Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen (born Gustav Hansen on February 13, 1974 outside Copenhagen, Denmark) is a professional poker player who lives in Monaco.
Biography
Before turning to playing poker professionally in 1997, he was a world class backgammon player and a youth tennis champion. Typical of the active Danish lifestyle, Gus was known for being a sports enthusiast throughout his teens, competing in several indoor and outdoor sports as a successful junior athlete. In 2000, he moved to New York City, and tried to make a living playing professional backgammon, but found the field too small for his taste.
He calls himself a professional gambler and has been known to take private bets on various personal athletic challenges (such as running), other than poker and professional sports.
Poker career
Hansen started playing poker in Santa Cruz, California while he was an exchange student in 1993. He is notorious for his extremely loose, aggressive play. He has a reputation for raising or bluffing with almost any two cards, which leads to opponents calling (or raising) his bets when he has a legitimate hand.
As of 2006, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,500,000.
World Poker Tour
Hansen is the only player to win three World Poker Tour (WPT) open tournaments. He also won the first WPT Bad Boys of Poker invitational event. In 2004, he was inducted into the World Poker Tour Walk of Fame, along with Doyle Brunson and James Garner.
European Poker Masters
In September 2006 Hansen won the inaugural EPM event, The London All Star Challenge, eventually beating Marc Goodwin heads up to take home the title and cheque for £53,600 ($US102,000).
Poker Superstars
Hansen won the inaugural $400,000 Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament, winning the $1,000,000 first prize in a one-table event featuring some of the most well-known players today. He did not appear in the second series, but returned for Poker Superstars III where he reached the semifinals.
Other events
Hansen finished in the money of the 2004 World Series of Poker main event, and also made the final table of a European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Barcelona.
In 2006, Hansen was a member of the winning Danish team in the PartyPoker.com Football & Poker Legends Cup tournament, alongside Theo Jørgensen and Kim Christofte. He also became a member of the Full Tilt Poker team of players.
Other ventures
Gus Hansen was a founding partner and house pro of the online poker site pokerchamps.com, launched in 2003. In 2005 the company and game software technology were sold to the British company Betfair, for over 100 million Danish kroner (approximately £8.8 million / 13 million euro / $15,000,000 USD). Despite the sale, Hansen was involved in a PokerChamps Danish championship in October 2005.
In 2005, Hansen appeared in Texas Hold'Em Poker Advanced Strategies With Gus Hansen, which is part of the Going All In instructional series of DVDs.
He is currently featured in the Professional Poker Tour and the second season of High Stakes Poker, where he won the biggest pot in the show's history ($575,700) when his 5♦ 5♣ defeated Daniel Negreanu's 6♠ 6♥ on a board of 9♣ 6♦ 5♥ 5♠ 8♠.
It has been announced that he will participate in NBC's Poker After Dark series to debut on 2 January 2007 at 2 a.m. ET.
He will also be in Singapore this November 12-17 to participate in the Betfair Asian Poker Tour.
Losses
Despite his ongoing success, Hansen has struggled with money problems, reportedly because of losses during live cash games. [1] Hansen is a regular in the The Big Game normally held in "Bobby’s Room" at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas. He also admits to being a perennial loser in sports betting, so much so that he wishes he could stop.
Trivia
Claims to have learned to speak English by listening to Pink Floyd albums in his youth.
People Magazine's editors voted him as the "Sexiest Poker Player" in their December 2004 50 Sexiest Men Alive issue.
Flexes his right arm after a win -- a move he says he copied from Mats Wilander.
Plays high-stakes Yahtzee and backgammon -- sometimes for at least $1000 a point.
Was the subject of a Danish TV documentary called Royal Straight Flush in 2003.
His manager is his brother-in-law Erik
Has been known to use the screen names broksi, bsg1, havoc14, VJabotinsky, and waddello to play online poker.
Reference
^ commentary of the 2005 British Poker Open, by Gary Jones
[edit] External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Gus HansenOfficial site
Full Tilt Poker bio
World Poker Tour profile
Poker Babes profile
Poker Baron profile
EveryPoker profile
Guide To Poker profile
Poker Royalty bio
PokerPages profile
Card Player Magazine cover article
Barry Greenstein on Gus Hansen
Fox Sports video interview
PokerPlayer magazine interview
PokerNews article
"Ten Questions with Gus Hansen"
Hendon Mob tournament results
