Esfandiari Flirts With Five Million
Greg Merson opened the action with a raise to 85,000 and Antonio Esfandiari made it 185,000 from the next seat over in the cutoff. Erik Seidel was on the button and after a moment he moved out a four-bet to 425,000. The blinds folded and Merson followed suit, putting action back on the reigning champ. Esfandiari dipped into his stack and came out with a five-bet to 1.015 million. Seidel went deep into the tank.
After about two minutes of pondering his action, Seidel opted to flat call the five-bet. With well over two million in the middle, the duo took a flop of 
. It was roughly one minute before Esfandiari continued out for what looked to be 630,000. Seidel quickly released his cards and Esfandiari was pushed the sizable pot.
"I was not expecting that," said Esfandiari as he stacked his new chips. The reigning champion is now sitting on about 4.88 million in chips.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
4,880,000 | 1,030,000 |
|
3,200,000 | -1,300,000 |