Vanessa Rousso Biography
by Chad Holloway of Predictem.com
Vanessa Rousso was born on February 5, 1983 in White Plains, New York. She graduated in 2001 from her high school in Wellington, Florida as valedictorian and went on to earn a Bachelor's in economics and a minor in political science from Duke. She attended law school at the University of Miami before deciding to pursue her poker career. Playing since she was five, Rousso was naturally drawn to Game Theory in college and began to apply it to her poker game.
In 2005, Rousso began to make an impact on the live poker scene and a year later she was beginning to build an impressive résumé. She finished in seventh place at the 2006 World Poker Tour Five-Star World Poker Classic ($263,625), first in the $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event at the 2006 Borgata Open WPT ($285,450), seventh at the 2009 WPT Southern Poker Championship ($79,117), first in the 2008 Poker After Dark "Gus and the Girls" tournament ($120,000), fourth at the 2008 European Poker Tour Monte Carlo €2,000 No Limit Hold'em event ($54,116), and a deep run at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing 625th for $21,230. Her biggest single cash came when she took second 2007 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker Main Event for $700,718. She also finished in second place at the 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Championship. Rousso made it to the finals by defeating an all-star line-up including Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu, and Bertrand Grospellier before being defeated by Huck Seed in the finals; however, she did earn an impressive $250,000 for her efforts.
Rousso is currently engaged to fellow poker professional, Chad Brown. She is a member of Team PokerStars (playing under the name "LadyMaverick") and has recently signed on to become a spokeswoman for GoDaddy.com, to which she says:
"GoDaddy, as a company, is particularly suited to match my brand. Their image is youthful and edgy and they have an out-of-the-box reputation, all of which I try to embrace in my own life and experiences. I think the people there are risk takers, out of the box and I really like that personally. I see them as a company I'll partner with very well. They're planning on a poker themed ad campaign and I'll be a big part of that. Doing a commercial for corporate America is exciting. I hope everyone thinks the ads are funny. I think they are!"
Rousso enjoys traveling, Chess, Backgammon, bungee jumping, skydiving, running, boating, and skiing in her free-time. On her January 4th, 2009 blog Rousso announced that Sports Illustrated asked her to be a part of its Swimsuit Edition. A photo shoot occurred at the 2009 EPT PCA event and Rousso appears in the February, 2009 SI issue. She is an advocate for women in poker and when asked if she could change anything in the poker world she responded with, "I would make women's events more conducive to skilled play (bigger starting stacks, slower pace, etc.)" Rousso, who has a duel-citizenship with the United States and France, has more than $1.1 million in lifetime tournament winnings.
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