TonyG and Townsend clash in high stakes cash game

The Full Tilt Poker Blog is reporting an interesting confrontation between normally soft-spoken high stakes pro Brian Townsend and normally anything-but-soft-anything pro Tony G.

The jabbering took place during the million dollar cash game that Full tilt is currently producing for airing at a future date. The game, a star-studded affair built on the High Stakes Poker template, is taking place in London and features a revolving cast of players.

Michael Craig is heading up FT’s live coverage of the match, and here’s what he had to report regarding Townsend and Tony:

Tony G has been trying to chat up Brian Townsend and Brian eventually responded by saying, “I’ll play you any time you want, as high as you want.” Tony said, “We’re playing here now.” Brian said there were too many players here. “Just the two of us.”

Ivey proposed that they play a big heads-up match and simulcast it on their sites, Cardrunners.com and Pokernews.com.

Tony G acted generally like he was interested, and then Brian tried putting meat on the bones: “$1,000-$2,000 with a $2 million cap. Once someone loses $2 million, they can quit if they want. No-Limit, though we can play PLO if you want.”

Now Tony is waffling and Brian is pointing out that he’s waffling. “That shut him up,” Brian says.

Which, of course, gets Tony talking again about making it happen. That made Brian turn up the heat. “Any number you want Tony. If it’s more than I can afford, I’ll get backers.” Then he added, “I won’t have any trouble getting backers against you.”

There appears to be some sort of poker game going on in between all of the talking as well. The chip counts for the players at the last break:

Seat 1 – Tony G $416,000
Seat 2 – Howard Lederer $72,000
Seat 3 – Allen Cunningham $143,200
Seat 4 – Andy Bloch $19,600
Seat 5 – Chris Ferguson $133,300
Seat 6 – Phil Ivey $230,800
Seat 7 – Patrik Antonius $356,100
Seat 8 – Brian Townsend $152,900.