To the average person, watching poker on the television screen can be incredibly dull and boring. Hours pass by as players hardly say anything and everyone keeps their poker face completely intact. A pin can be heard hitting the floor and cameras zoom in and out of dead pan faces attempting to not giveaway their great hand in an effort to win the game.
Every once in a while, a player comes along that makes the game entertaining. Someone you want to watch as they surprise you around each corner with a bold gesture that makes the generally boring poker watching worthwhile. When these players sit at the table you do not want to switch the channel for fear oof missing out on their next neat trick or bold move. They leave us glued to the channel. They are not necessarily the biggest winner that poker has to offer, but they are certainly the most entertaining players to watch.
Poker Player Pyromaniac
Mike Caro admits that he was a great poker player that made regular wins. He certainly wasn’t on the loosing end of the table. He claims however that his winnings could have been a lot more if he simply used no flair, or at least just a lot less of it. Being at the top of his game he became cocky and he wanted others to know that he was the best and that he was confident in the fact that he was the best. A fact that he had to prove.
One of Caro’s biggest stunts that he pulled at the poker table was to tear up hundred-dollar bills and simply toss them into the air. He claimed that this showed his opponents that he hundred dollars was of little concern to him, as it was considered small money, and put them on edge. He was even know for taking out a lighter and setting hundred dollar bills alight.
From Persia on a Magic Carpet
Antonio ‘The Magician’ Esfandiari is a former professional magician turned poker player from Persia. An incredible successful poker player, he has won many tournaments including two World Poker Tours and has three https://canadiangambling.net/visa/ World Series of Poker bracelets. For a long time, he was also the face of the then popular poker site Utimatepoker.com. In 2012 he even wrote a book called ‘The Magicians Secrets for Winning Tournaments’.
Known aptly by the nickname ‘The Magician’, Esfandiari is known for his entertaining chip tricks that he would do around the poker table. These could include anything from making a chip run across his knuckles to making it float up into the air as if by reverse gravity. But chip tricks became the norm and in 2016 he decided to up his game and urinated into a bottle as part of a prop bet. The stunt got him disqualified PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
From setting dollars alight to urinating in a bottle. No one can say that poker has no flair or drama.