Tony G is affectionately known as “The Mouth from Down Under” and anyone who has seen him playing poker in a televised event will know exactly where that name comes from. Known for his often outrageous “smack talking”, Tony notoriously shows no affection and no compassion whatsoever for his opponents at the poker table, often taunting players after knocking them out. Funnily enough he is reputed to be quite personable and friendly away from the game. Here at the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game I was about to find out if this was true.
I first met Tony as he puffed away on a huge cigar in the bar at Casino 50, waiting for the latecomers to arrive so the game could begin. Watching from a distance as I ordered a beer I was surprised to see Tony sharing a light hearted conversation with Howard Lederer. Back in 2003 when Tony finished 5th in the WPT Grand Prix de Paris Howard “The Professor” Lederer famously refused to shake his hand, so incensed was he by what he perceived to be Tony’s arrogant and vulgar behaviour at the poker table.
Emboldened by this scene I approached Tony and was warmly received. The rumours, it appears, are true: away from the table Tony really is an easy going guy. I guess the enfant terrible you see on the poker table is just Tony’s strategy for winning.
Despite his easy going demeanour Tony is far from being soft, and he has plenty of strong opinions on the WPT, the WSOP and the eventual championship winner, but these are views he prefers to keep out of print and I promise to do so. Tony then moves on to talk about his recent trip to Japan, where he has been playing in a high stakes cash game ($1000-$2000 NL) against a Japanese multi-millionaire. How did he do, I wonder out loud.
“Ok. I did ok but it’s a tough game you know? This guy has A LOT of money and he’s not a bad poker player. I was stuck for most of the game and was down $400k at one point. In the end I managed to pull it back and was up $300k but threw it away in the last half hour of my trip! Ah well.”
Apparently his Japanese adversary likes to gamble, big time, and Tony says that you are almost required to make up the blind regardless of whether or not you have a hand. Participants are also required to play for a minimum number of sessions, I forget how many, but it is around 20, before they are allowed to leave, regardless of how badly the game is going for them! Tony plans many more visits, having become the unofficial cheerleader for Japanese poker ever since he wore a Kimono on the televised WPT Bad Boys of Poker II invitational, which he won.
The Biggest Game in Town
Eventually, fully two hours late, the FTP cash game gets under way and Tony gets off to a good start, winning the first pot of the day against Howard Lederer and immediately getting involved in a little verbal jousting with Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. But Tony doesn’t play for long, leaving the table after little over an hour, suggesting that the game is simply to boring to play in: “It was way too tight. Not nearly enough action.”
Tony is clearly no fan of playing against rocks: “I like aggressive exciting games, when people are doing lots of raising, re-raising, and bluffing,” he tells me. Essentially these players are just too sensible, and by that Tony means no disrespect. He simply means they are too good to throw their chips around. That’s not to say Tony doesn’t like playing against the best, rather he likes to pick his moments: “In tournaments it’s fun to have a high calibre of opposition but in a cash game you want to play the rabbits, you want to find the worst player in the world to play against at the highest stakes. That’s what the cash games are all about.”
As with all high profile players it is in tournaments that Tony G has made his name. He has been more than moderately successful, with over $1.5 million to his credit, but it is not so much for his results as for his manner that “The Australian Airbag” has become a household name.
Tony’s most famous performance came on the final table of the 2004 WPT Grand Prix de Paris €10,000 event. There he smack talked a table of top pros into complete submission, relentlessly taunting his opponents after winning pots. Most infamously Tony told Surindar Sunar, after inducing the English pro to bluff the river when Tony had made a set of threes: “I’m going to rip you apart so hard; all your chips; everything; everything. I’m going to punish you so hard. You’re going to suffer so much. You will never want to play poker with me again. Ever!” The expressionless Surindar went on to beat Tony into second place.
The spectacle made Tony a love/hate figure throughout the poker world eliciting equally vociferous emotions from both admirers and detractors (responses to his blog were split straight down the middle between: “You’re my favourite player” and “if you ever try that **** with me I’ll knock you out”.) Tony has admitted that he might have gone a little bit too far on occasions (he was drinking during the Grand Prix de Paris) but has stressed that he and Surindar, along with many other players who have been on the wrong end of Tony’s mouth, are on very good terms: “When the game is over its over. Most players understand that.”
Tony gives his upbringing some credit for his trash talking, telling me: “It’s the Australian in me. There is trash talking wherever you go in Australia; not specifically in poker, but in everything.” As he says this I can’t stop a vision of Merv Hughes calling out “tickets please” from popping into my head; the more I think about it the more I understand where Tony’s coming from. After all, the Australian philosophy seems to be that whatever goes on on the pitch, it stays on the pitch. Substitute pitch for felt and you could be quoting Tony G.
Interestingly Tony said he had only just made up with Howard Lederer after having “a real heart to heart” with him before the game started. The two players had not spoken since Tony so incensed Howard in the Paris WPT but Tony said that was now all behind them. “I really respect Howard,” said Tony, before issuing a word of warning lest I thought he had gone soft, “but on the table I’m after him. On the table anything goes.”
Later on in the evening Tony rejoins the table, delighted to see that in his absence the game has sprung into life. Already Mike Matusow has had to rebuy for another $100k and there have been a number of huge all-in suck outs already. Tony doesn’t mess around, delivering a hefty beat to an unknown British millionaire (reportedly a director of Tottenham Hotspur): the two players got their chips in the middle when the board showed 6-5-4-J. Tony had Q-7, his opponent had J-T: the river was a queen.
At the end of the game Tony was narrowly pipped to the FTP Million Dollar Cash Game trophy by the relentless Phil Ivey, who ended with $104k profit to Tony’s $84k profit. Tony claimed he did not get involved with Ivey at all (“I respect his game”) but did say he had lots of fun beating up The Mouth (Mike Matusow). Surprised? You shouldn’t be.