Antonio Esfandiari Wins 2010 WPT Five Diamond Classic

Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari has just won the 2010 WPT Five Diamond Classic, after defeating a field of 438 players over six days to take down the title and collect the $870,124 first place prize.
Esfandiari’s victory at the prestigious tournament came on the anniversary of his 32nd birthday and represents his second biggest score to date. With his latest win Antonio’s career live tournament earnings have now reached the $4 million mark.
As the final table of six returned yesterday to battle it out at the $10,000 buy-in competition, Vanessa Rousso was the chip leader on a 5.83 million stack, followed by John Racener (3.23m), Andrew Robl (3.21m), Kirk Morrison (2.65m), Antonio Esfandiari (2.1m) and a short-stacked Ted Lawson on 635k.
Unsurprisingly, Lawson was first to be eliminated after re-raising Rousso’s under the gun move all-in for his remaining chips. Lawson’s pocket 9’s suddenly looked good against Rousso’s pocket queens on a J-9-2 flop, but a Q on the turn sealed his fate and so he collected $126,693 for his 6th place finish.
Next out was Kirk Morrison in 5th ($168,924) who was dealt A-J on the button and decided to call Robl’s raise along with Racener. Robl was sitting on a pair of 5’s and check-raised Morrison all-in on an A-T-5 flop who then reluctantly made the call. 
WSOP 2010 finalist John Racener was then in big trouble after being dealt Qc-8c and moving all-in under the gun for his remaining 1 million chips. Esfandiar made the call with Kc-Qh and the K-6-3-7-8 brought no relief for Racener, who then walked away with $232,271 for his 4th place finish.
Three hours of exciting poker later, and it was Vanessa Rousso’s turn to exit the tournament after being reduced to a short-stack of 1.95 million chips and moving all-in on the button holding Qh-2h. Esfandiari made the call with Ac-Qs and the 7-6-5-3-8 board was enough to dispatch Rousso in 3rd for a $358,964 pay-day.
Going into the heads-up phase of the tournament, the positions were fairly even with Robl on a 9.5 million stack to Esfandiari’s 8.155 million.
By the time the decisive hand was played Esfandiari was dealt a Kc-Jd and held a 2 to 1 chip advantage over his opponent. Esfandiari then called Robl’s all-in re-raise and saw the good news that he was ahead of Robl’s Qd-10c.
 
An Ad-Kd-6d flop gave Robl both flush and straight potential but a 6c on the turn and a 5s on the river put an end to his tournament hopes and so Andrew Robl collected $549,003 for his deep run in the tournament.
In the meantime, Antonio Esfandiari was crowned the 2010 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic champion and won $870,124 for his remarkable victory, as well as being awarded a $25,000 WPT Championship seat.