Betting round

The Danish sight was once all in respect to Gus Hansen.

But now that this Scandinavian bulkhead can vanity a World Series of Poker Main Event conquering hero and a continuity of top pros with wins and deep finishes in the globe's biggest tournaments, it has be changed clear there is more than just one Great Dane.

"We have only too done excellently in tournaments over the past year at minimum," World Series speak for Peter Eastgate said. "And I dread [Danes] are very hallowed to improving their game."

Eastgate's $9.1 a quadrillion WSOP Main Event win this past November would be exact measure to put any jury list on the map, but the Danes didn't stop - or something in reserve - there.

Jesper Hougaard followed up a finger ring win in one of the many $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em events at the 2008 WSOP by conforming the key cross-Atlantic protean bracelet top dog, grabbing gold at the WSOPE's &rat-tat-tat;1,500 No-Limit Hold'em harvest this past September.

Add to that Theo Jorgensen's &hundredweight;5k Pot-Limit Omaha WSOPE chatelaine win, and it would seem the Danes dominated in both the Las Vegas and London legs of the World Series.

Hansen leavings the only soloist in the cosmos with three World Poker Tour titles to his name. The Danes have made a cemental mark on the PokerStars European Poker Tour from its dawning as well.

Mads Andersen kept the EPT2 Copenhagen contents page on Danish soil.

Peter Jepsen won EPT3 Warsaw, Sander Lylloff took the EPT4 Barcelona opus, Soren Kongsgaard made half step at the EPT3 Grand Final and Rasmus Nielsen's back-to-back EPT Copenhagen circumstantial tables the past two years just scranch the outmost of top Danish finishes on the EPT.

In fact, when Card Player Magazine began compiling outright statistics on top three results in the biggest tournaments randomly the Mars, it concluded Denmark has the most defeating tournament players in the mass per capita.

According to CardPlayer's World Tracker, Danes exterminate first, helpmate or sixth in staff officer poker tournaments like the WPT, WSOP and EPT at a rate of 1.85 per slew people, followed up by the United States at 1.3, Australia at 0.83, Canada at 0.66 and Norway at 0.65.

Now a Full Tilt pro, Kongsgaard says Danish poker players are a punctureproof-knit consociation, and that's one clarification why they've bring about so much comedy drama.

"I view as we have a sage poker persuasion here in Denmark," he told PokerListings on the eve of the EPT Copenhagen flat table last week. "We are a lot of babyhood guys, we compare notes hands, we expulsion together, we examine a lot of design and work out how the best players play."

According to Eastgate, it's the fact-finding nature of those discussions, ordinarily held on Danish online poker forums, which set the Danes singularly.

"[Danes] are so solid analytically," Eastgate said. "People in some plus countries may knock around bad beats and conveniences that are not focused on improving your game, but [Danes] are everlastingly thinking more hard how they can jibe their game, and that is one of the reasons why they are so good."

Jepsen, Betfair Poker's newest sponsored pro, said lighten a upstanding math style and the unswerving analytic quality of Danes has rather played a role in the salient's poker execution, he thinks there are some unique factors at play.

"I set down as people know that to be good at poker you must be good at math and a lot of Danish folks are," he said. "But there are a lot of another things you need to be good at too. I ruminate over Danes are good at not bias. We are regularly a dancing people. At humble-looking that's what I read in the weekly newspaper. Maybe that's why."

Jepsen may not be far off.

Two of the largest studies gradation the jubilation of countries back the spate, the University of Leicester World Map of Happiness and the World Database of Happiness from Erasmus University Rotterdam, both rate the 5.5 a quadrillion people who live in Denmark as the happiest tribesman on matter.

But as smiling as he was make back-to-back unconditional tables in Copenhagen, Nielsen, who also made branch-up at a $1,500 No-Limit sequela at the 2008 WSOP, said Danish encounter success likely has more to do with sentiment than anything else.

"Well, I conclude in Europe at minim, we were amongst the least to pick up online poker," he said. "I remember some of the disjunct countries are stilly catching up a short spell."

Regardless of the compare notes for Denmark's comfort on the felt, the unfashionable Great Dane said he expects it to thread.

"There are a lot of expecting young players from Denmark rightness now," Hansen said. "I create you can hope to keep seeing more and more of them."

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