My Book Every Hand Revealed Has Been Released! - Gus Hansen

Gus Hansen's book is finally out. I'm a big fan of Gus, I love his style although it is very different than mine. His book look very well written and describes his hands in great detail.

Finally, after months of hard work, months of editing and what seems like months of post-production, my book "Every Hand Revealed" has finally been released. The book is already available online at Amazonand lots of other eBookstores and it will hit the "real-life" shelves at your local book store on May 6 at the very latest. To give you an impression of the style and the format of the book, I have included an excerpt from the foreword as well as one of the 329 hands I was involved in during my journey to victory at the 2007 Aussie Millions. Hope you will enjoy it.

From the foreword:
This book will give you the opportunity to see the hands from my perspective and get a grasp of the basic concepts and principles of my poker philosophy. What you will discover is that my kind of poker requires constantly attacking your opponents, constantly accumulating chips, constantly keeping track of pot odds and winning percentages and constantly gearing up as blinds and antes increase.

It is the first poker book to go behind the scenes and actually show you what I had, and how I played it during the Aussie Millions Poker Tournament 2007. All the hands that I played are turned face up and every decision I made is explained in my pursuit of the title. The revealing is made possible because of the little tape recorder that I always bring to the tournament tables. After having played a hand I take a couple of steps away from the table to record the action. On top of the play of the hand I of course also take note on my opponents, if he/she has displayed any patterns, mannerisms etc. Information I hopefully can use profitable for later encounters.

"Every hand revealed" is a visit to my world. It is the story of a crazy five day rollercoaster ride from my first hand – 5s 7s – to my last hand – Ac Ah. It is a story of moves, big lay-downs, bad beats, suck-outs and lots and lots of stealing. Of patience, pressure and aggression. Of bluffs, reads and tells.



From chapter 1:
Hand 38

CRUCIAL HAND 3 - MAKING THE WRONG READ – FOLDING TOP PAIR

Blinds: 400/800/100, My position: 2 off the button, Hand: Jc 3c, My chip stack: 73,400

New round, same procedure. Or maybe not?

I make it 2500 two off the button with Jc3c. The BB ponders for a while but finally decides to call. It felt like he was thinking about the re-raise and not the fold so my instinct tells me that my J3 is probably not the best hand…

The flop comes:

Jh 8c 6s

Top pair, ridiculous kicker - but top pair nonetheless!

He was supposed to check but instead he decides to fire out 6000. What was that all about? It is not very often that I am facing a substantial lead-out bet when I am the initial raiser and therefore I wanted to take my time to make sure I made the right decision…

My opponent had another 14k in front of him which meant my maximum down-side from this point on would be a total of 20k. Maximum up-side 26k.

Options:
Folding: Seems very odd now that I finally flopped top pair.
Calling: Putting in 6000 and awaiting his next move.
Raising: Shooting 20k into the middle hoping my J3 was ahead.

Three very different approaches and whichever one to take is gonna be decided solely on my read on the situation.

Read:
• He looked eager to re-raise pre-flop – not a good sign.
• He led out 6000 which is a significant part of his stack – not a good sign
• He looked mighty confident about the situation at hand – not a good sign.

I can remember three times in my career where I raised pre-flop, flopped top pair, and folded facing a single bet! Was this going to be the fourth?

The only holdings that made some kind of sense to me were the AJ, the QQ and hands of similar strength. The more I thought about it the more confident he looked, and in the end I saw no other choice than to muck my hand! I folded.

Because of my very curious nature I showed the Jack face-up, as I was certain he was going to turn it over if he had bluffed me. Don't worry – he did! He turned over two Tens displaying his victory to the table, or should I say – my ridiculous fold…

Where did I go wrong?

My initial read about him wanting to re-raise before the flop was correct - re-raising pre-flop with TT would be the normal play.

My read on his confidence level after his lead-out bet was also correct – I think taking my time made my opponent certain that his TT was the best hand because how could I ever be taking that long with a Jack in my hand?

My read on his lead-out bet was incorrect – I took it as a sign of strength where it was in fact meant as a stab to take down the pot if I didn't hit the flop.

I made an informed decision based on all the facts I had available at the time. I came to the wrong conclusion but that is bound to happen when you sit 10+hours at the poker table. Maybe I should think twice next time I am about to fold top pair on the flop…

In case you have any comments about the book, good as well as bad, you are more than welcome to post them in the forum at www.theplayr.com.

WPT Championship

Oh, right – I came second in the WPT Championship! Almost forgot to mention it J. I am still very disappointed but I will following up on the experience in the coming blogs as well as in CardPlayer Magazine. No further comments at this stage.

- Gus