Gus Hansen....King of the suckouts

[Kiant]

I may be way in the minority here, but I gotta say that I am NOT impressed with Gus Hansen as a top notch poker player. In watching him play in WPT final tables, WSOP and the current superstar challenge on FOX, this guy has experienced more suckout wins than all other final table players combined. He almost always, not always, almost, goes in with the inferior hand and pulls a suckout out of his ass. I believe it's at the point that other pros don't respect him anymore! some may argue that they do, but I say NO.... They fear him but they don't respect him. I'm sure he is not going to amount to much during this superstars challenge. Enjoy the poker everyone.... Cheers.

[lolita16]

Refresh my memory. How many WPT events have you won?

[Toro]

There's a very simple reason why Hansen sucks out more often than the other top pros. He plays way more speculative hands. But don't sell him short. He is one of the best at post flop play.

Yes, he takes risks and he bluffs a lot, but he's always manuevering himself into position to take down a big pot. I think the other pros are starting to adapt to him though. They are now more willing to come over the top of him pre-flop which is what I think you have to do.

I saw one hand recently where Lederer re-raised Hansen's 78s with only Q9s. Hansen smiled and said "you caught me with only J high" which was a poker fib.

[Beavis68]

Well, I havent won any WPT event, but I don't understand Gus's play either, his WSOP final hand is a good example. Yeah, he was unlucky that Mathias had a strong flush and a weak straight draw, but going all-in OOP like that - just didnt seem good.

Freddy Deeb played horribly against him. But I think he is going to be called more often, and will have to adopt his play - Phil Hellmuth had a similar thing happen.

The hands they have shown on Fox so far sure havent been good ones.

[RobGW]

Gus can afford to make loose calls when he has the entire table covered. He takes down every pot in which nobody has a good hand which is often. He is bullying the best in the world. Howard tried his all in move with a less than premium hand and got slapped out. Gus is hard to stop when he gets on a roll. Sucking out is part of the game. It happens to me all the time. I sometimes benefit as well. But anyone who can win with garbage is a good poker player. Anyone can wait for a good hand and then come over the top of him. He won't pay you off unless he has a hand too. Then you may be the one leaving the table cursing out the poker gods.

[lolita16]

I agree with you completely on that note. I pointed out in a previous post (which of course got flamed) that he has made more than his fair share of miracle three card outers with a dominated hand... two that come to mind are the jack against Chip Reese, and the 10 against Hoyt when Gus was all in and the victory would have gone to Hoyt.

Having said that however, I must say I became a bit more of Gus fan watching him in the world series. His final hand selection was a bit risky but many of the top no limit pros like to play the smaller suited cards. When you flop gin (stolen from Daniel N.) with a hand like 85, often you will take your opponent's entire stack. Gus commented immediately after busting that "I could have just folded but I was low on chips too".

Many of the real top tournament players go the route of gold or bust. Daniel Negreanu's play struck me as odd in the main event as well. Both his and Gus's style lead them to the final table with alot of chips or they bust out early.

[doggin]

LOL

[mike l.]

"I am NOT impressed with Gus Hansen as a top notch poker player."

me neither. watching him go all in w/ A8 against chan's ATs the other night made him look like such a complete fool. it was like looking in a mirror.

[KillerWombat]

Not much of an argument, Robert Varkonyi has won the WSOP main event and he's largely disregarded by the poker community as a dipstick whose main skill was repeadtedly sucking out with Q-10 offsuit.

[cornell2005]

this post is a dead giveaway that you dont understand tournament poker, or poker in general. talk to someone who does about this subject and see what they say. or read supersystem

edit: fine ill give a hint. think about what this would look like on tv in terms of suckouts. guy 1 has a huge amount of chips and can see every flop. guy 2 will only play with KK or AA and has a semi short stack. who will win? who will appear lucky on tv? who will get paid off more with their big hands?

[KillerWombat]

While there is no denying Gus is a world class player have you seen the Fox's Poker Superstars event? Gus was literally a 50-1 shot to survive both his all in's vs Chip Reese & HL when he was domminated in round 1 both of which came from not terribly impressive plays on his part. In spite of getting that lucky he tossed it away by repeatedly calling HL's all in bets that represented a decent chunk of Gus's stack with very weak hands merely to preserve his wild table image. He might have possibly eliminated Howard and moved up to 3rd but he was more likely to do exactly what he did which was bust out 4th. I was distinctly unimpressed by Gus's inability to change gears when the circumstances merited it.

Round 2 is a different story, Gus got out to an early big lead which is where he thrives but his average stack play was terrible in Round 1 and he was very, very lucky to wind up 4th. In Round 2 Gus's call of HL's A-10 all for 100k with his KQ was solid for strategic reasons, he had to put a stop to that move so he could play some pots even though he was a bit of a dog, he could afford to gamble on that hand. I won't be surprised though if the other larger stacks at the table do what Howard was doing and Paul Phillips did in the WPT which is just stomp on Gus's raises when they have any sort of real hand. Even though he has a huge chip lead I wouldn't be surprised to see Barry or Doyle take him out.

[cornell2005]

how you can make those observations only seeing 5% of the hands, and without chip counts, blind amounts, and pot sizes, is beyond me

[KillerWombat]

While ordinarily I'd agree with you on this one and your point on Fox's choice of which hands they choose to broadcast is a good one, it was clear from the table conversation that these were critical hands. Round 2 is an entirely different situation, Gus is the big stack and can afford to gamble for strategic reasons but Round 1 was not an impressive display.

Gus repeatedly drove himself all in on dominated hands on no less than 4 occasions and all of them were for either more than 60% of his stack and 2 were allin in the very early stages against 2 of the tighter players at the table. His repeated calls of HL's all in with less than a big stack and 4 players remaining wasn't wise either. While a short stack might be going in with marginal hands, likely Howard would chose something better than 9-7. Howard's stack wasn't big enough to help Gus threaten Phil, but it was enough to put Gus himself on the short stack. Gus's hyper aggressive gear & post flop decision making is undeniably awesome but he doesn't seem to be able to shift out of it when the situation warrants.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, he was unlucky that Mathias had a strong flush and a weak straight draw, but going all-in OOP like that - just didnt seem good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Going all-in sort of nullifies that whole OOP thing does it not?

If the other guy doesn't have a such a big draw with the AQs and he lays down a bigger flush draw than Gus looks like a genius instead of a chump.

[RobGW]

Gus did make a bad play in round 1. But in round 2 he folded to Chip Reese's all in reraise. Lesson learned.

[In Paradise]

I think Gus is a great NL tourney player. I just don't think that he belongs at that table. Hellmuth and Negraneau belong more than Hansen. Just my opinion.

[lolita16]

I truly wonder if this is his strategy and if it is, does it have any hope of succeeding. Gus is extremely intelligent which make me wonder if he plans to rope a dope for a couple of rounds, then change gears. If so, how quickly will the others adjust? It should make for interesting viewing.

[Kiant]

thanks for the lively discussion... some great replies have been put out and I can say that I can't wait to see Sunday's episode to see if GH hangs on to his chip lead.... my money is on NO...
Now for the next part of this post, who actually should be at this superstars table if GH was to be subsituted.... let's do a poll and please give your explanation.

[Easy Ian]

Lederer moved all-in on Gus twice during the tournament. The first time Gus had 87 and Howard had Q9, Gus folded. The second time Gus had KQ and Howard had AT, Gus called and everyone says it was a terrible call. Now imagine the hands are reversed.

The first time Gus has 87 and Howard moves in with AT, Gus folds.
The second time Gus has KQ and Howard moves in with Q9, Gus calls and everyone talks about how Gus is a poker genius.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
The second time Gus had KQ and Howard had AT, Gus called and everyone says it was a terrible call. Now imagine the hands are reversed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think anybody thinks the call was terrible, maybe a bit loose but not terrible. If Howard came over the top more than just the 2 times shown during the broadcast then I think Gus was almost forced to make the call.

[KillerWombat]

I think most of the better players realize that Gus's play in the 2nd round (calling with KQ) has been much better and his style is much better suited to playing a large stack. I'm curious what you think about his play in the first round however.

[PukaPlaya]

Given that Howard was pushing Gus around based on Gus's loose table image, Gus had to call KQos. I think it was a good call based on what we saw on the TV. Of course we saw all of Howards All In hands.

But definitely he should call there and gamble. He figures Howard thinks he has 6 high or whatever.

J /images/graemlins/spade.gif k /images/graemlins/heart.gif

[Raiser]

Gus plays way more hands than everybody else. Therefore his opponents are more likely to take a shot at him with lesser hands than they would against a "normal" player. Therefore Gus can call with lesser hands than other players would call with. Therefore his opponents can take shots at him with even lesser hands. Therefore..............

It's a never-ending cycle.

To say that other pros don't respect him is just silly though.

[bolgenmod]

One thing no one has mentioned yet is that almost all of the table talk you could hear (and yes, I'm one of the many who'd MUCH rather hear the players than the inane commentary) was about Gus's play. Whatever we might think of his play, the other players at the table are clearly focused on HIM. That's obviously a BIG advantage for Gus. Can't wait for next Sunday!

[Scooterdoo]

His suckout against Lederer on the fox broadcast was a very questionable call, but I suppose from his perspective he felt that he was either facing a pair of JJ or less where he was about even money or facing Ax like he was where he was 10-20% underdog. If I'm not mistaken he had a big chip lead at that time so he would still be okay if he lost. Like Doyle Brunson discusses in his Super System book, the hands he wins on the aggressive play and stealing allows him to take chances later on. He is also playing to his reputation which he probably feels is important. If he does lose he at least advertises that he is willing to call down anything with a marginal hand which should make others think twice later on about coming over the top and ruining his strategy. If he manages to suck out as he did he really enhances his reputation and blocks others even more from stealing from him. So if you think about it there probably is lots of 'Method to His Madness' like another famous dane!