button in SafariPoker Player Tanks for 15+ Minutes for $292 Pay Jump at Aussie Millions
Nobody likes tanking, but it remains part of tournament poker, and tours have spent years trying to rein it in.
Shot clocks are now standard across many events, limiting players to a set amount of time to act, while Triton Poker has taken things even further with its Triton Tempo system, inspired by the chess clock. The EPT, like Triton, has also introduced a set number of hands per level at some final tables to stop players from dragging things out late in tournaments.
There are clear incentives to stall. Extra time can help players ladder up the payouts, and sometimes players will deliberately slow things down when the blinds are about to go up, forcing shorter stacks to commit more chips on the next orbit.
Doyle Brunson once said, "Poker is war. People pretend it is a game." For some players, that kind of gamesmanship is simply part of the psychological battle that makes tournament poker what it is.
But British pro Guy Taylor may have pushed things further than most would consider reasonable during the Aussie Millions Poker Championship 2026 Presented by CrownBet.
Is This Tank Acceptable?
Long tanks are usually saved for massive decisions with serious money on the line. But during the $1,500 Mystery Bounty, Taylor spent an unusual amount of time on a decision where the pay jump at stake was just A$410, roughly $292.
With 36 players remaining, everyone had locked up A$2,710 ($1,933), with the next payout rising to A$3,120 ($2,225).
The blinds were 15,000/30,000 when Xin Xu moved all in for 135,000 from early position. Patrick Barba then rejammed from the button as the covering stack, folding out the small blind. Taylor was in the big blind with 105,000 behind. Then came the tank. And it lasted more than 15 minutes, holding up the rest of the table while Taylor weighed his decision.
"Put the phone away. It's not going in for a while," Taylor told PokerNews' Liam Black, who was railing the hand. "Bunch of nits," Taylor said of the other tables, where no all-in and calls took place during the tank.
Under most tournament rules, any player at the table is allowed to call the clock after a reasonable amount of time, but in this instance, no one stepped in. In events with shot clocks, Taylor would have had 30 seconds to make his decision unless he used time extensions.
In the end, he decided to call off his stack when the tournament went on its break.
Guy Taylor: Q♣J♠
Xin Xu: A♦5♦
Patrick Barba:Q♥10♠
Taylor went on to river a straight on the 9♥6♥10♦9♦8♠ runout, that saw him triple up and make the next payout. Xu fell in 36th, with his mystery bounty token going to Barba.
While it might've been unreasonable, it appeared to payoff as Taylor is still in contention with 18 players remaining at the time of writing and has locked up at least A$4,680 ($3,338)
The tournament saw 912 entries, creating a total prize pool of A$1,185,600 ($845,635). There's an A$175,495 (4125,172) first-place prize up for grabs, along with mystery bounty prizes as big as A$90,000 ($64,192) and A$50,000 ($35,663).
