Antonio Esfandiari Headlines World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic Final TableMichael Phelps Watched On As 'The Magician' Made The Final Six In This Event For The Third Year In A Row |
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For the third year in a row, Antonio Esfandiari has made the final table of the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic main event at the Bellagio. He won it all in 2010, and nearly defended his title last year before ultimately finishing sixth.
On the day of his 34th birthday, Esfandiari eliminated seventh-place finisher Jonathan Aguiar to take a chip lead into the final six where he is joined by fellow pros Shawn Buchanan, Ravi Raghavan Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger, who also made the final table of this even last year.
You can watch right here on Card Player starting at 4:30 PM PST as these top players battle it out for the title and the $1,268,571 first-place prize on the 30-minute delayed final table live stream with hole cards, featuring commentary from Tony Dunst, Dan O’Brien, and Jonathan Little.
Here’s a look at the final table seating assignments and chip counts:
| Seat | Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Antonio Esfandiari | 4,310,000 | 107 |
| 2 | Andrew Lichtenberger | 2,940,000 | 73 |
| 3 | Jeremy Kottler | 1,515,000 | 37 |
| 4 | Ravi Raghavan | 1,250,000 | 31 |
| 5 | Shawn Buchanan | 3,465,000 | 86 |
| 6 | Thomas Winters | 1,615,000 | 40 |
All-time Olympic gold medal leader Michael Phelps was on the rail rooting on Esfandiari during play down to the final six. Phelps’ roommate, poker pro Jeff Gross, finished third in the WPT Montreal main event recently and Esfandiari was in his cheering section along with Phelps, who himself is a big fan of poker. Phelps made a final table in a Caesar’s Palace event in 2008, and after the final table was set he was sitting in a cash friendly cash game with Daniel Negreanu, Eddie Sabat and Gross at the Bellagio.
A total of 503 entries were made in this $10,300 no-limit hold’em re-entry event, made up of 368 individual players and 135 re-entries. As the fifth day of play began, only 22 players remained. Numerous notables made deep runs including Jonathan Aguair (7th – $143,933), Theo Tran (8th – $102,461), Jason Somerville (10th – $56,110), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (11th – $56,110), Freddy Deeb (12th – $56,110), Greg Mueller (13th – $43,912), Andrew Robl (15th – $40,250), Scott Clements (16th – $40,250), Noah Schwartz (17th – $36,593), Jeremy Ausmus (18th – $36,593), Brian Rast (19th – $31,714), Eddie Sabat (21st – $31,714) and Joseph Elpayaa (22nd -$31,714).
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