He was flying around the room. Tony G, fresh off a trouncing of The Big Game in Vegas, was in full form last night at The Mayfair Hotel in London’s West End in preparation for the WPT London which kicks off this week. “Daniel’s game?” he shouted. “It was my game! I owned it, I thrashed them, I tore them up!” And tearing them up is something Tony has been doing with his mouth since he appeared upon the scene.
The WPT will always be special for Tony G, as that was where we first got to know him. I was in Paris for his final table there years ago, where he was so over the edge that the cliff was gone, he berated them, he pounded the table, he was in Surindar Sunar’s face and screaming like a banshee. And as always, he was entertainment to beat the band.
The WPT London kicks off what should be the biggest month ever for UK poker. How serious are the bigwigs taking it? Serious enough to have flown Doug Dalton, head of the Bellagio poker room, over to London to make sure the big cash games at Crockford’s Casino are started on the up and up.
Serious enough so that Phil Ivey has been provided with his own private baccarat and craps tables for his stay. Serious enough so that fifty thousand pounds worth of tournament buy-ins will still only make you reasonably selective for all of September. Serious enough so that no one is sure if the WSOP Europe main event is really the main event at all. They will all arrive in droves, staking out the West End and Leicester Square and ready for action one month reserved from Vegas and the World Series at the Rio. And I am hoping to talk to them all.
You can here the rest of my chat with Tony G and a whole lot more in the latest installment of the PartyPoker.com Poker Show.
