[toc]Gus Hansen, a Danish professional poker and backgammon player known as “The Great Dane,” has made a return to the world of high stakes online poker.
This is notable because Hansen, while playing at Full Tilt Poker as a Full Tilt Ambassador, is the biggest losing player in the history of online poker with net losses of over $22 million.
Hansen has not been seen at the online poker tables since January 2015, where he played at Full Tilt Poker with an account down $20.74 million. He is now playing at PokerStars on his “broski” account, which has $1.3 million in lifetime losses.
What’s Gus been up to?
Hansen has been absent from the poker world, both live and online, until recently.
Last month, Daniel Negreanu posted a picture of Hansen playing a high stakes mixed game at The Bellagio in Las Vegas. Now, Hansen has been playing online again.
He was playing smaller stakes than he used to at Full Tilt, but the $200/$400 and $300/$600 games he was involved in are still plenty high. He won roughly $55,000 in his first foray back to the tables.
Gus Hansen’s career at “the nosebleeds”
Before the shutdown of US online poker in 2011 and the subsequent collapse of Full Tilt Poker, the site was known for offering the highest stakes games available online.
No Limit and Pot Limit games of $500/$1,000 and Fixed Limit games of $3,000/$6,000 ran regularly in games known as “the nosebleed stakes.”
As a Full Tilt Ambassador and key face in Full Tilt Poker’s advertisements, Hansen was a regular fixture in these games. Unfortunately for Hansen, he seemed unable to compete with the younger players who had come up through the online poker stakes.
For the first two years after high stakes games were first tracked in February 2007, Hansen’s profits and losses fluctuated from between being up $1.9 million and down $2.4 million.
From mid-2009, he took a nosedive down to -$10.3 million in early 2011. He won back more than half of that within six months before plummeting down again to his current total of -$20.74 million.
What is Gus Hansen’s worst game?
Hansen’s most profitable game in high stakes online cash is H.O.R.S.E., in which he has won a little over $430,000. That figure is dwarfed by his immense losses in other games.
In draw poker games, Hansen has lost $8.6 million. In Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo, he has lost $6.8 million. He has lost a further $2.6 million in Hold’em/Omaha mixed games; $2.2 million in 8-Game Mix and another $1.5 million in No Limit Hold’em.
Gus Hansen’s poker success
Outside of the online poker arena, Hansen has had great success in live poker tournaments. He boasts over $10 million in winnings, including the 2007 Aussie Millions Main Event about which he wrote his acclaimed poker strategy book Every Hand Revealed.
Hansen is also one of just three players to have won three World Poker Tour titles.
