Gus Hansen, TJ Cloutier Resurface in the Headlines

Times have definitely been better for poker legends Gus Hansen and TJ Cloutier. Neither has experienced much success on the felt after carving out highly successful careers on the live tournament circuit. Hansen has more recently fallen out of grace after losing his Full Tilt Poker sponsorship and dropping millions through online poker. As for Cloutier, poor money management over the past several years has seen him struggle to cobble together a bankroll. But these two players have recently resurfaced in the headlines after being involved in a couple of big stories.

Hansen invests millions into bridge software

As you may or may not know, Gus Hansen is a pretty avid bridge player. In fact, he once teamed up with a partner (Tom Hanlon) to win the 2010 Copenhagen Bridge Invitational. Given that the Great Dane has a pretty heavy connection to the bridge world, he recently decided to invest millions into Bridge+Dealer, a product is designed to help speed up bridge tournaments and assist in the dealing.

Perhaps the most interesting element of this story is that Hansen has invested millions into the product. Considering his online poker losses over the last few years, many have questioned if the three-time WPT champion is nearly broke. But if he's able to dump a fortune into a bridge investment, perhaps he's doing just fine on the financial side of things.

Cloutier takes second in record-breaking WSOPC tournament

With six WSOP bracelets and over $10.2 million in tournament winnings, TJ Cloutier is certainly one of the more successful poker players in history. However, an affinity for high stakes craps has seen Cloutier fall on hard times. But perhaps he'll have a bit more money to play around with after doing well at the WSOP Circuit Choctaw stop.

Cloutier was among the 4,035 entrants to participate in a $365 buy-in re-entry tournament. And he made a fantastic run through this event, finishing runner-up to Ray Henson. The latter ended up with a $197,588 prize while Cloutier collected $122,040. It's hard to say what kind of backing he had for this tournament and how much of the payout he'll get to keep. But hopefully Cloutier will have enough to play in the 2015 WSOP after skipping the event last year.