This Danish poker professional started his career as a backgammon player. Hansen was one of the top backgammon players in the world. He tried his luck in making a living in New York but quit because he felt that there were very limited opportunities for him in the field.

Hansen today is known around the world as a loose and highly aggressive player who can play with almost any hand he's dealt. Hansen once said: "I play the players, not the cards".

The Great Dane, as he's sometimes referred to, was born in 1974 in Copenhagen, Denmark, as Gustav Hansen. In his youth he was a very active sportsman and competed in several sports, mainly tennis.

Hansen was, and still is, a very talented and successful world class backgammon player. After quitting the game during his time in New York he picked up on poker and Texas Holdem in particular. He started playing poker in 1993 while he studied at The University of California in Santa Cruz as an exchange student.

He played his first played his first major tournament in 2002 when he paid the buy-in fee to the World Poker Tour: Five-Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. It was his first professional tournament but that didn't stop him from beating the other 146 players and winning more than $500,000.

Hansen is known as a risk taker who does not hesitate to take huge chances playing No Limit Texas Holdem and to bluff - and win - at huge pots. He has a unique talent to read his opponents. Hansen against poker pro Daniel Negreanu in the television show High stakes Poker shows him at his best.

Even though Hansen is quite a modest player who does not relish his fame, he has appeared in a People's Magazine's 2004 article as one of the 50 sexiest people in the world. 

So far Hansen has won more than $4.7 million playing in live tournaments. Today he only joins the larger buy-in events to play for biggest prizes.

He is the only poker player to ever win three World Poker Tour open tournaments – the Commerce Casino, the Bellagio Casino and the PokerStars Caribbean adventure.

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