I am a big Gus fan.

He has got huge stick in the last couple of years for failing to hold his own in the world's toughest games, and for refusing to give up trying. He has fallen behind today's top players, but chooses to keep pitting himself against them - to me that deserves more respect than ridicule.

People have short memories and forget how much he did in his heyday. He pretty much invented the hyper-LAG game, and his early WPT wins were some of the most enjoyable poker viewing ever.

He is still in Hendon Mob's all-time top twenty.

Entering the 2007 Aussie Millions making tape recordings that will be a waste of time unless he reaches the final table, and then winning the thing, is pretty stunning. The resulting book (Every Hand Revealed) is a great read, whatever you think of his play.

He always handles himself with class and when he was at the top of the game he kept his ego well in check. I suspect that his combination of entertaining play and personal appeal did more to attract sponsorship money into the game than anyone other than perhaps Moneymaker.

If your only measure of greatness is crushing right now, fair enough, but I think that is a pretty short-sighed measure.

he is

So I guess by your reasoning if I played the toughest games in the world and lost I should be in the hall of fame too?

he is the most underrated player in the game,, the reason poker is played as its done today is becouse of Gus he invented the modern game.

nah, Tom Dwan/Phil Galfond invented the modern game.

fyp

Phil Galfond first deposit 2003. Tom Dwan first deposit 2004.

In May 2002, a relatively unknown Gus Hansen found himself at the first WPT final table. Quite a soft one, the other players were Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen, Chris Bigler, John Hennigan and John Juanda. Gus took it down, and if you haven't seen it, it is worth looking out the video (also for Shana Hiatt at her finest!).

I was a fairly new and nitty player at the time, and was open-mouthed with astonishment - fantastic stuff. It is now commonplace to see "any two card" players, but at that stage it was not considered possible to play that wide a range and win against quality opposition.

He also picked up two more WPT titles inside two years to show it was not a fluke.

While everyone talks about Gus losing 20 millions, Patrik silently closing in for 20 millions in tracked winnings on FT.

looks like the 20m barrier has been well and truly broken now by gus. wonder when it will stop?

Losing $20,000,000 is extremely hard to fathom.

agreed.

It really is. $20 million is huge. You could buy a nice house, a nice car and never have to work again for that amount. But this whale is just throwing it down the drain like it means nothing. And by the way things are going, he is certain to lose even more.

He had 100% Rakeback so $20m is off

20 million could have provided some valuable poker lessons, say from The Professor of Poker and/or JRB. It could have also definitely helped to polarize his range more.

He's clearly the most overrated backgammon player ever.

Dunno if it's been mentioned but it's gotta be likely that this is has something to do with the tax man.