Poker Player Profile – Poker Player Vanessa Rousso

With her keen mind and obvious poker skills, Vanessa Rousso has risen right up in the ranks of professional poker in the past four years.

Early Life of Vanessa Rousso

Vanessa Rousso was born in February 1983 in White Plains, New York. She is a female professional poker player who has dual citizenship with the United States and France. She spent much of the first ten years of her life living in Paris with her French father and American mother. She proved her keen mind early on being able to speak in sentences at age one, read at age 3 and speak two languages, English and French, to which she later added a third – Spanish. Rousso attended Duke University on a full scholarship after being named valedictorian of her school year. There she majored in economics and minored in political science. At Duke, Rousso began to learn gaming theories which she applied to backgammon and chess, but later discovered that her true love was for poker. She started to play poker online. She then began to study law at the University of Miami. Rousso has been playing poker since the tender age of five, but she began to seriously enter poker tournaments in her summer break from law school in 2005.

Vanessa Rousso's Professional Poker Career

Rousso won her first professional poker event in June 2005 during the no limit hold'em summer series in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2006, she placed seventh at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship event. In that same year, she participated in the $5,000 no limit hold'em event at the Borgata Open where she won $285,450. She also saw some success at the 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) where she took home three money prizes. At the 2007 World Championship of Online Poker Main event, an online poker tournament run by PokerStars, Rousso finished third to win $463,940.50. She was later awarded second place when the winner was disqualified and in fact walked away with $700,782.50. In 2008, Rousso once again walked away with three money finishes at the World Series of Poker. In 2009, she finished seventh in the WPT and she won the €25,000 EPT High Roller Championship which won her €720,000. Also in 2009, she placed second in the NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship to win $250,000.

Current Stats for Vanessa Rousso

As of 2009, Rousso has earned over $1.3 million in career winnings. The majority of this was won during 2008 and 2009, although she has been earning money for professional poker play since 2005. At the age of 22, Rousso was the youngest women poker player to reach the final table at a WSOP circuit event. Rousso is part of Team PokerStars and she can be found under the screen name "Lady Maverick." She has also been referred to as "Vanessa the Dresser" for her regular appearances in couture clothing and large Dior sunglasses. Rousso has written many strategy articles for poker magazines and she has appeared on the poker reality show "Wild Card Poker," as well as numerous television shows, including "Geraldo." She divides her time between Hobe Sound, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada.