Vanessa Rousso
Vanessa Rousso has a different way of seeing the games that she is playing on the poker tables. This is because Rousso is an intellectual. Before becoming a professional poker player, she was an outstanding student, an Ivy Leaguer who graduated from Duke University with a degree and a major in Economics. Before Duke, she was class valedictorian from Wellington High School, with a 4.0 GPA and participation at the school’s Honor Society. After Duke, she went on to to study law at the University of Miami School of Law in hopes of becoming a litigator. In addition to these impressive credits to her name, she is also a stunner, having appeared in Sports Illustrated, thanks to her body that was toned by years of doing sports like swimming, lacrosse, and softball. So how does someone with such a track record get into the game of poker?
When she was in Duke, she approached gaming as an intellectual would – she became very interested in game theory and applied what she had learned to the Rubik’s cube and to chess. She wanted to push the envelope, though, and so she became interested in poker. She wanted to take it seriously even before that; however, since casinos and poker rooms required a player to be twenty-one and above in order to be able to participate, she could only play casually or play online. That was what she did throughout college. It was when she was out of Duke and in the University of Miami that she was able to pursue poker live. She started playing at casinos in 2004, and it was there that she saved up the $1,500 she needed to be able to participate in games at the Atlantic City. At Atlantic City, she gathered $17,500 which was her ticket to the World Poker Tour in 2005.
She played in different tournaments from there on. She joined the World Series of Poker in 2005, the same one that Jennifer Tilly eventually won, and throughout her first year of playing, she had a slew of money wins to build her record up. After a year, she joined the professional poker tour and balanced her playing poker professionally and her schooling. She continued placing high in the different poker tournaments, and by 2007 she has established herself as a noted poker player. That same year, she went to Washington DC along with other noted poker players to protest the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
Her largest prize for a single competition to this day is $946.696, which she won in 2009 for the European Poker Tour. Her winnings to this date are over $2.6 million. She has shared what she knows to the world as well, writing articles on different poker strategies in magazines and holding a poker instructional camp in early 2009. This 26-year old prodigy continues to play poker professionally, and she still continues to be the multitasker that she was back in school. She still has time to spend for herself, doing things such as skydiving to keep her adrenaline going when she’s not playing poker.