Michael Addamo / Gus Hanson - Gamblers or Poker Skilled?

https://x.com/michael_addamo/status/1862...

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Well said. Brilliant, but either never developed discipline, or doesn’t care.

I dk how much the Dang Bros won, but think it was Seb 86 and AlexonMoon that won a bunch, rubbed it in and might have led to Gus quitting online after they made a documentary where their girlfriends laughed at, and thanked Gus iirc. Watched it years ago, so might be a little off. Heres the doc if anyones interested.

I have no idea about their pit/sports betting but they're very different poker players.

who is better in your opinion raidalot?

Agreed. Addamo is a legit crusher in tournaments and I imagine has notably better cash game skills than Gus. Gus was great in his time but he is well behind the curve at this point. Just because they are both known as hyper aggressive doesn't necessarily mean that they are the same player.

Do it for the fans and invite Addamo for Bahamas 500k

I read article way back that Gus had a blog site that he sold for $15M and photos of him flying private. Timeline was after he had lost $20M online. And didn't he had or have rich GF as well?

A couple of years ago, just after COVID, I dealt at a WPT that was near my local casino. I was dealing in the cash game area.

The game was a weird high limit Hold 'em, NL, PLO, Omaha 8 mix. Both of the NL and the PLO had limits on how much could be lost each hand. It was a really big game though, Limit Holdem was probably $500/$1000 and all of the other games adjusted accordingly.

I sit down to deal and recognize almost all of the players (3 or 4) are minor big time recognizable pros. 3 or 4 others are fairly decent regional pros who might not have huge ESPN name recognition, but we're just very solid pros. I don't intricately know everyone's game strengths or weaknesses, but no matter what the game, this is an extremely tough table. There are no weak players present at the game.

There is one player missing from the table with a missed big blind button. I deal a quick 10 - 12 or so hands and there is literally no action. None. Everyone is just folding.

It seems weird that the action is so bad. Especially guven the rough lineup. Then listening to the conversation, I am fairly sure that they are all just waiting for the missing player to come back.

He seemed to be the mark.

Then Gus Hansen shows up and sits down at the missed blind seat. I find it hard to believe that Gus Hansen is the mark, but as soon as he rejoins the table, the action picks up and he is in the middle of most of it.

I have dealt very predatory high limit games before. I have seen how sharks glance at the prey (even out of position) before looking at their hand.

That is very much the vibe I got from this game. All 7 other players were waiting to prey on Gus. I find that very hard to believe, but I also cannot dismiss what I saw.

Gus played far too many hands pre-flop, and although I didn't see any major hands, Gus bled lots of money in the short time we were there together.

I have thought about that table for a really long time. It never seemed right to me, I can't imagine Gus was the sucker, but I also know what I saw.

Greg Raymer's explanation makes perfect sense given what I saw.

It seems they literally won millions of dollars off Gus then used the money to hire a filmmaker to make a movie where they floss on him with his own money. Pretty cold-blooded.

This **** ain't cool imo. I know others will disagree but that's fine. It's one thing for action to pick up when the mark enters pots naturally, but a whole other for them to just sit and fold for 20 min while a player is gone. It's simply bad optics.

I wasn't there, so it may not have been as bad as you're making it sound. I'll say at super high stakes there's lots of shadyness that I'd never feel comfortable with.

The fans need overbets, do it for the fans raidalot

Sounds similar to how a lot of poker games work - it's like the scene from Rounders.

Especially when you have a big whale giving action but regs do still end up battling each other in the process.

The online regs used to hunt Gus around like this pretty religiously - I think Galfond talked about how he had some type of loud notification system in case Gus would sit him. The French guys made a documentary about hunting him (great documentary iirc.)

Very well said and against the best players in the world at the highest stakes is taking the challenge to another level.

There isn't really anything shady about it. It is just players adapting to their opponents. If you know your opponents are tough and are going to be playing tight, then it would be foolish to do anything else but play tough and tight as well.

When there is a player where the implied odds are greater (i.e. there is a real chance of more money going into the pot later in the hand without a stone cold cooler involved) then players will expand their starting range based on the extra implied odds.

It is the same reason why most cries of collusion between regs isn't really collusion. It is just two players automatically adjusting to the future implied odds versus a specific opponent. I know GTO types immediately think the adjustment should be to bluff more, but that is not how those type of players think.

To put clearer, the players are just balancing EV versus variance. From an EV perspective it would make more sense to open upnthe range and bluff more when everyone is folding, but the problem is that everyone else is really tough, so they know what you are doing so your EV doesn't go up all that much, but your variance skyrockets. Why play a low EV/high variance game when you can just wait a few minutes and better EV shows up.