Gus Hansen Wins Event #4: ��10,350 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller Heads-Up (��288,409)!
It's a result that we here at the Empire had to wait an unscheduled extra three days for - but Mr. Gustav Hansen of Denmark has been waiting for it for a lot longer than that.
Hansen has been a regular at the WSOP in Las Vegas since 1996 when he and Huck Seed were the last two players to cough up their $10,000 for a Main Event seat. Seed went on to win it that year, and while Hansen has enjoyed some excellent results in the intervening years (three WPT titles plus an invitational is nothing to sneer at), he has never managed to get his hands on a coveted bracelet. Until now.
Hansen admitted that winning a bracelet was, "For sure a monkey off my back," but that he was somewhat surprised that it had come in a heads-up event. He conceded that he'd got rather lucky in his earlier round match against Phil Ivey, but beyond that was very happy with how he'd played, and with good reason - he almost had it won back on Day 3, before Jim Collopy made an extraordinary comeback to make it one-all.
Nevertheless, in a high-octane match that saw Collopy take an early lead before doubling Hansen back up in a crazy cooler of a hand - Collopy's slow-played flopped trips against Hansen's rivered full house - it was Hansen who came out on top. As he hobbles out into Leicester Square on his broken leg, Hansen will surely sleep well tonight, knowing that he has finally achieved the Holy Grail of poker - a bracelet.
From this WSOPE Heads-Up odyssey, it's over and out.