Hansen is known as one of the most prominent poker legends. He was referred to as the ‘Great Dane’ by his fans and was born in 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He happened to be good with sports, with his main talents in tennis. He had exceptional gaming skills with backgammon and soon became one of the renowned backgammon players in the world.
He spent most of his time in New York, but with limited opportunities being offered there, he discovered his skills for poker while he was an exchange student at the University of California in the year 1993. He specialised as a loose aggressive player in the game of Texas Hold’em. He mastered the game and discovered a newer unique approach to playing it. He was also recognised for his wild betting methods.
Gus returned to Denmark in the year 1995 to fulfil his public service obligations and then went back to the States to sustain his new enthusiasm for poker. He completely devoted himself to the game and he gained a lot of public attention by becoming a premier winner of the World Poker Tournament. He had to pay the buy-in fee and it happened to be his first tournament, however amongst all the 146 players, he ended up winning $500000.
Along with the ‘Great Dane’, there were other nicknames attributed to him such as ‘Trashman’ and the ‘Poker Tramp’. The other players could never understand his gaming strategy for the reason that he didn’t play with one. He used to amaze the fellow players with his risky ways of poker.
As mentioned above, Gus used to be a loose, aggressive player who could take any two random cards and play with a hand. He didn’t seem to follow any poker rules and therefore he would attempt to play the trash hands as well as all the other hands. The other players used to be extremely uncomfortable since Gus could play with any two hands and emerge victorious. He used to play the players not restrict his game to the cards only. He would sharply prey on the weaknesses of the other players and keep them off balance by making difficult bets. The other players could not identify his strategy and Gus Hansen would consistently win. It’s more of just random betting, rising when required and folding hands.
Gus holds the record of winning three World Poker tournaments such as PokerStars Caribbean, the Commerce Casino and the Bellagio Casino and still continues to dominate the WPT events. Off lately, he joins in only for the larger buy-ins and biggest prizes. He is a player with personality and possesses a fortune of $4.7 million, enough to accumulate loads of fans all over.