Gus Hansen is Back on Poker After Dark!

Gus Hansen, a popular figure on the original Poker After Dark is back on the show’s new, exclusively online incarnation, playing PLO.

As we reported last week, Hansen boasted about his trip to the King’s Casino in Rozvadov on Instagram. He spent most of his time in the Czech city playing open-face Chinese poker - and according to the Great Dane himself, he finished his trip €100K up despite losing a €500K pot to casino owner Leon Tsoukernik.

Later, he had more exciting stuff to share with us on the picture sharing social media platform - Hansen announced he’s on his way to Las Vegas, Nevada to play in front of the cameras of Poker After Dark again.

“The Great Dane” was a regular during the the original PAD on NBC - he appeared a total of 9 times over the course of the show’s 7 seasons on the American network. He isn’t the only one of the old school pros who played both on the NBC and the new version of the poker series: among others, Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson and - this made the biggest splash - Tom Dwan also returned in the new installment of the classic show.

During the NBC times of PAD Hansen’s presence “leaked into” the mainstream, not poker-specific media as well: in 2004 he made People Magazine’s sexiest men list. 

A great difference between the classic and new version of PAD is that nowadays Pot-Limit Omaha is also in the selection - PLO was played this time as well, Hansen took on Matthew Kirk, Ben Lamb, Brian Rast, Chris Macfarland, Lan Ashby and Sam Soverel in this 7-handed $100/$200/$400 - that turned into $200/$400/$800 part way through the match - PLO cash game.

During the stream we learnt from the commentator that actually Aussie Matt bought half of Hansen’s $30K starting stack - that was quickly lost after the Danish pro ambitiously called an all-in bet pre-flop with 8632, two spades. The rest of hand was almost just as crazy: it ended up being a 4-way all-in pot with $172K total in the middle in three side pots. The players agreed to run the board twice - on the first runout three people made three of a kind...

However, Hansen quickly made back what he lost, doubling through his backer Kirk twice during the first hour and ended the session in profit. He wasn’t involved in the most discussed hand though - that was between Rast and Macfarland. Rast decided to call a flop all-in bet with nothing but a pair of deuce for which he was relentlessly taunted by Soverel despite winning half the pot since the board was run twice.