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2012 World Series of Poker One Drop champion Antonio Esfandiari recently sat down with PokerStrategy.com to discuss the upcoming $1 million buy-in One Drop.
"It's been an amazing couple of years,” Esfandiari relayed since winning the One Drop event and $18,346,673 that came with it. “I had some recognition before the One Drop, but this really escalated me to a different plateau. I enjoyed riding that wave for the last couple years. It's not that a lot more doors opened up, but certainly they opened up further.”
And when one becomes a multi-millionaire, they also suddenly tend to get plenty of hot women swarming around.
So PokerStrategy.com posed the question regarding rumors of a prop bet Esfandiari placed with fellow poker player Bill Perkins whereby he would remain celibate for an entire year for a million dollars.
“It's true. What happened is we were in Sweden drinking. I was a couple of gin and tonics in, and it came up somehow. My buddy, Bill Perkins, said, "For a million dollars you'd have to go the whole year." I'm someone that values and respects money, and I just said, "I think I could do it for 500K."
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“All I could think of was another buddy of mine, who's a very spiritual, Yoda, Zen kind of guy, he went two years without any release. He did it, and he said it was one of the greatest learning experiences of his life.
“That’s all I was thinking about, and while I'm thinking about this in my head, my friend, Bill, puts his hand out and he goes, "Offer expires in ten seconds." I'm like, ‘Shit. Half a million bucks, but I can't release for a year?’”
Ultimately, he took the bet. But then came the moment of truth.
“I wasn’t even worried about it. Then the next couple days I spent doing a little bit of research and calling my other friends who I know had done it, and I realised that, as much as I thought I could do it, it was something that I didn’t want to do. As a man, what is my purpose of being here? To put one of those things, one of the most important things, on the shelf for a year was going to be really tough.
“It wasn’t that I couldn't do it, but it was because I all of a sudden didn’t want to do. After nine days, I wrote a very heartfelt letter to Bill, and I said, "Look, I'm going to do this bet. There's no part of me that’s going to lose the half a million; but it's something that I don't want to do." I offered a buyout for X amount, and he took it. If he wanted more than that, I probably wouldn't have paid him; but I just paid it, got it out of the way, and broke out of the bet. So yes, it's true, and I did buy out, and I'm happy to have paid the money and be done with it.”
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
