Esfandiari to compete in William Hill Grand Prix Shootout

American poker pro Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari will join Europe's top players at the inaugural William Hill Grand Prix Shootout next week to compete for an estimated prize pool of $800,000.

Iranian born Esfandiari, a former professional magician, is considered to be one of the top players in the world. He will be playing against a slew of highly respected European poker powerhouses, including Gus Hansen, Pascal Perrault, Surinder Sunar, Tony G, Juha Helppi, Christer Johansson, Willie Tann, Julian Thew, Andy Black, Bambos Xanthos, Donnacha O'Dea, and Hendon Mob members Ram Vaswani, Joe Beevers, and Barney and Ross Boatman.

The William Hill Grand Prix Shootout will be played out and filmed over the course of 10 days beginning on Monday, October 17. Fifty-six players will be seated in 7 eight-man shootout heats. The winner of each heat will advance to the final table, and a second heat will take place to determine which of the runners-up will play in the 8th final table seat. The tournament prize pool is currently counted at GBP 450,000, a quarter of which was contributed by sponsor William Hill Poker.

The tournament series is slated to debut on television in England in early December.

Please see William Hill Poker for further details.