Player Update: Gus Hansen

Gus Hansen has had his cash game ability denounced by a number of the net’s top pros in recent months but it appears the Great Dane is having the last laugh at present.

The Full Tilt pro, who was down almost $1million in the 2008 Full Tilt games, has more than made up for this loss in January 2009 – posting profits of over $2.7million for the month! The vast majority of this has come from PLO, where he is in the green to the tune of $2.8million – when you consider second on the list is down on +$613,000 you begin to realise just how much his high variance game has paid off in such a short space of time.

Not that everyone is complimentary of his game skill, however: Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond recently said the Hansen was ‘a good player in a game of world-class players’ and that in the absence of Guy Laliberte he is probably the reason why the $500/$1,000 are running at present. At the Aussie Millions cash game, Tom Dwan literally begged the Dane to join him and Patrik Antonius in a NLH/PLO high stakes match before he declined, saying he was too drunk (durrrr offered to drink the equivalent amount himself to catch up in the drunkenness stakes). And of course there is Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies, whose ribbing of Hansen has been collected in a truly hysterical Two Plus Two thread (see here) of his greatest chat box moments. Lash-outs such as the one below:

Ziigmund: gus is so easy
Ziigmund: totally danish fish
Gus Hansen: ups
Ziigmund: gus...any game heads up???
Ziigmund: u r just so f joke
Gus Hansen: no you just said I was too easy
Gus Hansen: you are obviously too good
Ziigmund: no limit heads up?
Ziigmund: plo?
Ziigmund: anygame
Ziigmund: totally fish u r

In sub-standard English are par for the course.

It will be interesting to see whether Hansen can continue his enormous winning streak against the best players in the world in the most high variance games of all. Either way, at least he makes it entertaining for us mere mortals.