Throwback Thursday with Tuff_fish: “Fuck me to goddamn tears”

Reminiscing in past times is a sure sign of old age. It can also be quite entertaining as the following videos from more than 15 years ago, from the golden age of online poker show.

People that have been in the online poker business back then most certainly still remember the legendary Tony “tuff_fish“. The American was an icon of online gambling in 2006 and 2007, producing arguably the funniest video recordings of cash game sessions the world has ever seen. Tuff_fish was an ambitious but sub par player who had a huge tilt problem. As soon as one of his opponents won a hand, Tony was all over the place, berating him savagely. Tuff_fish went on hysterical rants for almost no reason and always had a screen cam and microphone running during his sessions. He uploaded his tirades to youtube and became an early star of online poker.

Tony hasn’t played online for a long time, but his videos will remain in the poker world’s memory forever. Here is a selection of the most entertaining ones:

Fuck me to goddamn tears

A classic tuff_fish hands queens against kings. Of course, Tony can’t let this hit pass without hysterical laughter and explicit swearing:

The cock fucking sucking hell

In this hand tuff_fish flops a set and decides to play it as slow as possible. The river completes a backdoor flush draw and even before there’s any action the bleating starts: “God damn son of a bitch, fuckin’ bastard, son of a fuckin’ bitch. Why the cock fucking sucking hell does this happen every fucking time?”

Oh, you scum!

Two hands between EmpireMaker2 and tuff_fish: In the first hand, tuff_fish trusts a pretty shaky top pair and stacks off on the flop. His opponent, none other than one of the most successful high-stakes players of those years, has a combo draw and gets a flush on the river. Of course, this is an outrageous bad beat for tuff_fish and he comments accordingly. The second hand is a classic set-up between the two shortly afterwards.

Side note: Take a look at the poker tracker stats of the players in these hands. EmpireMaker2 – at that time one of the most respected players at these tables plays a 19/13 style (at 6-max!) – a nit style that wouldn’t even fly at the micro stakes nowadays.

What a moron!

Tuff_fish is very generous with his insults. He even insults himself. For example in this hand. First he feels uncomfortable with a flush draw and a pair on the flop, then he plays a value bet on an A95-9-6 river with 65 expecting to get value from an ace. When his opponent actually calls with an ace, but the pot moves to his opponent, tuff_fish is initially puzzled (“What happened?”) and then smacks himself relentlessly:

God bless America, hiychaychaychagchaya

Finally, probably the most famous tuff_fish video. Here Tony demonstrates par excellence how tilt works. First he complains about having already lost several hands, then complains he doesn’t win anything with his good hands and never hits anything at all, and to top it off, knowing fully well that your opponent has a better hand, he dumps another stack with the words “God bless America”.

And what do you say after losing this hand? For Tony it’s obvious: Hiychaychaychagchaya!