Gus Hansen has got his feet up. He's rocking back in his chair, ripped jeans and trainers propped onto a vacant seat, occasionally riffling a few chips and entering the odd pot, but mostly seemingly engrossed in a book.
That tome has been capturing his attention far more than the poker game in front of him this afternoon -- about three hours now since he strolled in -- which made it all the more surprising when I peeked over his shoulder moments ago to see if I could capture its name. I didn't manage that, but I did notice what chapter he was on. The first.
"1 - WHY ARE PEOPLE?" read the heading across the top of the page. So, come on then. Why? Are? People? Ponder on that one for a while.
Even away from the philosophical quandaries, Hansen is not exactly having it good around the tables. He is down to his final 3,000 or so and the table deep stack, Lars Christiansen (who busted Michael Tureniec), is picking on the great Dane. Christiansen reraised twice in a single orbit as Hansen looked to get something going. Going nowhere, more like.
Similarly on the ropes is Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, who just managed to double up another short stack at the table, Gino Yonan. ElkY's pocket eights were beaten by Yonan's A-6, ace on the flop. And -- hold on -- here's an update, coming in as I type: ElkY is out. He pushed with K-J, ran into the monster 3-4, which ended up making a straight.
ElkY's elimination followed that of Jesper Hougaard, who perished at the hands of Annette Obrestad. Obrestad flopped a set of deuces, which was decisively better than Hougaard's top pair of eights. The biggest hitters from the table of doom are hitting the rail.
Elsewhere, Isabelle Mercier is ticking along quite nicely. A couple of hands ago, she busted Ricardo Sousa with an ace-king v ace-queen, ace on the flop coup, but even more recently an unknown opponent called her down on a board showing all kinds of dangerous things. She bet the turn and river and his 5-3, which constituted nothing more than a pair of fives, was good. In other words, Mercier is using her big stack to try to do a spot of stealing. And it doesn't always work.
The chip leader at the moment is the familiar figure of Theo Jorgensen, who is the first past 50,000. He has a boxing match lined up for final table day, a boxing match against Gus Hansen, of all people. No wonder Hansen is looking so smug, despite his meagre stack. If Jorgensen goes all the way to the final eight, he may have to default on the pugilism.
Who wins then?
