I had a great time reading Gus Hansen’s book Every Hand Revealed this week – it’s a real page-turner and a superb insight into the way one of poker’s true mavericks plays his game. While I don’t think I’ll be shaving my head and going all-in with Jack-Five just yet, I certainly consider Hansen’s book as inspiring food for thought for poker players everywhere.
The book is a hand-by-hand analysis of Hansen’s tournament win in the Aussie Millions last year, or more specifically an account of the hands he actually played, around 300 of the 900 dealt to him over the five days. Hansen achieved this by using a dictaphone at the table to record his thoughts on each hand as it was played. While you assume that there is probably some artistic license taken on the exact make-up of the hands and the varying chip counts in the book, the basic thrust of the book is an explanation of Hansen’s style.
My first reaction is that Gus is one of life’s eternal optimists. When dealt Ace-Ten under the gun his first thought seems to be to wonder how he can double-up with this monster hand. There is very little kicker-anxiety either – top pair with a two kicker seems to be more than enough for Hansen to fully commit to a hand. In one of the crucial hands he calls a massive all-in with ace high and a straight draw. In only one of the 300+ hands I noted the slightest sense of fear, where Hansen calls pre-flop instead of re-raising with an AK, and from his later reaction to his own play in that hand I doubt he will be doing it again soon.
But this is obviously a strength – Hansen is more willing to put his chips in the middle than almost any poker player that I have seen. He made his name on the back of a big all-in call with QT for his first WPT title. I was present when he called all-in for most of his chips against the tightest player on the final table with K7 (EPT Barcelona Season 2). Despite these seemingly-strange decisions, Hansen is probably the most visibly successful tournament player in the world outside of the World Series.
I always suspected the reasons behind these strange decisions, and now I know. I think the secret is that Hansen not only considers the range of hands that he could be facing, but his potential against those hands – there’s a lot of maths going through his head at these crucial moments. Each potential holding he has a certain percentage to win against, and these are considered alongside the size of the pot. What I am surprised about, in terms of the book at least, is that Hansen’s decisions seem to not be taken with the bigger picture in mind – I assumed he made these strange decisions on the basis that if he wins the hand the reward could be the tournament win. But I think he is much more math-based than that – he simply outlines the possibilities in his mind, and if he interprets it as an even chance or a value proposition then his chips go in the middle.
The most obvious example is the decision facing every player on the big blind when facing a standard raise of three times the big blind. In practice this will always be a 2 to 1 proposition, even before you take any antes into account – say the blinds are 25/50, you are being asked to call 100 int a pot of 225, 2.25 to 1. In Hansen’s opinion this is a no brainer - even with the worst filth, you will be somewhere near a 33% (2-1) chance to win any hand, so at least a call is mandatory. Conventional poker pundits might claim that lack of position in the hand, and the prospects of calling off your stack with junk hands, makes the prospect unworkable in practice, yet Hansen for the most part seems to live by this rule, and his tournament wins make for pretty reliable evidence in his favour.
It does mean that a lot of these hand stories begin with “Player X raised in first position, and I called on the big blind with T4”, with little accompanying explanation for what would be a rather extraordinary call that falls well outside most players’ repertoire. This alone makes the book rather revolutionary. But I think it also establishes Hansen as a left-field maverick – most established grinders may simply laugh his approach off, as they have been doing for many many years. He’s an idiot who got lucky, apparently 
.
One thing I am definitely heartened by is that Hansen makes mistakes. He admits to many during his play in the tournament, and it is very honest of him to come clean about these in print. I think he misses a few of his own mistakes as well – put bluntly I think his notion of value-betting is a total mess. As a player who occasionally makes absolutely shocking errors on the table, I feel a fair bit better about myself after reading the book. I certainly wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes that Hansen made in that tournament – I would have made very different, possibly worse ones. But mistakes happen, and I am becoming accustomed to them as a fact of poker life, rather than a crucial weakness.
Hansen’s most compelling advice is on continuation bets on flops, which he announces that all players should make about 80% of the time. If everyone took his advice we would be looking at some serious carnage on flops. But the evidence is laid out, hand after hand – he gets away with some pretty serious bluffing on flops, and as indicated above, he sees a hell of a lot of them as well.
Coming from a tournament background based in London, I can see why my philosophy is to use these bets much more sparingly. In many daily comps in London the continuation bet simply doesn’t exist – more often than not any bet you make on a flop you are going to be playing for most if not all of your tournament chips. Hansen is playing long tournaments with deep stacks and forgiving clocks. So while I don’t think I am capable of being much more aggressive in one-night tournaments, I will certainly consider my betting frequencies in deeper-stack tournaments.
Hansen’s other big idea is about checking to the pre-flop raiser – he seems to pretty-much hate the concept. I suppose his philosophy is simple – if you have a hand worth playing on a flop, why not bet it for information, rather than invite a bet from the pre-flop raiser. I see his point.
The great thing about this book – it is totally readable. As someone who feels faint nausea whenever a dreaded hand-story begins, I found this a refreshing approach to a strategy book, full of plain-speaking and honesty. There are two main problems with most of the famous poker strategy books, and one of them is that they are often incredibly dense and dull to read. Hansen’s book will bore nobody. The other problem with famous poker strategy books is that they are full of bullshit – whether Hansen’s book bucks that trend is open to interpretation .
This weekend I’ll be working on the TV coverage of the European Poker Tour event in London. One of the more prestigious stops on the tour, this is the fifth year of the London event, and it looks like being another record-breaker for the tour, with something approaching 700 entrants expected.