Gus Hansen Wins Bellagio's $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship

For months I have been excited about playing in the $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament at Bellagio. I do much better in events when there is plenty of play. To me, plenty of play means long levels and having enough chips to lose a few pots. We started with $20,000 in chips and two-hour rounds. It was virtually impossible to go broke during the first day without a few terrible beats or poor play. Having said that, 46 of the original 146 players busted out on the first day. Every table had either star no-limit hold'em players or high-limit side-game players who understand the concepts of all poker games. It was really fun for me, because I lasted to the third day and had the opportunity to play with many players I had never played with before. During my stay, I played with Ted Forrest, Jennifer Harman, Steve Zolotow, John Hennigan, Gus Hansen, and Hamid Dastmalchi. They all have more money in chips on the table in a live game than I have as my net worth. All of these players lasted for a while except Steve Z, who was too busy listening to lectures on appreciating good music through his headphones. Maybe he should have been listening to a poker lecture from Gus Hansen and Freddy Deeb on how to raise every hand for three days.

Eighteen players made the money, and the final six came back for the televised final table. Eighteenth place received almost $14,000, and first-place winner Hansen took home more than $556,000 plus a paid $25,000 seat into the World Poker Tour's championship event. The final six players were given a day off on Friday to rest and to pretty themselves up for the television cameras on Saturday. The final six were Scotty Nguyen, Chris Bigler, John Hennigan, Kassam "Freddy" Deeb, John Juanda, and Gus Hansen. Hansen started the final table with a huge chip lead, and ended up beating John Juanda heads up to be crowned champion of Bellagio's $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament. Gus is another kid with confidence who seems to win in the big games at Bellagio when he makes the trip from Denmark. Juanda's second-place finish moved him into first place ahead of Phil Ivey in the Card Player Player of the Year race. If John continues his tear in the big no-limit hold'em events, even the amazing Ivey will have a tough time pulling ahead of him.

One final note: All of Bellagio's future $3,000 buy-in tournaments have been changed to $2,500 buy-ins.