Big Name, Great Player

March 12, 2009

There is a new name on the poker tournament, and it is Vanessa Rousso. Rousso is an amazing profile of what today’s poker player looks like. Gone are the days where you look at poker playing as though it was simply older men playing – for the players these days run the gamut from old to young, men to women, all races and creeds. Poker is the great equalizer – if you can’t play get away from the table, and if you can – welcome.

Rousso is one amazing woman. She can speak three languages, and was born in 1983 in White Plains, New York. She is a citizen of two countries, and has been playing poker for only a short three years. During that time she has won almost $2 million and at the same time has been getting her law degree. She is only 26 years old!

She graduated from Duke in two and a half years, which tells you that she is one smart cookie. She has lived in both France and the United States, and was majoring in economics and minoring in political science at Duke when she started to get interested in poker playing. She was intrigued by her courses in game theory and started playing chess and backgammon. She started with poker online when she graduated and moved on to University of Miami for her law degree.

Once she turned 21 she started playing live at the Hard Rock Seminole Casino, and she got most of her experience there. Her first appearance was at the World Series of Poker Circuit Side event where she came in seventh and won $6,400 and the rest is history.