Gus Hansen is a Danish online poker player who is famous for
high stakes wagering. He will usually be logged on to the online
poker site FullTilt.com where he will
be at the nosebleed stakes tables with other poker players like
Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan. At these stakes life is a bit of a
roller coaster because both wins and losses are huge. But in the
first week of April Hansen broke all records by losing almost a
million dollars in just seven days.
Hansen was the biggest winner this year at online poker sites by March end. His cumulative online poker income stood at a fairy tale amount of $4.7 million. Then his luck changed and the decline set in. From April 1 to April 7 Hansen played over 8,000 hands against the biggest sharks at online poker sites. He switched poker variants and he switched opponents but nothing helped. A leading online poker forum reported, “Whether it was $300-$600 Pot Limit Omaha against Tom Dwan and others, or heads up against Phil Galfond or Dan Cates, it couldn’t stop the losing.”
The $970,000 Hansen has lost as such represents only a 21% decrease in his cumulative winnings in 2011. He is still the top grosser at the online poker sites this year. But the indications are alarming. If the trend continues then he will be in the red very soon. The bigger problem is that the scenario is an exact repetition of what happened last year. Coming out of proclaimed retirement Hansen quickly was up by $1 million in January 2010. By the end of the first quarter of 2010 Hansen was up by over $2 million. Then he lost it all and more and ended 2010 with a big loss.
Hansen has his fingers in other pies apart from playing at online poker sites. He is a mean land casino poker player with three World Poker Titles and one Aussie Millions title. He has started up several business projects and sold them for big gains. His present venture is GusHansenTV. He is also dating the tennis professional Caroline Wozniacki and as they say being lucky in love means being unlucky with the cards.