[rothko]

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I think the reason Gus Hansen has been out of the spotlight recently is because he realized that you can't keep winning tournaments by calling all ins with 96o.

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Gus's style appears to be that of a maniac, but he's actually very mathematical in his approach. He puts his opponents on a range of hands and calculates his odds based on the price. I remember one hand vs. Esfandiari: Antonio moved all in with wired 7s and Gus called him down with T8d. Hansen won the pot and knocked out the magician. All that Antonio could say is, "I don't get it. I don't get it." He just couldn't make out how Gus made that call. Conventional wisdom states that T8d would be absolute garbage vs. an all in, but Gus actually had the math correct. Considering that he put Antonio on a less than premium holding, had the big stack and could knock out another player, calling was the right thing to do. If Gus was holding AKd, Antonio would have been able to grasp the situation and everyone would say that Gus made a no-brainer, but AKd would actually have been further behind than T8d. It's easy to say that Gus makes stupid plays, but it you really look at what he's doing, you'll see that he deserves much more credit.

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This was in a WPT invitational event (the "bad boys of poker" iirc). I am pretty sure he was figuring that he was probably an underdog but would rather gamble and either bust early or build a big stack, since only first place paid. Because Antonio is aggressive, he knew that calling couldn't be that big of a mistake. But basically it wasn't a great play but it happened to work out for him.

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I didn't remember that it was the invitational, and yes, that puts less weight on the example. The main reason that I used it was because of Antonio's reaction. Esfandiari just couldn't understand what had happened. Of course Gus knew he was behind and was gambling, the point that I was making is that it wasn't a stupid gamble, which is the criticism that most people make.