Gus Hansen Down $7.7 Million in Online Poker

The Great Dane isn’t so great when it comes to online cash games.

Gus Hansen is one of the most recognizable players in poker today – and he is also a study in how deceiving some numbers can be in poker. Hansen’s live tournament winnings total nearly $7.25 million, more than all but 22 players in the entire world since poker tournaments first began being played in the 1970s. He has three World Poker Tour titles to his name, and he also won the 2008 Aussie Millions main event. Without a doubt, he is one of the most successful tournament poker players in the world.

But when it comes to playing online poker, Hansen prefers the high-stakes cash games against top competition like Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey. His results in those games have been nearly the total opposite of those he’s compiled in live tournaments. He’s down $7.7 million since the beginning of 2007, making him one of the single biggest losers in the game over that time period, with about $800,000 of that total coming just in 2010. So, depending on your perspective, Gus Hansen is either a highly successful poker player, or he’s the fish who keeps the game running.

Naturally the speculation that Gus Hansen is broke is high, but there’s not nearly enough information to back that up. His online poker results are publicly available, but numbers for his live games and his outside business dealings don’t show up on databases. The only really sure thing is that the Great Dane might want to reconsider the players he takes on when he decides to play high-stakes online poker.