A funny thing happened to Vanessa Rousso on her way through law school. She discovered poker.
Not that she was a stranger to the appeal of competitive game playing.
Competition ran in the Rousso genes. Her father is a chess grand master. There was always a lot of backgammon, gin and assorted card games in the household. "We are a very game oriented family," is how the 23-year-old Rousso puts it, but no one else in the family plays poker the way Rousso has come to approach it.
An honors graduate of a high school in the Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., area, she flew through Duke University in two and a half years, earning a BA with a major in economics and a minor in political science. Then it was on to law school at the University of Miami where she's a third year student. Graduation is likely next year.
At least that's the current plan. Poker's been great and she expects to continue giving it a lot of her time but it is definitely not everything.
"I like education as an end in itself and the idea of completing something that I have started."
On the other hand, no has been more surprised than Rousso herself by the events of the last couple years. Who'd have Imagined she would do so well so quickly?
"If you had asked me 10 years ago, could I see myself playing poker as I am now, it probably would not have been among my top 20 interests."
For the next 5 to 10 years she sees herself concentrating on poker and, of course, finishing law school. But down the road, who knows . . .
The world of politics has a lot of appeal. She was, after all, a debate champion in high school.
Rousso was at Duke when she dove into the swift-moving river of circumstances that have carried her toward success in poker's most attractive events. Tournament prize money alone now totals close to $700,000 in less than two years.
And things seem to keep getting better. The possibilities have come her way.
All she's had to do is field them and think about them. Executives behind the ubiquitous television cameras across the landscape of the poker world, cameras like what they see in Rousso. They're anxious to create the personalities that fuel added interest in poker shows.
There is, in no particular order, personality, looks and sufficient skill to satisfy viewers who are very serious about their poker.
Looking into the year ahead, Rousso expects to be playing in a number of the biggest invitational TV poker events. There's a new season of FSN's Poker Superstars and probably the National Heads-Up Championship which is to be filmed in late February or early March at Caesars Palace. Her first appearance on NBC's Poker After Dark has aired and Rousso is one of 64 men and women drafted by the eight teams that hope to have a league of their own, a professional poker league active by midyear.
The action would be filmed at the Venetian with everything shown on one of the cable channels.
Rousso also recently agreed to an extension of the agreement that has her playing for the PokerStars team in major tournaments around the world. Look for her online when she signs in as "Lady Maverick."
Her pursuit of serious poker began as an offshoot of a course she was taking as Duke. She was trying to fill out a course schedule and came across this class that included a reference to game theory. Hmmmm. It sounded more interesting, she jokes, than astro physics. Half way through the curriculum she came on the exercise known as "The Prisoner's Dilemma" which addressed the importance of - and here was another mindcatching phrase - "optimal strategy" in working your way through a game or challenge.
What is game theory? It has been described as a branch of applied mathematics and economics that provides a "formal modeling approach to social situations in which decision makers interact with other minds." John Nash, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for economics and whose life was depicted in the hit film of several years ago A Beautiful Mind, has worked in game theory.
When her professor used the occasion of the course to discuss poker-related mathematics, a light bulb went on in Rousso's head and she began thinking about game theory and its applications to poker. She began visiting the poker room at the Seminole tribe's Hard Rock Casino near her south Florida home.
Good things happened She won, beginning to build a bankroll. By May 2005, she was ready to step it up a couple of notches and flew to the World Series of Poker circuit event in New Orleans where she tested herself in one of the smaller tournaments, a $200 buy-in event that attracted some 500 entries.
"That was a lot of money for me at the time because I only had a small poker bankroll, but I managed to finish seventh (winning $6,400) and that helped to propel my career forward."
Less than a month later, she was in Las Vegas, taking a look at the action associated with the World Series of Poker, and, by the way, winning a hold 'em tournament at the Palms.
"Things seemed to happen very quickly during the months after that as I was learning more and more about the game."
By the spring of 2006 she had finished another year at school and was ready to turn her attention back to the tournament action. The World Poker Tournament action at the Bellagio in Las Vegas looked like the place to be and everything was working.
Rousso was in the final four tables, guaranteed some prize money, when she and poker professional Chad Brown found themselves assigned to the same table in this $25,000 buy-in championship event.
Brown recalls glancing over at this "pretty blonde," wondering who she was, this girl sitting there projecting an attitude that suggested she was not quite sure what was going on.
Didn't fool him for a minute, he says now, deciding she was someone he wanted to get to know better. And he did, sparking an experience they could both smile about in countless retellings. She remembers Brown approaching her, saying if she wanted to have dinner to give his room a call.
Her thought at the time: Like I'm gonna do that! A month or so later they bumped into each other again at an airport and lined up what she considers their first date.
"We have since become very much a couple," Rousso was saying a few weeks ago.
But what about that Bellagio tournament, the poker, their reason for being there?
Oh yes . . .
It was one of those happy endings. They both finished in the top 10, Rousso seventh and Brown ninth and Rousso found herself enjoying one of her biggest paydays in tournament poker up to that time - $263,625. Months earlier at the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City she had won one of the hold 'em events, earning more than $285,000.
More recently, she has become part of the Ultimate Cash Game, a spin-off of the syndicated Ultimate Poker Challenge. Cash Game is to be filmed once a month at the Horseshoe and edited into four weekly shows. The first one aired in January and Rousso says that, yes, she did have a winning session.
The Cash Game buy-in is $25,000 and as for who is eligible to play, it's first come, first served.
Rousso's profile in the poker world has not been hurt by the fact that she has co-hosted with Brown some of the Ultimate Poker Challenge events. Brown was already a commentator on these events when the two met.
When Brown won Bluff Magazine's Player of the Year award last year, Rousso did not do badly herself, considering she was still very much a newcomer. She finished about 19th, the second highest ranked woman behind Kathy Leibert.
"I felt pretty good about that, considering I didn't even have a full year of play. I didn't start until Apriil."
So let's see what happens this year, she says, her tone suggesting she's aiming for much better things.
A woman winning the World Series is just a matter of time, she maintains, as the number of skilled female players in the biggest action continues to increase.
The fact is, she says, women at poker tables tend to be viewed through a filter of faulty perceptions.
"Women are perceived as very tight players, that we can't bluff, but the fact is we've been bluffing for centuries. We're better at it than you guys . . ."
Brown is listening carefully as she speaks and gives this an agreeable sounding chuckle.
"And so the best women players can use this misconception or stereotype to their advantage."
A little bit of game theory, Rousso suggests, can go a long, long way.
