Yorky Pud

Amidst the drama bombs being dropped by Phil Ivey and Full Tilt Poker it is easy to forget that the 2011 World Series of Poker is up and running but one man who will be putting non-playing matters to the back of his mind is Gus Hansen, who finds himself down to the last eight players in Event #2, better-known as the $25,000 No Limit Hold'em Heads-Up Championship.

Hansen is looking for his second bracelet having won his first in the £10,000 Heads-Up High-Roller at last year's WSOPE. That victory, which also netted him £288,409, sparked a huge header that has lasted almost a year. Before his bracelet win, Hansen was better known for being more than $9,000,000 in the red but since then he has won almost $6,000,000 in online cash games along with $1,000,000 when he won the Poker Million IX live tournament.

The man known as "The Great Dane" came into the series on the back of winning $809,000 from online cash games, which puts him up by $3,941,703 for the year, the most of any online poker player. His route to the final eight has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination with him having to beat Jason Mercier, recent WPT winner Gregory Brooks, Daniel Alaei and finally Tom "durrrr" Dwan.

Hansen's opponent in the next round is Matt Marafioti, who many will know as "ADZ124." Marafioti is a fearless and extremely talented cash game player and will be a formidable opponent of the on-form Dane. At the 2009 WSOP Marafioti was ejected from the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino by the tournament staff after he became extremely drunk thanks to a prop bet with Dwan. Marafioti accepted a $5,000 bet that he could drink 10 shots of Patron within 15 minutes but he became extremely loud and rowdy shortly after shot number seven and was asked to leave! Hansen will be hoping Marafioti is in the mood for a drink when play resumes later today.

The other matches taking place see Yengeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko take on David Paredes, Eric Froehlich play Nikolay Endakov and Anthony Guetti face Britain's Jake Cody, the latter able to complete the "Triple Crown" of live tournaments having already won EPT Deauville and WPT London last year.

Play resumes at 1500 Las Vegas time and will continue until only the final four players remain.