The Aggressive, the Hyper-Aggressive and the Sick Aggressive

Gus Hansen bust-out from Main Event 2008

By Gus Hansen

“Here it goes. The brief version of my bust-out from the Main Event. The short analysis of how I got all 80 % of my money into a pot holding Q high and an up and down straight draw. I have already seen quite a few comments floating in cyperspace and after thinking it over for a couple of days, here is my conclusion.

This year has shown the true up-rise of uber-aggressive players ? or “sick-aggressive” players as I believe they should be called. People re-raising all-in on the turn with nothing but air, players re-re-raising pre-flop with 74o and players calling re-re-raises all-in with T5o. In the beginning I thought there was some kind of reason behind the madness. That these guys actually had a clear strategy and superior reading skills but to be honest I am not so sure anymore.

It seems that being uber-aggressive is all about gambling. Gambling that your opponent hit absolutely nothing or that your opponent is too afraid to respond to your aggression. Don’t get me wrong ? it is a very powerful strategy against very inexperienced players who might be playing their first Main Event but I would think that you would need to change your strategy once you have actually built a very solid stack bringing you within reach of a fantastic result or even the final table. In short ? you need to have a reverse!

I bring this up because when we sat down for Day 5 the uber-aggressive players were scattered all over the different tables. I had the pleasure of the chip leader coming into day 5 who apparently had been throwing raises around for three days with tremendous success. I had a decision to make ? was I going to play against this guy or just leave him alone? My first mistake of the day was that I never really made up my mind. It just happened.

I started day 5 holding about 1.35 million and lost a couple of medium-sized pots right off the bat bringing me down to around 1 million, which at the time was still above average. The chip leader now opened in early position, which he had been doing ever quite so often and I decided to look at one of my cards before I re-raised him ? it was the

If I look at a Deuce a Trey or any other small card, I am probably just gonna fold but a picture card does give you some comfort. Do I need this confrontation? ? in hindsight obviously not – but I was pretty sure that I could push him off the hand and send him a message at the same time. I made it 120k and he called which told me a lot! I was almost certain that he didn’t have a big hand, in which case he would just have re-raised right there so at a maximum I put him on AJ or AT.

The flop came

I took a look at my opponent. My gut, along with my pre-flop read, told me that he had missed this flop completely. Now was the time to bet in order to take him off the hand. I still hadn’t looked at my other hole card and decided not to, as this might have slowed me down in what I had to do.

I ended up betting 180k only to see my opponent move all-in for an additional 500k. I had to call 500k to win 1150k which means I needed around 30 % winning chance. Now I also had to look at the second card in my hand ? it is the

To me there was really not much to consider. I could not put the guy on a hand and even if he somehow slow played an over pair such as JJ, I still had about 42 %. Against Aces I had 32 %. But these scenarios didn’t exist. The only hand that I could be afraid of was a random 77 but since I was holding a 7, that didn’t make much sense either. I also considered him sitting with Js Ts in which case it is also a coin-flip.

Bottom-line I called and he showed AJo. At least my read was right. Unfortunately the board blanked and I was left with just under 200k. Next hand I got my money in with top pair against Ace high and a gut-shot straight draw. He hit a straight on the river and so long for this year’s WSOP.”

Read Gus Hansen blog or the Original article from the Danish paper, Ekstra Bladet.