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Top Danish Poker Players

There is a lovely country. It is called Denmark. It is small, but it has had an historical impact of size and matter. Once the danes ruled the seas as vikings and in the year of 92, they won the European Championship in football. The danes have also proved themselves in something else. Poker. In this article we celebrate some of the four most influential danish players and the achievements.

Peter Nicolas Eastgate

Fortune favors the bold – and young. Peter was only 22 years old when he won the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion. It made him the youngest poker player to have ever won the World Series. He beat Pro Phil Hellmuth’s 19 year old record. Phil won at the age of 24.
Peter learned to play the game with his friends and had only played professional 2 years, prior to his major win. He took home an astounding amount of $9.152.415. Peter held the record one year until 21 year old Joe Cada won the very next year.

Peter used his winning as any other 22 year old would. On having a good old jolly time with his girlfriend in Las Vegas. He admits that he did not do much to promote the game following his major win. Nevertheless. His win made history and threw Phil of the mantle. A new and young generation had arrived and it started with Peter.

Jan Vang Sørensen

As a former professional football player, this guy craves to win. Jan spent his early career as a footballer in the best football league in Denmark. A knee injury ended his career. He transferred his competitive ability to poker and stands tall as the dane with most won bracelets.

Jan won The World Series of Poker with PL Omaha in 2002 and 7 Card Stud in 2005. He began playing poker in the mid 70’s, so he has a long standing history with different iterations of the game. His favourite is 7 Cards. Jan is a fighter and a true testament to hard work, ability and dedication.

When reaching the final table, Jan never relied on mathematics. He always went with playing what he could see. The stakes, the cards, the players. He had at an interview in 2007 played roughly 50 final tables. Needless to say. He knows what he is talking about. His best live earnings is at an $800,972.He seems not to have been active in poker since 2013 when he attended The No Limit Hold’em – Main Event in Copenhagen and finished 12th.

Mads Mikkelsen “Le Chiffre”

There are benefits of playing the part of the most despicable poker player in the world. Renowned danish actor took on the role of “Le Chiffre” opposite Daniel Craig’s depiction of “James Bond”. Mads Mikkelsen contributed to unfold the intensity of high stakes poker on the big screen. Sure, he might have had to break some balls (literally) getting there. There is no denying that the movie “Casino Royale” succeeded in using poker as the primary drive of the story. Each hand made it all more hard to watch.

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The movie was released in 2006 and made $606,1 million in box office earnings. Sadly, 2006 was also when the poker boom was near its end. If it had to finish on a high note, Casino Royale and Le Chiffre did it justice. Just not enough to keep the boom booming.

Mads Mikkelsen was because of the storyline coached in playing the game. He took home his newfound knowledge and used it to win money from his friends. They were not so happy. He was.

A fun fact. Mads Mikkelsen appeared in a danish mockumentary called “Pokerface”(Danish: Pokerfjæs) playing ‘himself’ in a tour de force of five friends’ failure of trying to make it big with poker in the U.S.

If you are interested and want to read about other great poker movies, please check out our blog about: Poker movies you need to watch.

Gus Hansen “The Great Dane”

He is known as “The Great Dane”, but feared as “The Madman”. Gus is furious at the poker table. His way of playing is aggressive and sometimes bonkers. Nevertheless, Gus’ fearless personality has made him a force to be reckoned with. In the slipstream of televised poker tournaments and the poker boom, Gus became a great character and ambassador for the intensity of the game. Suddenly poker players became celebrities.

Whether Gus Hansen was cherished, loved, hated or feared, he was most of all respected. His influence was widespread. In Denmark he was a national hero and equal to Denmark’s celebrities. On the international scene of poker Gus was a superstar. Everybody knew him. A great ambassador for the mainstream perception of poker and further development of the popular game.

Just like Ikaros, Gus Hansen flew too high and got burned. His aggressive style of poker came with certain downsides. Gus has ended up losing more than he could afford. Millions of dollars in loosings have temporarily ended his once winning spree. At least he has a bracelet to show for it. In 2010 he won his first and only WSOP by winning the High-Roller No-Limit Hold’em Heads up Championship at WSOP Europe in london. He ended up bringing home $451,880.

Even if he is not as he once was, he is still remembered as dane who has had the most influence in promoting poker in Denmark. A true gambler and aficionado of our beloved game of poker.

If you want to know more about Gus Hansen, then check out our Poker Player Story about Gus Hansen here.

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Gus Hansen – Poker Player Story

Gus Hansen has one of the craziest poker careers of all times.
This child prodigy went from the top of the world to losing over 20 million dollars and having to get a regular job as an accountant. A meteoric rise and an unreal fall.
This is the crazy story of an absolute legend, Gus Hansen.

We’ve also made this blog post into a video, if you’d rather watch than read.
The text version continues beneath the video.

Early Life

Gustav B. Hansen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on the 13th of February, 1974.
He was born an only child and showed great potential from an early age. For the majority of his time in elementary school, Gus was homeschooled by his mom and aunt.

But Gus wasn’t just a bright mind, he also dominated the national youth ranks of tennis.
In fact he was well on his way to becoming a pro, when a serious injury put a stop to his plans.

Frustrated and eager to find a new outlet for his competitive spirit, Gus started playing backgammon. Something his dad had taught him.

He spent an entire summer perfecting his skills and learning various strategies.
Gus, once again, proved a natural and would beat every opponent that played him. And so he started organizing bigger and bigger tournaments that took place on school grounds and would bring in the best players from around the country.
But even they didn’t stand a chance against Gus who was playing at a World Champion level.

When Gus wasn’t playing backgammon, he could be found studying. His mom had instilled a hard working mentality in him, and he was especially skilled in mathematics. Since backgammon wasn’t a very lucrative profession Gus leveraged his mathematical skills to secure an academic scholarship – thinking a degree in accounting would suit him well.

Always eager to find new challenges, and having beaten every backgammon player in Denmark, Gus chose to enroll in the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Introduction to Poker

Alright, so, Gus was now in the US, enjoying the sun and life of California. One day, he was invited to a friend’s weekly poker tournament. The game was Texas Hold’em – something Gus had never played before. Perhaps for this reason, Gus’ friends thought we would be an easy win. But he quickly understood the game and began playing around with different strategies. By the end of the night, Gus was the last player standing, and was forever hooked.

Gus began playing more often, at the local Ocean View Card Room. Although he clearly had a talent for the game, he found that he still had a long way to go. Rather than discourage him though, this only added to his passion.

Two years into college, Gus had to go back to Denmark to serve in the military. Back then, most young men in Denmark had to complete at least 9 months of basic military training.

During his downtime, Gus would play poker against the other recruits. He kept experimenting with different strategies and even tried other forms of poker like Omaha, Razz and Seven-card stud. Hansen kept improving his skills and after finishing his military training, he was on the next flight back to the US.

Developing the “Gus Hansen Poker style”

After serving his time in the Danish military, Gus flew to New York to live out his dreams and follow his passion for gambling. But, the first couple of years would be hard on the young Dane. He would primarily play cash games but had his first appearance at the World Series of Poker in 1996. Gus was eliminated in the very beginning of the tournament, and although he is often described as an overnight success, people often forget his hard times during this period in New York.

But Gus didn’t stop.
He was determined to get better and decided on a bold new strategy.
He was going to switch it up and play his hands with a variety so crazy – it would make him impossible to read. He would see a lot of flops, with a variety of odd starting poker hands.Not afraid of big bluffs, this style would focus on confident, aggressive post flop play.

This was the birth of the Gus we know and love.
“I’ve raised with cards less attractive than what’s in my toilet after I took a dump in it”, Gus famously said.

He would often fly to Las Vegas, to play bigger games and finally started getting some traction. Although he of course lost a lot of hands, he would more than make up for it on the hands he actually won. And the poker community took notice.

In 2002, Gus decided to test his loose, aggressive style of play, when he returned to tournament poker by attending the World Poker Tour’s Five-Diamond World Poker Classic. Gus absolutely cleaned up, beating all 146 opponents and taking home a cash prize of 550 thousand dollars!
Gus, and his new style of play was definitely on to something.

Gus Hansen’s Poker Career

After his big win at the World Poker Tour, Gus was eager to prove that it wasn’t just beginners luck. He wanted to solidify his place amongst the greatest. And in 2003 he did just that. Gus won the WPT LA Poker Classics, collecting a cash prize of half a million dollars, and the respect of the poker world.

Gus Hansen was really making a name for himself, and he was looking to diversify his brand and business. That same year, he started an online poker room called pokerchamps.com. The site quickly got a couple of thousand users, but Gus had a hard time balancing his time between running the site and traveling the world to play poker.

He ended up selling the site to Betfair for around 15 million dollars.
Not bad, for a 2 year business venture.

But Gus wasn’t about to slow down.
In December of 2003 he finished 3rd in the Five Diamonds World Poker Classics, and just a month later he took his 3rd WPT title after winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. His crazy style of play, impressive winnings and good looks had made him one of the world’s most famous poker players.
In 2004 he was even voted one of the Sexiest Men Alive, by People Magazine.

In 2005, Gus was invited to play in the Poker SuperStarts Invitational Tournament. This tournament was a big deal, with a buy-in of 400 thousand dollars. On top of that, Gus would be up against other poker legends like Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey. But Hansen was hungry, confident and eager to show off his style, and so he entered the tournament.

This proved to be a great decision, as Gus took the tournament by storm and landed 1st place, taking home the grand prize of one million dollars. Watch this video to see how it happened.

Gus continued playing in all the biggest tournaments, and in 2007 he flew to Australia, to attend the Aussie Millions Event. He placed in the top ten for most of their smaller tournaments, but ended up winning the main event collecting a massive cash prize of 1.5 million dollars. That’s not a bad payday, and Gus wrote a book about the experience titled ‘Every Hand Revealed’. The book also did really well, and sold thousands of copies in both Denmark and the US.

At this point, it seemed like everything Gus touched turned to gold. And he was about to take home the biggest cash prize of his career. In April of 2008 he played in the $25.000 WPT Championship Event, and despite finishing in second place he picked up a hefty prize of 1.7 million dollars on his way out.

Despiste having won more than 7 million dollars in live tournaments at this point, Gus still considered cash games his speciality. Most poker fans will remember his legendary showdown against Daniel Negreanu in the second season of the High Stakes Poker TV show. Both players had great hands, but Gus turned Quad 5’s against Negreanu’s full house and won the record breaking pot of 575 thousand dollars.

Shortly after appearing on that show, Gus signed a sponsorship with Full Tilt Poker. He appeared in numerous videos for the brand and sported their logo on his shirts for every game he competed in. Full Tilt also agreed to provide his financial backing in exchange for him playing exclusively on their site.

2010 would prove to be a big year for Gus Hansen. He finally won his first World Series of Poker Bracelet after finishing first in the No Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up event. He received a cash prize of more than 450 thousand dollars to go with his golden bracelet. And, as if that wasn’t enough, he topped the year off by winning 1 million dollars for finishing first at the Poker Million IX tournament.

The Downfall of Gus Hansen

Gus Hansen’s last major performance was at the 2012 Aussie Millions $250,000 No Limit Hold’em Challenge. He made it to the final table, but placed third after Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey. Gus of course wanted to win, but wasn’t too disappointed as the cash prize for third place was 820 thousand dollars.

But this still seemed to mark a turning point in his career.
After that, Gus seemed to struggle. He would still win a couple of thousand dollars here and there, but was no longer making enough money to support himself financially.

“I think every competitive player has to question himself at some point and ask ‘has the game surpassed me? Am I rusty? Am I not good enough in this game anymore?’
I’m asking myself questions and that keeps me up at night.” he told Poker News.

And to make matters worse, Gus was losing a lot of money playing online poker. Without the financial backing of Full Tilt, Gus was quickly squandering his fortune away, reportedly losing more than 21 millions dollars on online poker. The most anyone has ever lost.

“It’s the same game and the same opponents. But when you sit in front of a screen you cannot see your opponent, you just have to push some buttons. And apparently I’m not as great at that”, he told a Danish newspaper.

No longer able to financially support himself through poker, Gus had to go and get a regular job as an accountant. Quite a massive change of pace.

Where is Gus Hansen now?

Working as an accountant has allowed Gus Hansen to stabilize his finances, and given him some much needed clarity and perspective. But the 9 to 5 lifestyle is very different from being a legendary poker player.

Perhaps for this reason, Gus stepped out of retirement a couple of years later.
He started playing small tournaments and is now, once again, able to finance his life by playing poker.
He currently lives in Monaco in the south of Europe and travels around the world playing poker.
But he is looking for a new home in Denmark.

In October of 2020, Gus and his girlfriend Malan had a child. And it’s of course going to be interesting to see if the Great Dane can juggle both a massive poker comeback and his new life as a father.

But what a cool dad Gus must be.

Want to Test your Poker Skills?

Before losing everything, Gus Hansen built a massive brand and fortune playing poker.
No doubt the guy has a talent for the game.
If you and your friends are looking to test your skills in a social game of poker with friends, you should check out our free app, EasyPoker.

It’s a digital version of a physical poker set, and by far the easiest way to play poker with friends – no chips or playing cards needed.

You create a table with just a single tap on your screen, and friends join in by typing the four digit game code on their phone.
Whether you’re playing live or online, the EasyPoker app is perfect for poker with friends.