Antonio Esfandiari's 10K Vegas Tour

[grdred944]

After watching him on two seasons of HSP I thought maybe the guy isn't a total douche. Wrong! The only thing douchier than his offering this tour is someone taking him up on it. He really should have stuck with the furniture business scheme.

[grdred944]

[ QUOTE ]
So unless someone is a total idiot and has never been to Vegas before, there's no reason to hire someone to take you out... unless of course, you are such a loser that you have no friends and you don't want to party alone.


[/ QUOTE ]

[stinkypete]

how much do y'all think antonio would charge me to be one of his "friends" who comes along for the free booze? if it's significantly less than $10k, that's a pretty sweet discount, no? obviously i won't get to pick the day but that's not a big deal really - i'd fly out there to hang with antonio anytime.

[innerpeace]

in my experience interacting with him at the table, antonio acts differently than how you might expect him to given the image his publicist has portrayed. i'm not saying he is a saint, but he is trying to create an image and profit off it. before the current poker boom, the only way to make money off of poker was at the tables. if you wanted something more stable you might soundly invest winnings to create alternate non-poker-related revenue streams.

nowadays, it's conceiavable to make a nice side income through sponsorships, endorsements, and the like. there are players who make as much or more this way than they do actually playing. antonio is simply taking advantage of this opportunity (i'm not casting judgements either way, just stating what i believe to be the case).

antonio is good at knowing what people perceive his image to be, and then actually playing in a way that is contrarian. this is part of why he has done well. it works against weaker players and sometimes even against good opponents, though not as well against very good opponents.

[FrankStallone]

I would pay him 10,000 dollars to not use gel for one day.