Poker Players' December Highlights: Galfond, Esfandiari, and More

December 2012 was a month filled with exciting events and tweets from the poker world. Phil Galfond made a notable appearance in the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio, finishing in 24th place. Galfond also launched a new educational site, runitonce.com, and promoted a free video featuring PLO $200/400 against Isildur, Ben Sulsky, Sigmund, and Gus Hansen.

Antonio Esfandiari had a successful run in the same tournament, finishing in 4th place. He celebrated his birthday with a party at the Marquee nightclub on December 10, a tradition he has kept for several years. Eric Baldwin sparked a discussion about poker rules when he asked tournament director Matt Savage a question, which was met with responses from Jay 'WhoJedi' Newnum and Dan O'Brien.

Mikko Anttonen moved to Mexico and shared his experiences, including finding a $100 bill and a phone in his new apartment. Liv Boeree had an unfortunate encounter with scammers during the EPT in Prague, exchanging 2,000 Czech korunas for two 1,000 Belarusian ruble notes. Jared 'harrington25' Blazeck received an invitation to the Superstar Showdown by PLO and was looking for backers or to sell 75-80% of his stake. Daniel Negreanu asked his followers for authors of published books willing to spend 5-10 minutes on a quick phone call. Randy 'nanonoko' Lew reached 1,000,000 VPP on PokerStars and thanked his supporters. Alexey Kovalevskiy shared his experience of riding the metro in Kyiv for the first time in a year, only to find that the trains were not running. John Juanda expressed his love for Japan and its people after recovering his wallet and iPhone multiple times. Phil Ivey's team at IveyPoker.com expanded with dozens of new players, as reported on his Twitter.