In the last several years, Texas Hold ‘Em has turned the gaming world upside-down, becoming a worldwide sensation. Breaking with tradition, the hard-core poker players now make Texas Hold ‘Em their game of choice. Unlike other, more traditional poker games, where attention to the cards and knowledge of the odds frequently determine the games’ outcomes, in Texas Hold ‘Em, a lot depends on “the luck of the draw,” and the skill consists in reading opposing players’ wagers for clues about their hands, monitoring their facial expressions and body language for clues about their chances, and having both discernment and judgment about when to hold, when to fold, and when to go “all in.”
Because style figures in the strategy, many leading poker players have become household names and role models, gaining fame for their trademark disguises, their unbreakable “poker faces,” or their deceptive, creative, cagey wagering strategies. Millions of rabid fans watch the world’s leading poker stars play against one another six-out-of-seven nights per week on NBC’s “Poker After Dark,” and they supplement their viewing on both ESPN and the Fox Sports Network. The World Series of Poker has become as big a draw as the World Series of Baseball; and, in 2008, The World Series of Poker included 55 events, drawing thousands of players and spanning the globe.
Eight Danish dynamos have dominated the poker scene as poker-mania has swept the United States and Europe. Among the most prominent and most intriguing of the elite Danish players, Jesper Hougaard has exploded onto the scene. Two key words appear in almost every description of Hougaard—“aggressive” and “dominating.”
Born in 1984 and ascended into the ranks of poker’s elite in 2007 at the tender age of 23—a “baby” by most poker standards—the “Kipster” once played for and subsequently coached the Danish national table-tennis team. Hougaard explains how he picked-up poker by playing with his table tennis buddies. “There’s a lot of table tennis players that play poker, because it’s great competition.” The Kipster says Poker legend and late-night television staple Gus Hansen inspired them. Hansen served as Hougaard’s inspiration and pathfinder; overnight, Hansen became a household name in the Kipster household as it did all over Denmark, especially when Hansen started scoring big wins in the WPT’s. “We started playing at school,” explains Hougaard, who attended “grammar school” in Great Britain because his father worked for NATO. “Just small games,” Hougaard emphasizes, “if you won $20, $30, $40 in a night, that was huge! I began to just play online and took to it pretty quickly.” Now, the Kipster takes pride in the fact that he can lay claim to a feat his hero, Gus Hansen, cannot: Hougaard has won a gold WSOP bracelet, the game’s most cherished prize.

Between 2007 and 2008, Hougaard moved-up 1303 positions in the Player of the Year rankings, earning nearly $1 million and collecting two coveted World Series of Poker bracelets in the process. In the 2008 World Series of Poker at Las Vegas, Hougaard dominated the competition, winning more than $600,000 and earning his first gold WSOP bracelet. Writing for CardPlayer.com, Ryan Lucchesi said of the Kipsster’s play, “[he] proved to the world once again that when an aggressive player from Denmark is at a final table, every other player at the table should take notice.” Beating-out 2446 experienced players in the $1500 no-limit tournament, Hougaard pocketed $610, 304—more than half of his lifetime earnings in a single take. Lucchesi wrote, “He dominated play at every stretch of the final table.”

Poker experts credit Hougaard with a dramatic comeback in the Las Vegas series: Behind in the chip-count and feeling the momentum shifting as the final round began, Hougaard “regrouped” during a well-timed dinner-break, coming back to win decisively. Later, he told interviewers he credited his international table-tennis experience for his ability to restore his focus, reset his strategy, and set himself for the win. “Basically what I did was something I used to do in table tennis, was regroup, prepare yourself, think about it like it’s a new match,” Hougaard detailed, “these mental exercises of preparing myself really helped me out.”

After his triumph in Las Vegas, Hougaard kept his streak alive, winning the WSOP event in London, becoming the first player in history to win tournaments on both sides of the Atlantic.
Given his aggressive nature and his canny command of the cards, poker pundits pick the Kipster to rise into the top ten and hold a place there for a long time to come. Hougaard himself says, “My goal is to just enjoy my life, I have a great family, a great girlfriend, so yeah, just to enjoy my life.”