Gus Hansen enjoyed an amazing year on the WPT where he was the only participant to achieve last table in 3 of the competitions. Gus Hansen has been seen on High Stakes Poker on GSN where he bought into the game for $400, 000. You might remember one of the biggest pots in high stakes poker recorded history competing against Daniel Negreanu. Hansen won a large pot with quads against Daniel’s full house. Gus has earned many tv poker appearances and is deemed to be one of the best gamblers in the world. While wagering on online poker, another side of Hansen has been seen. He often competes in the 200/400 No Limit maximum buy in of Forty Thousand dollars. Hansen more often than not buys in for the minimum of $16, 000 and plays very poorly. He sits there waiting for a good hand and then pushes all in. I accept that Hansen is an outstanding poker player but not even close to the everyday players at 200/400NL. Unless he is broke, he has absolutely no reason to settle at the game with the min buy in.

Buying in for the min takes a majority of the expertise out of big stack poker. Hansen is supposed to be one of the greatest players in the world but he cannot buy-in for the full dollar value. I believe television can skew our view of the real world sometimes. The best poker players in the world might just be players you have won’t have heard about. Gus can be found competing in web poker on Full Tilt. He commonly plays in high stakes omaha/8 and texas holdem. Gus has shown himself as a tournament player. Can he back up his abilities in money games?