Day 2 of the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event took place Sunday and like any live tournament, some people were eliminated, others built their chips stacks and all in all, much poker was played. But let’s forget about all of that for now and talk about what really happened on Sunday: Antonio Esfandiari got disqualified from the tournament for pissing in a bottle at the table.
I have been around a lot of poker tournaments in my life and have been in the presence of some of the smelliest, most unclean, obnoxious people you could imagine, but I don’t believe I have ever witnessed a man whip it out and provide a sample right there in the middle of the action.
Believe it or not, there was actually a reason Esfandiari did what he did other than to just be disgusting.
As readers of this site may very well know, prop bets are a big thing in the poker world. They often involve very high stakes and players will frequently do whatever it takes to win a bet. This is what happened to Antonio Esfandiari. He had a prop bet with Bill Perkins for an unconfirmed amount of money ($50,000 is the rumor, but it very well might be a lot more) that required Esfandiari to do lunges instead of walk for 48 hours. Every step he took for two straight days had to be in the form of a lunge. Lunges are extremely tiring to do as a small part of a workout, so having to do them for two days could be damn near impossible.
According to various sources who spoke with Esfandiari, his legs felt awful during the second day of the bet. It was so bad that during the tournament, he determined that he would not be able to get up and walk to restroom when he realized he had to relieve himself. Thus, he peed into a bottle under the table.
When floor staff became aware of what happened, Esfandiari was disqualified for a “breach of etiquette.”
For what it’s worth, it does sound like Esfandiari was trying to be discreet about it and didn’t make a show out of the public urination. One poster on Two Plus Two who said he was sitting at the table when it happened said he didn’t even notice what Esfandiari did. He saw he had a towel with him (and another report said there were a couple people trying to help shield Esfandiari’s nethers from view), but other than that, there was no ruckus, no discussion at the table.
“Antonio left the table then official came over and took his chips. I asked why he was taking the chips (as Antonio was not bb so shouldn’t have been table-moved) and was told he was DQ.”
Esfandiari had about 100,000 chips at the time of his disqualification, so he was doing quite well. Word is that he did end up winning the prop bet.
For his part, Esfandiari later apologized in an interview with PokerNews, saying that it was immature and foolish to do what he did (though he didn’t specifically say what he did in the interview). He explained why he did it and thought it was kind of funny at the time (it was), but looking back, he feels bad for being so crude.
Oh, and here are the chip leaders heading into Day 3:
1. Leonardo Pires – 524,000
2. Agshin Rasulov – 467,000
3. Franco Spitale – 432,300
4. Steve O’Dwyer – 430,900
5. Siarhei Melianiuk – 428,900
6. Sampson Simmons – 421,400
7. Phillip McAllister – 420,600
8. Dorian Rios Pavon – 379,900
9. Ami Barer – 353,000
10. Georgios Zisimopoulos – 343,900