Posts Tagged ‘Cirque du Soleil’

Gus Hansen discusses Major Online Poker Struggles

Sunday, August 11th, 2013

The poker world is well aware of how badly Gus Hansen has struggled in online poker. The man who first made his mark by winning three WPT titles in less than a year has yet to see the same success in online cash games. His swingy play has left him down over $10 million in online poker, which only trails Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who’s reportedly lost $17 million.

Hansen recently sat down for an interview with PokerListings to discuss his downswings and how it’s affected him personally. When asked about how he sleeps after winning millions, then losing millions, Hansen said, “I sleep better after a big win than after a big loss, I think that’s no secret. But yes, I’ve been doing a lot of losing lately and I’ve been frustrated.

“I feel like I am missing something. Maybe I’m outdated. I used to be the biggest winner on Omaha Hi/Lo while in the last six months I’m the biggest loser on Omaha Hi/Lo. So, I wonder, what happened in the mean time? I know I haven’t been running good but, at the same time, I don’t think I have been running that bad.”

Hansen continued by saying that his losses sometimes keep him up at night. It’s his belief that even though his online poker results look bad, he’s still doing fairly well overall.

“I’m doing pretty well even though my online results are indicating that I am not doing too well. I have other venues I play,” he said. “Like Ben Sulsky, I play all the games. If you get me a high-stakes backgammon player, I will play. If you give me an Open Face Chinese player – I will play. If you give me a high-stakes poker game, chances are that I am going to play. I have different avenues to walk down. Sometimes I lose on the carousels but then I win on another round.”

The Great Dane concluded the interview by saying that he’s played well in the live Macau cash games. So despite what his online poker graphs may suggest, he’s still finding ways to experience poker success through other outlets.

Is Guy Laliberté really a Poker Pro?

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

A few days ago, Yahoo.com ran a very interesting article called “20 Inspiring Rags-to-Riches Stories.” As you can guess from the title, this piece dealt with a number of high-powered business people and CEO’s from around the world. Interestingly enough, Canadian billionaire and high stakes poker player Guy Laliberté found himself on the list too. Here’s a quick look at what was written about Laliberté in the Yahoo article:

The Canadian-born Laliberté began his circus career busking on the streets: playing accordion, walking on stilts and eating fire. He gambled by bringing a successful troupe from Quebec to the Los Angeles Arts Festival in 1987, with no return fare. The bet paid off, and the circus group was eventually brought to Las Vegas, where they became the world famous Cirque du Soleil we know today.

Today, Laliberté is the CEO of Cirque, a professional poker player and space tourist, with a total net-worth of $2.5 billion.

As you can see at the end, the writer describes Laliberté as a “professional poker player.” To those who follow poker results closely, this is a debatable matter because Guy hasn’t always been the world’s most successful grinder.

He was rumored to be behind the old Full Tilt Poker name “Esvedra,” which shows a loss of $2.7 million on HighStakesDb. And it’s often been said that many of the world’s top pros would bum-hunt Laliberté while hoping for big profits. So if you’re looking at a “poker pro” as somebody who purely makes a living off the game, this isn’t Guy.

However, you also have to consider what he’s done for the game, which includes starting the Big One for One Drop tournament this past July – to which we might add that Laliberté finished fifth in his own tourney and scooped $1,834,666. In all, he’s collected $2,607,986 in live tournaments, which is a very poker-pro-like figure!

So all things considered, it’s tough to say whether Guy is truly a poker pro or not. But regardless, he’s definitely good for poker and brings a lot more attention to it through his mainstream fame.