Imposter made way into Quest of Champions

October 6

The Quest of Champions, a huge poker tourney scheduled to take place at the Palms casino in January, was created to celebrate the burgeoning popularity and visibility of the world poker's top players.

Well, the tournament began by uncovering a would-be imposter.

The tournament's main event will showcase 100 players at 10 shootout tables, with the winner of each table advancing to the final table of the ten remaining poker players.

At a preliminary mini-tournament on Labor Day weekend at the Palms that someone tried and failed to join the tourney by trying to take the place of star poker player Antonio Esfandiari. This leaves many online poker players in awe.

The chief executive officer of Las Vegas-based PokerQuest Entertainment wanted to invite Esfandiari to play, but he had never really spoken to him or met him before. Instead of actually contacting the right person, he reached a little-known poker player, also named Antonio, who did nothing to dispel the notion that he was Esfandiari.

The imposter tried to keep up the ruse almost until the start of the mini-tournament, which was to host ten famous poker professionals playing for one of the 100 seats in the main poker tourney."It turns out he was just some nobody," Augustine said. "He was saying, 'You still have to let me play.' "

After getting rid of the imposter, tournament officials recruited 1983 WSOP champion Tom McEvoy right before the game started.

The best part is that McEvoy won the tournament, and now has a seat in January's main event.