Gus Hansen History, profile, and background

More than just one of the world's great professional poker players, Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen has also made "People" magazine's list of the world's 50 sexiest men. So the Great Dane is at once one of the world's wealthy and famous poker players, and a sex symbol. Yes guys, you are allowed to hate him.

But what makes the Great Dane so great as a professional poker player? Well, besides his very powerful intellect, Gus Hansen also is lord and master of bluffing. He might possess the absolute most difficult pattern to pick up on among all professional poker players. His play is intentionally erratic and very aggressive and he will often go all in with a hand that just about every other poker pro would unhesitatingly fold on--this is known as "having a Gus" (his victory at the World Poker Tour at Commerce Casino against famous poker professional Andy Bloch being one of the most famous instances of this). On the other hand, he can read other players' patterns with frightening ease. Hansen often plays like a maniac and is considered one of the most entertaining of all poker players to watch. But his opponents all know that there's a method in his madness.

Gus Hansen first began playing poker in 1993 when the Copenhagen, Denmark native was an exchange student in Santa Cruz, California. However, at that time he had no intentions at all of becoming a poker professional. Instead, his competitive cash game was backgammon, at which he excelled along with tennis. But by the time he was 20 years old, the Great Dane had come to decide that the game of backgammon just did not pay out enough money. So it was that in the year 2000 he made his way back across the Atlantic to New York City and took up professional poker playing, having been inspired by his previous experience with Texas Hold'em.

Since making his debut in a major Texas Hold'em tournament in 2002, in which he won half a million dollars against 147 strong contenders at the Bellagio Casino, the Great Dane entered the World Poker Tournament's $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship of the L.A. Poker Classic in Los Angeles and emerged victorious and $532,490 wealthier in 2003. There followed a WPT Bad Boys of Poker tournament invitation; he won the No Limit Hold'em and was rewarded with $25,000.

Next, Gus Hansen made third place at the final table at the 2003 WPT Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship and sixth place at the final table at the World Poker Tour Battle of Champions No Limit Hold'em. Moving on to the 2004 PokerStars dot com Caribbean Adventure Gus won the $7,500 No Limit Hold'em event. The Great Dane then took $1,000,000 by winning the 2005 Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament $400,000 Grand Finale.

Besides being a sexy multimillionaire famous poker player, Gus Hansen is the author of the book 'Every Hand Revealed'. You can find this "madman" among professional poker players on the Internet at Full Tilt Poker.

Exit Famous Poker Players: Gus Hansen » Learn Texas Holdem