On Tuesday morning, Big One for One Drop champion Antonio Esfandiari (pictured) found himself in New York City appearing on “The Howard Stern Show” on Sirius/XM Radio. Stern and Esfandiari discussed many facets of the $1 million buy-in poker tournament and Esfandiari’s life, among other topics. The interview stretched for 34 minutes.

One of the major talking points was Esfandiari’s victory at the World Series of Poker this year in the special One Drop event, where he defeated U.K. poker pro Sam Trickett to take down an $18 million payday and become tournament poker’s all-time money leader.

Stern and his co-host, Robin Quivers, questioned Esfandiari early in the interview about whether he put up the entire million-dollar buy-in on his own. “Most of the businessmen put up the million themselves. Most of the poker players had investors,” Esfandiari replied.

When questioned on how many backers he had, Esfandiari was quite coy, saying he put up “a good deal of his own money” and had “more than two and less than ten” backers for the tournament. While admitting this, he still said he made “the most I’ve ever made in a tournament.”

As the wide-ranging interview went on, Stern asked fairly in-depth questions about Esfandiari’s early life. “Were your parents mortified when you (told them) you first wanted to be a magician and then a poker player,” Stern queried of Esfandiari. “Yes,” Esfandiari quickly replied. “I come from an Iranian family (where) you’re expected to do well in school, get a law degree… When I told (my dad) I wanted to be a professional magician,he had a heart attack. A couple years later, I said to him, ‘Dad, magic is cool, but I want to be a professional gambler.'”

When it comes to the world of poker, Stern demonstrated quite a bit of knowledge of the game. He asked Esfandiari if he would suggest poker as a career to his future children, drawing an immediate response of “Absolutely not.” Esfandiari explained, “It’s a tough business… You have to be a very strong person to be able to emotionally handle the ups and downs. Any given night, you can go in and lose a ton of money.”

Stern (pictured) also broached the subject of whether Esfandiari has a gambling problem, which naturally drew a negative response from the Big One champion. “Not at all,” Esfandiari stated. “I could stop tomorrow, but why would I? I’m not chasing some sort of high from the game. It’s a business.”

Being a Howard Stern interview, there was also some discussion as to Esfandiari’s success with the ladies. Admitting that in high school he was not very popular (to the point of demonstrating his success by returning to his 10-year high school reunion in a limousine), Esfandiari talked about losing his virginity at age 14.

After Stern asked if he can get laid as a poker player, Esfandiari admitted to having been intimate with “not what I would call an A-lister, but a B-list actress” that Stern would recognize. No, her name wasn’t dropped.

Other discussions, such as the recent court decision on the “skill versus luck” debate and Esfandiari’s friendship with Olympic swimmer and multiple gold medal winner Michael Phelps also entered into the discourse, but perhaps it is best to hear the rest for yourself. Click here to listen.