Last night I had the best nightclub experience of my life. We went to the grand opening of the club Blush at the Wynn. Blush is the new and upgraded Lure. This place was gorgeous and set up rather nicely. It was their first night open so it was kind of hectic. My buddy, Larry Murphy, had us all set up with 2 of the only 4 available VIP booths in the whole club. As we sat down and ordered our bottles we noticed that Kobe Bryant was at the other table directly in front of us. He was there with a small entourage including his wife (and I gotta tell you she is SMOKIN’ hot). I’m glad he didn’t catch me looking at her the million times that I did! I’m usually quite controlled when it comes to partying, but when my old-school friends are here from out of town I tend to get a little crazy. I was in rare form last night. And so was my friend, Manny.

What I am about to tell you is 100% true. Around 1 am, after several tequila shots, Manny decides to order a bottle of Cristal champagne ($1500 for a single bottle); a waste of money if you ask me…maybe because I wouldn’t know the difference between Krug and Cristal. But hey, to each his own! Manny likes Cristal, he gets Cristal. When someone orders a bottle of Cristal in the club they bring it to you in style. About 4 or 5 waitresses come out all with flares and the theme song to Rocky plays loud. The entire club takes a glance to see what’s going on. It’s definitely an attention grabber for the girls, and there was no shortage of that my friends! A few minutes later Kobe Bryant orders 3 bottles of Cristal. The more bottles you order, the bigger the delivery. We were all pretty wasted and somehow Manny thought that Kobe was trying to outdo him. Let me tell you something about my friend Manny; he is a very successful commercial real estate developer and he won’t be shown up by anyone. That’s just his personality. So he orders 6 more bottles! I don’t know what happened next because the next thing I knew Kobe ordered somewhere around 10 bottles!!! It was the battle of the Cristal between Kobe and Manny. Manny said to me, “Antonio, get the waitress.” I said, “Manny, I know you are doing well in life, but this is madness buddy.” I knew exactly what he was going to do. He asked the waitress how many bottles of Cristal she had left. The next thing I heard, and I will never forget these words, “BRING THEM ALL!!” he said to her. She looked at him with this bewildered look, when the dust settled we had ordered 26 bottles of Cristal at $1500 a pop. About 10 minutes later the music stops, the Rocky theme song comes on, and about 13 of the hottest waitresses I’ve ever seen made an entrance and headed toward our table.

I cannot even begin to explain the energy going off at our table at this moment in time. Most of us were standing on top of the cushions, jumping out of control, and screaming at the top of our lungs. Every single one of us had a bottle to drink from, and forget about glasses. It was going to be straight out of the bottle for us. Upon delivery we started a serious spray festival. Everybody started shooting everybody with the champagne. We got drenched. It was absolute mayhem. Words can’t describe how apeshit we all went. The entire club just stopped dancing and stared at what was happening. A lot of innocent bystanders got wet too, but they really didn’t seem to mind. It was that insane. Usually security would stop you from literally spraying half the bar with your bottles, but considering we just spent $40,000 (there were 2 tabs, one just had the Cristal order) I was pretty sure they didn’t mind. Thank you, Manny, for one seriously unforgettable night!

Antonio Esfandiari and friends outduel Kobe Bryant in a battle of Cristal at Blush Nightclub at The Wynn

Kobe Bryant, Antonio Esfandiari, Blush Night Club, Poker