Some of the greatest poker players of all time have had cards named after them: the 10-2 is the Doyle Brunson, the A -10 is the Johnny Moss and a pair of eights and a pair of Aces will forever be known as the Dead Man’s Hand in honor of Wild Bill Hickok. While the legends of the game are occasionally enshrined in that peculiar hand that they have each forever branded, Gus Hansen has dozens of hands named after him. Gus Hansen is a viable adjective in the poker community.
He was born on February 12, 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he found success in his early years as a youth tennis champion. Gus always excelled in table games as well as sports and by the time he became a professional poker player in 1997, he was already a world renowned backgammon star.
Hansen is famous as an action junkie even by a “regular” professional gambler’s standard: he has taken bets ranging from thousands of dollars – on personal athletic challenges – to millions on professional sports events. He is without question the loosest and most aggressive high-variance player in the eye of the mainstream poker community, known to go down more than a million in a single high-stakes session thanks to his propensity to play any two cards: when a player is found to be playing aggressively with hands that most players would throw away (hands like 6-4, 7-5, 9-5, etc) they are said to be playing “Gus” hands.
His major achievements at the poker table include a victory in the inaugural Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament (a $400,000 buy in,) becoming a member of the initial 3 players inducted into the World Poker Tour Hall of Fame (Doyle Brunson and actor James Garner were the others,) winning the Aussie Millions Tournament for $1.5 million USD and having 4 WPT championships to his name – Gus Hansen is the all-time leader in WPT championships, final tables and money earned.
Gus is also one of the major faces of the Poker Industry in today’s marketplace. He was one of People Magazine’s 50 Sexiest Men Alive in 2004 and is currently serving as the spokesmodel for Danish men’s fashion line Frank Q. He is one of the most visible members of the Full Tilt team and often figures prominently in their television commercials. Gus was also a founder of the poker site pokerchamps.com, purchased for approximately $15 million USD by poker conglomerate Betfair in 2005.
Gus travels often following numerous professional circuits worldwide but calls Monaco home. He is notoriously unmarried.
