iStockphoto / Veronika Ryabova
After a three-year hiatus from PokerGo’s High Stakes Poker, Antonio Esfandiari made his triumphant return.
He’s one of the best-known poker pros from the ‘Golden Age’ of TV poker. Esfandiari has career live poker earnings of $27,810,802, according to the HendonMob database. That includes a massive win of $18,346,673 after winning the World Series of Poker $1,000,000 The Big One for One Drop (Event #55) in 2012.
In his return to High Stakes Poker, Antonio Esfandiari got all of his money in the middle in a hand against his friend Bill Perkins. Perkins had QQ and Esfandiari had AK.
Despite not hitting a piece of the flop, Esfandari shoved all his chips in the middle and made Perkins think long and hard about calling.
Where it gets interesting is they run the hand twice. This is when the players have the dealer deal two boards which is supposed to reduce variance without affecting profitability, according to 888 Poker‘s explanation.
Antonio loses the first deal but comes back roaring to hit quad kings on the second deal:
Without running it twice, Antonio would have been down $169,000 in his first High Stakes Poker appearance in three years. Similarly, running it twice showed the value of his AK hand against QQ.