Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari (; born December 8, 1978 as Amir Esfandiary), is a professional poker player and former professional magician, known for his elaborate chip tricks. Esfandiari was the face of the now-defunct poker site, UltimatePoker.com. In addition to appearing on several poker television shows, he has won two World Poker Tour (WPT) championships and three World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets in his career, including the "Big One for One Drop" in 2012, a $1,000,000 buy-in tournament benefiting the One Drop Foundation. By winning the event, Esfandiari won the second largest single payout in tournament poker history at $18,346,673. Esfandiari was ranked number one for all-time tournament poker winnings, until Daniel Negreanu took this title by finishing 2nd in the "Big One For One Drop 2014". In 2012, he authored The Magician's Secrets for Winning Tournaments on Insta Poker, a poker strategy game available for iOS. Early life Esfandiari was born in Tehran, Iran. When he was nine years old, his family moved to San Jose, California. He graduated from Del Mar High School in 1997. He then went briefly to jail after he got caught by the police selling marijuana. At the age of 19, he changed his name to Antonio, which was adopted from a desire to be a magician. Antonio the magician sounded more mystical than Amir the magician. At the same time he also had a nose job done to look less foreign. He became a professional magician. While he was performing magic, he was invited to a game of Texas Hold 'em and started to play poker. He has a younger brother, Pasha, who also plays poker. Personal life Esfandiari is married to Amal Bounahra, daughter of poker pro Badih "Bob" Bounahra. Esfandiari and his wife had a son on January 7, 2015. Live poker In 2004, he won close to $1.4 million and his first World Poker Tour title at the L.A. Poker Classic. He won his first World Series of Poker bracelet a few months later in pot-limit Texas Hold 'em. Esfandiari appeared in the second and third seasons of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. After finishing last the previous year, Antonio was able to redeem himself with a second-place finish the third season. He was also in each season of GSN series High Stakes Poker and each season of NBC's Poker After Dark. On April 17, 2008, Esfandiari made the