player profile: gus hansen

[yergan 0]

Saw gus while I was playing at the Belagio.  Nice guy, but I always thought that he was taller.  Hmmm...

He used to be, then there was the incident with the bus.

[Golden 2]

He used to be, then there was the incident with the bus.

I heard the bus was rigged

[lvpro 0]

I heard the bus was rigged

It was. If it ever dropped below 55 MPH, a bomb would have gone off. Gus didn't stand a chance.

[Jam-Fly 8]

Please explain how Hansen's approach is mathematically optimal. I thought Sklansky utilizes mathematical and game theory, while Hansen puts more value in aggression. Don't you have a higher expected value in waiting for good hole cards instead of raising on such low cards?

Thats what i love about gus' strategy. it IS mathematically based. I think some of the hands from poker superstars explains it best. please remember its been a while since i saw then and the details will not be 100% rightHand 1gus FOLDS straight flush draw. why ? he made a list of the possible hands his opponent could have, and worked out what sort of a dog/favourite hed be against each hand. so due to the pot odds, and the probability of his opponents having each hand (eg he may think there is a 20% his opponent has Ace-small and 30% his opponent has a pp) he folded the hand. due to the fact that hed be too big an underdog to a likely hand, AKdHand 2He calls Lederer with Qhigh. It was heads up and lederer was consistently coming ott of gus, this time all in, and gus said afterwards, there were so many hands he could ahve there, alot of which my queen high was good. I think he had a flush draw too, cant remember

[Jimbobway 0]

Gus plays peoples cards against them. Sure is fun to watch.Hes the ultimate loose aggresive. Yes, he does get lucky, but then again every poker player does here and there. He plays peoples fears against them. the best part about his game, is that he doesn't have to wait for cards to win. He can play 2-7 and make it profitable, just like a rock can sit for 3 hours and win a decent pot with aces. I tell you what.. how many players do you that could make as much money with a pair of 5's... everyone will call him down with any thing resembling a hand. Best part about it, is that his wild aggressive play makes him look like a fish.. and thats exactly what he is not.

[canadapoker5 0]

Gus has to be one of my favorites to watch it seems everything he does is a set-up for later in games or tournaments.Jimbob i also like your answer that is very true.

[Gus Hansen 0]

I play John Juanda at Omaha.

[Miss Kitkat 0]

Anyone watch the Second Season of High Stakes Poker where Gus Hansen won the biggest pot in the show's history...$575,700.00 when his 5♦ 5♣ defeated Daniel Negreanu's 6♠ 6♥ on a board of 9♣ 6♦ 5♥ 5♠ 8♠. As Gus so eloquently put it, "That was sick!"Also, there was some great Heads-Up match play between Gus Hansen and Huck Seed in NBC's 1st Week of Poker After Dark earning Gus $120,000, as he outlasted a field of six pro's including Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Shawn Sheikhan & Steve Zolotow. Gus played some really smart and very disciplined poker throughout the entire event. Look for Gus to repeat this fantastic performance in an upcoming week of Poker After Dark starting on Monday February 12, 2007.

[Buckshot 0]

Yeah, Gus is certainly a great player to watch, although some see him as a loose cannon, he certainly does take calculated risks, and he can also change gears completely like he did in Poker After Dark where he seemed to take everyone by surprise by playing a very different style to his normal style.

[Rodney21a 1]

Yeah, Gus is certainly a great player to watch, although some see him as a loose cannon, he certainly does take calculated risks, and he can also change gears completely like he did in Poker After Dark where he seemed to take everyone by surprise by playing a very different style to his normal style.

Seven Card StudI was rail birding Gus, Gen Harmon and John Juanda on a Seven Card High/Lo highstakes game on Full Tilt. He absolutely destroyed them. He felted Juanda for 50k and took 40k from Harmon. So I think he was either REALY lucky on that night or he has imporved his Stud game. If he gets hot look out for him at the WSOP 50k HORSE event.

[jston 0]

Please explain how Hansen's approach is mathematically optimal. I thought Sklansky utilizes mathematical and game theory, while Hansen puts more value in aggression. Don't you have a higher expected value in waiting for good hole cards instead of raising on such low cards?

A few people have answered this question with: "Well, if you take his great reading abilities and add it with his ability to calculate outs, then of course his strategy is mathematically-based!"I'm sorry to burst the big bubble here, but those are fundamentals that EVERY poker player employs. I think the mindset of Gus' strategy can best be illustrated through some of these specific examples.First, Gus' own words, taken off of an instructional DVD he did (sorry, I don't remember which DVD it was ... and it's paraphrased - I don't remember the exact quote ):"If I lead out at 10 pots in a row, and let's say 6 of the 10 times I was bluffing, and 4 out of the 10 I had a strong hand, it's difficult for my opponents to tell which times I actually had a hand or not. It leaves my opponents guessing."Gus has also been known to regularly say: "My aggressive style tends to minimize the advantages of position that an opponent can have on me." You also hear players like Phil Hellmuth make regular (playful) barbs at Gus, usually along the lines of, "Well, crazy players like Gus LIKE to play out-of-position so that they can be the first ones to bet at the pot, but not me."Also read Gus' excellent 'Tips From the Pros' article at FullTiltPoker.com about betting out-of-position on the flop against a pre-flop raiser:http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pro-tips-arch...nsen&tip=87Now that you've seen some of these specific examples into Gus' thinking and reasoning behind the way he plays, does it kind of start to make sense?Addressing the original question (quoted at the beginning of this post) more directly: Gus' aggressive betting patterns almost make the value of high or low cards irrelevant because you can never really tell what he has. It becomes much less about the cards and more about controlling your opponents. By doing this at your typical 9/10-player tournament table, Gus picks up lots of dead money, keeps all the other players on their heels, and wins really big pots when he gets big hands.Someone else earlier in the thread also mentioned implied odds. Since Gus plays so many big drawing hands, he has HUGE implied odds on pots because of other players' willingness to call him. This allows him to draw at many more hands, and thus, hit more often and win HUGE pots.Gus may seem really reckless and out-of-control at the table, but if you look at the examples above where he explains his thinking in those specific situations, you can see that there is a lot of smart, logical reasoning that goes behind those plays. I think this is what Daniel meant about "mathematically optimal." Poker is a game of incomplete information, so robbing your opponents of that precious information while taking in more information yourself (by forcing your opponents to react when you take the initiative) sounds pretty mathematically optimal to me, even from a game theory point-of-view.Now someone warn me if I've gone way over my head here (because I am a novice player), but this is my basic understanding of the reasoning that goes behind Gus' game. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, all this is pretty much the basic framework for your "average" super-aggressive play. Harrington even goes through it in his book, and basically lists the same points I've touched on here. Gus has pretty much taken winning, aggressive poker strategy, and amped it up and exploited out every advantage to its fullest.Again, anyone feel free to comment or correct me on my points because I am a newer player and I'm just trying to contribute to the topic to the best of my ability. Everyone be on the lookout for Gus' new book! He apparently recorded EVERY single hand of his win at the Aussie Millions event on some sort of tape recorder device (although HOW he did it is beyond me) and is in the process of writing a book that analyzes EVERY hand. It will be awesome to see how he thought through each hand and how he worked the tables throughout the tournament.

[Outside The Seed 0]

I think Gus is an amazing player with his mad man strategy. I personally wouldn't use it but, probably because I would not know what to do but he plays the strategy to perfection.

[conor_mw 0]

gus is good and all but he seriously has to consider playing in the big cash games on full tilt.. the numbers speak for themselves

[Taffer92 0]

This is my opinion on Gus hansen , He is a complete and utter donkey who can only win with luck, one of the worst least skillful players I have ever seen in my life. the other day I was watching gus play on full tilt poker and he went brokesie woksie like 6 times in a row and kept reloading and it wasnt through bad luck he was going all in with Q 10 + K J AND WORSE he absolutely sucks and I hope he goes bust for good.TAFFER RATING 3.33/10 33 IS FITTING AS THE IDIOT LOVES/AND CANT GET AWAY FROM LOW PAIRS LOL

[HubDub04 0]

You suck.

[Taffer92 0]

LOL YOU HAVNT DISAGREED OR TRIED TO DISPROVE MY ARGUMENT SO I GUESS I AM CORRECT.

[cubbybri 0]

You really do not have a clue.

[gtycoon 0]

Gus can play 8 9 suited like it's AK or even AA. He has an ability to know when to play with less than average hands. You can never get a read on Gus because he plays so many different hands.