After not showing up for a planned showdown on the virtual felt – and his dizzying high stakes losses in the online arena – the future of poker professional Gus Hansen in the industry has come under question.
This past Sunday, Hansen was expected to take part in a special event on Full Tilt Poker. Going up against fellow “Professional” Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom, the mano y mano battle was expected to play out over three Sit and Go tournaments whose formats would be determined by the railbirds in attendance. The winner would take down a $50,000 payday while the loser would have a choice of playing 1000 hands of micro-stakes Razz (thanks for the insult to micro-stakes players, Full Tilt) or making a video while singing the winner’s National Anthem.
By far the two biggest names on the Full Tilt roster, the matchup between Hansen and Blom was expected to draw interested fans who have flocked to the rails to watch the twosome battle it out in the nosebleed cash games. Instead, those fans (which also included a live stream audience) were surprised when Team PokerStars Pro Jake Cody showed up as Blom’s opponent at the last minute. Perhaps because of the late call to action, Cody lost all three Sit and Gos to Blom, who pocketed the $50K but Cody was absolved of having to complete the loser’s requirements.
Oddly, Full Tilt Poker did not offer a reason for the pullout by Hansen, but there are reasons aplenty that might explain Hansen’s actions. Hansen hasn’t exactly been active on the live tournament circuit over the past few years; since finishing in third place in the 2012 Aussie Millions $250,000 Challenge (and taking down $800,000 Australian), Hansen has only earned five cashes in tournament poker. One of those was a win in a satellite tournament into the 2012 World Series of Poker “Big One for One Drop” (a $1 million seat) and another was a victory on the UK/Ireland Poker Tour in 2013. All totaled since that score in Australia (and deducting the satellite win), Hansen has only earned a pedestrian $39,981 in over 2½ years.
While downswings on the tournament circuit aren’t out of the norm, Hansen’s troubles on the virtual tables has been stunning. The website HighStakesDB.com reports that, as of the “Black Friday” actions in 2011, Hansen was approximately $4.2 million in the red, with most of that action coming on the high stakes tables of Full Tilt (where Hansen was a sponsored member of Team Full Tilt). As Full Tilt went under later in the year, Hansen cut back on his online efforts (perhaps indicating his early success during his return to live poker in 2012).
Once Full Tilt Poker was purchased by PokerStars in 2012 and reborn, Hansen became the first player to sign on as a sponsored pro with the “new” Full Tilt Poker. With his return to online poker, Hansen jumped back into the high stakes cash games on Full Tilt with absolutely disastrous results. Since his return in October 2012, HighStakesDB reports that Hansen has lost almost $17 million; breaking that down over the past two years, that means that Hansen has lost approximately $8.5 million per year (slightly more than $700K per month).
The no-show by Hansen in an event that his sponsor (Full Tilt) promoted heavily has led to many in the poker community questioning Hansen’s continuing relationship with the site as well as his dedication to poker overall. The arguments are compelling as, at this summer’s WSOP, Hansen only showed up for two events (blanking in both) and hasn’t earned a cash since March at the European Poker Tour Vienna Main Event. Online, Hansen has played sporadically at Full Tilt Poker over the past month and, from September 6-11, Hansen accrued another $900K downswing. Add in the totality of his online poker losses and the lack of success on the live tournament circuit, it does seem that Hansen is either on the worst cooler of his gaming career or has basically given up on the game.
If it is the end for “The Great Dane,” Hansen has certainly left his mark on the game. Using an aggressive “any two” strategy that caught many off-guard and having rugged looks that pulled in the non-poker playing ladies (he was voted one of People Magazine‘s 50 Sexiest Men in 2004), Hansen rocketed to popularity in the early years of the World Poker Tour, becoming the first person to win three WPT titles, and earned a WSOP bracelet in 2010. For his tournament poker career, Hansen has earned over $11 million but, when set against cash game losses (both live and online), it is a difficult obstacle to overcome.
