Vanessa Rousso

Self-confessed ‘super nerd’ Vanessa Rousso has always strived to be the best. She was head of the class at school, completed a four-year degree in two and a half years, has learned how to fly a plane, and has now accumulated over $3m in tournament poker winnings in just three years. Most of this has come in 2009, where the Team PokerStars pro has been on a heater. After going deep in a WPT event, she fought her way past an incredible line-up to finish second at the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship and then had a career-defining win in the high roller event at the EPT Grand Final. And just to prove she’s got beauty as well as brains, Rousso got in shape to do a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition photoshoot earlier in the year. How’s that for mixing up your game?

I came to poker from an academic angle. My major during college was economics and I specialised in an area of economics called game theory, which is the study of strategic decision-making. It’s the perfect rubric for studying poker. In fact one of my professors used poker as an example during his classes and that’s what got me intrigued.
I started playing online during college, and after graduating with my Bachelor’s degree I decided to go to law school back in my home state of Florida. I took a scholarship to the University of Miami, and one of the things that went into my decision was that there’s an Indian Reservation casino nearby [the Hard Rock], and I would be close to Miami airport, as I planned to start travelling to poker tournaments at the weekends.
I was in law school and learning how to
fly planes with a couple of pilot friends.
We would fly to neighbouring states and play WSOP Circuit events and that’s how I started playing live. This was back in 2006. It ended up being my breakout year in poker. I played the $25,000 WPT Championship event at the Bellagio and came seventh for $263k – that was
my big break.

ONLINE OR LIVE?

I have almost a million dollars in tournament earnings online. I came second in the WCOOP main event in 2007 for $700k, third in the WCOOP $1,000 short-handed limit event for $60k, and fifth in the $25,000 heads-up WCOOP event in 2008 for $100k. I have about $2.5m in live earnings, but it’s easier to have bigger earnings live because the buy-ins are bigger. So in terms of return on investment I do better online because the total buy-ins are smaller, but
for overall consistency, where the majority of my income comes from, that would be live.

A YEAR TO REMEMBER

I have a funny story about 2009. Normally my dad lives in France so we’re in different time zones. Oddly enough, this year on New Year’s Eve when it turned midnight my time, he called to wish me a happy New Year. It was the first time he’d ever done that. He said: ‘Vanessa, I have a very strong feeling that 2009 is going to be
a great, great year for you.’ And then two weeks later I made a WPT final table, a month after that I finished second in the [NBC] heads-up, then there was the EPT High Roller win, and four big cashes in the World Series, so he was right. It was weird.
I think my greatest result was winning the EPT Monte Carlo High Roller event [in May]. Dollar-wise that was my best result and the field was super tough. The NBC second place was my second best result I think, because it’s 64 of the toughest players in the world. I had to overcome pretty much the toughest bracket of all time. Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu, ElkY – the names just kept coming. It was sick. I’m disappointed that I didn’t win, but Huck is a great heads-up player and he played better than me in that particular round.

OPPONENT PROFILING

Oddly enough, I’m more comfortable playing the best players than I am the worst players. Game theory is much more applicable to rational, intelligent opponents than ones who are just playing randomly. So
I love to set complex traps, to tell a story over the course of a day and then find the perfect spot to exploit the information I’ve given off all day. That’s what game theory is all about.
I find that all my good results have come in pretty tough fields and there are two reasons for that. One, I play better against better opponents, and two, my particular style
does well against good opponents. So I feel comfortable playing against the best in the world and I hope to prove to myself and to others that I’m among them for the next ten years or so. I have my work cut out for me but my goal is to get to $10m in earnings in the next five years, win a WPT title, a WSOP bracelet, and at some point I want to win
one of the Player of the Year titles.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SHOOT

I looked at it as an opportunity to get into the best shape I’ve ever been in, since I’m a poker player and I spend a lot of time on my butt. I was an athlete in high school and I loved the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, look, I’m not going to play tournaments for about a month and work out every day and see how fit I can get.’ I’m the first poker player to be included in that edition, and it was a great opportunity for me career-wise.