his options, Kennen finally put in a substantial raise, to which Antonio responded by putting it all in. Seeing his opponent lament the situation, Antonio asked “how do you say good sign in Chinese,” as he assumed Kennen was weak and actually contemplating a call.
He got the bad news quite fast, as Kennen finally made the call and revealed his set, which meant Antonio only had four outs to improve.
They ran the board twice, but Antonio’s two pair failed to improve on either board, which meant Kennen would scoop a pot worth $323k.
Esfandiari Recovers, Peter Drops Half a Million Dollars
Antonio Esfandiari and Peter remained the two main action generators for most of the stream, but their stacks went in opposite directions.
A pivotal hand between the two played out some five and a half hours into the stream, and you could definitely say that nothing about it was GTO.
The hand started with Antonio opening 8♥6♣ to $1k from the highjack. Kennen responded with a fairly standard 3-bet to $3.5k with his K♠10♠ from the cutoff, and Peter came along for a flat-call from the small blind holding the best hand in K♦Q♣.
While most players would have either called or folded in Antonio’s shoes, he decided to bump it up to a cool $20k. Perhaps to his slight surprise, both Kennen and Peter came along, and the three went to a flop with $60k in the middle.
The dealer chose Esfandiari, as he dealt 9♦6♠3♥. Peter checked, Antonio continued for $28k, and Peter raised it up to $60k.
The Magician must have interpreted this small raise as weakness, as he decided to commit all of his remaining $156k to the pot, moving all-in.
There was little Peter could do against this power play, so he ended up folding a hand that had quite a bit of equity, but was not good enough to stick around.
In this hand, Esfandiari proved he has not forgotten any of his old tricks, as he once again used maximum pressure to force even the wildest opponent to scratch his head.
Peter’s fall continued throughout the episode, as he ended up being the biggest loser of the session, dropping a total of $470k that was distributed among the likes of Esfandiari, Kennen, and Mike X.
The Magician was the biggest winner of the night in the end, as he held $298,500 when the stream came to an end, ahead of Kennen’s $195,500 and Mike X’s $186,900 profits.
Ryan Feldman was also among the winners, while Britney, Dylan, Tomer, and Fransicso all recorded losing sessions.
