In the end, Antonio Esfandiari did get his best possible birthday present, albeit a few hours late, when he defeated fellow Victory Poker Pro Andrew Robl heads up for the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic title, earning his second WPT bracelet and $870,124 prize money.

Ted Lawson, Kirk Morrison, and WSOP runner-up John Racener were the first to bust at the tv table, leaving Vanessa Rousso battling it out with the Victory Poker Pros. Finally Rousso lost two big pots to Esfandiari, and the heads up started with Robl leading 9.5m to 8.15m.

Incidentally, another Victory pro Brian "tsarrast" Rast was there sweating his friends and he must have had some mixed feelings watching the heads up. The three have a habit of swapping pieces of each other's action in live tournaments, but apparently just this one time Rast had decided to skip the chance...

The heads up lasted for 58 hands until Esfandiari finally gained the upper hand. In the last hand, Robl 3-bet all-in with a 15bb stack but Esfandiari made a quick call:

Esfandiari Kc Jd
Robl Qd Tc

Esfandiari's rail was chanting "Happy birthday to you..." when the dealer laid out Ad Kd 6d. This gave Esfandiari a pair but Robl had 8 outs to a flush and 3 outs to a straight. However, the board blanked and the tournament room in Bellagio erupted to noisy victory celebrations.

Antonio Esfandiari scored his first WPT win at the LA Poker Classic in 2004. Apart from his two WPT bracelets (they do hand out bracelets at the WPT, too) he has a WSOP win and more than $4.5 million in tournament cashes.

For Andrew "good2cu" Robl, it's his biggest live cash to date, taking his tally to more than $1.4 million.

WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic:

1. Antonio Esfandiari $870 124 + $25 000 buy-in for the WPT Championship
2. Andrew Robl $549 003
3. Vanessa Rousso $358 964
4. John Racener $232 271
5. Kirk Morrison $168 924
6. Ted Lawson $126 693

Source: WPT, picture: Pokerlistings.