Profile of Gus Hansen

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Gus Hansen

Introduction
Gus Hansen is one of the most feared opponents in poker, mostly because his unpredictability and the way he can read the other players. He is known to play even the most absurd hand, and more amazing, even win with it.

Profile
Gustav "The great Dane" Hansen was born February 13, 1974 outside Copenhagen, Denmark. In his youth Gus was known to be a sports enthousiast, competing in several indoor and outdoor sports as a successful junior athlete. He was a youth tennis champion, but also a world class backgammon player. Gus always had a fascination for numbers and maths. Starting out as a backgammon player he ended up in New York, touring gin rummy and backgammon clubs, where he met Huckleberry Seed and Phil Laak. During this time he was also introduced to various types of poker.

In 1996 Gus entered his first WSOP tournament, being knocked out on the first day Gus later admits he had no chance of winning, as he never really played No-Limit Hold 'em before. So he decided to practice a lot, test new plays and experiment and mix up styles which became part of his game ever since.

By 1998 Gus was playing a lot more poker than backgammon, taking frequent trips to Vegas.And by the time he entered the 2002 WPT he had developed his very loose aggressive style, which really paid off. Gus won the WPT's inaugural event, the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em tournament at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. That same year he won another event, the $10,000 No-Limit Hold' em Championship at the WPT's L.A. Poker Classic.

During the WPT's second season, Hansen won the invitation-only Bad Boys of Poker tournament, and early in 2004 earned his fourth WPT title at the Caribbean Adventure tournament. That same season he tried to get one more title, but had to settle for third place in the Bellagio Five Diamond tournament.

After reaching another final table during the third WPT season he ended up third in the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament. Those 4 wins and 5 final tables earned Hansen a place in the WPT's Walk of Fame. Gus decided to play fewer tournaments and more cash games in 2005, but even with the reduction in tournament play he won the Grand Final of the Poker Superstars Invitational.

2006 was another good year for Gus, featuring in the second season of High Stakes Poker, where he won the second biggest pot in the show's history ($575,700) after beating Daniel Negreanu. In September he was able to win the London All Star Challenge, taking home $100,000.

At the Aussie Millions Main event of 2007 he took home his biggest prize ever, $1,200,000. So 2007 seems promising as well.

When not playing tournament poker, he regularly joins in in the "Big Game" at the Bellagio battling it out in as many as 13 different poker games with players such as Phil Ivey, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, and David Benyamine.Online, he can often be found playing high-limit Pot-Limit Omaha games or Omaha 8/B Limit games. Gus can also be found in low-stakes Limit Hold 'em and Razz games occasionally, along with low-limit SNGs and some of FullTiltPoker.com's larger tournaments. Whenever he isn't playing poker he likes to play golf, tennis, squash or soccer.