Gus Hansen Biography
Gus Hansen was born on February 13th 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Gustav was a very competitive child playing many sports including soccer and tennis. He has kept up his tennis playing and there was talk of a tennis bet between him, Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine. When school wasn’t in session Gus would go to a summer camp and this is where he first got into poker, playing games with his friends from camp for small amounts of money. Gus was always fascinated with numbers and this is a big reason why he enjoyed playing poker and backgammon as a child and likely why he has become so successful.
Gus started playing more poker after he moved to California in 1993. He played at the local casino and continued to develop his own unconventional style. This strategy of mixing up his game has worked wonders for Gus, as he is often able to get maximum value out of his hands because his opponents cannot put him on a hand.
After two years in the States Gus was forced to go back to Denmark to enrol in the army. There is a lottery in Denmark that determines which citizens get first choice of army division and as Gus’ luck would have it his ball was drawn early and he was able to choose to be in the civil service sector of the army. This meant he spent nine months practicing first aid and rescue.
In 1996 Gus went back to the States and tried his luck in the WSOP. He did not cash and was forced to realize he needed to work on his game and improve his personal style. It wasn’t until 2002 that Gus really broke out on the poker scene with a win in the Five Diamond World Poker Classic event of the WPT. In the same season of the World Poker Tour Gus won the Los Angeles Poker Classic for another $500,000 and finished third in the World Poker Tour Championship event.
In 2007 Hansen struck again winning the Aussie Millions and taking home $1,500,000 for his efforts. Gus went into heads up action with Jimmy Fricke a big underdog in chips, but the cards would fall his way and not before long all of the chips sat in front of him. Gus has yet to win a WSOP bracelet, but he is a World Poker Tour legend and has over $6,000,000 in career tournament earnings.
Gus loves the challenge of the game and this challenge is what has drawn him to play cash games with some of the best players in the world, both live and online. Hansen has been out to the big game at the Bellagio many times and it’s no secret he has not fared that well, with many big losses to date. He also plays at the biggest stakes available online and some say he is the reason games still run at those stakes. Many other high stakes players think Gus is a fish, but his online cash game record for this year is quite impressive. You can find Gus being ranted at in the chat boxes of the highest stake cash games on Full Tilt and some of his responses are hilarious.
You can now follow Gus anytime at his TV site GusTV.com. You can watch him take on some of the biggest pros and you can be sure that Gus keeps it interesting with his dry humour. Gus is one of the most recognizable players in poker today and that is not going to change anytime soon.
