INTERVIEW WITH VANESSA ROUSSO

November Featured Pro

LPA:  I'm so impressed with your style, very competitive. How did you get so competitive?

VR: The reason I’m so competitive is because, I’m buying into $25,000 events, $10,000 events, huge buy-in events.  No chump change for anyone, especially for a 23 year-old law student. When I enter these events I could be grossly intimidated, lay down and concede defeat, which would be moronic, or I could enter and accept that I am not as experienced as these players.  Do I feel that I can compete with them on an intellectual level?  Yes.  So that’s where I start and eventually with some experience I will be the best.  I mean we all have to start somewhere.

But I’ll be honest and tell you that I actually know without a doubt, that anything I’ve ever set my mind to,  I feel that I can be professional.  That’s not to say that everything’s for me. I mean, I don’t play football because it’s not right for me.  But poker makes sense for me with the set of skills that I was born with.  And that is a lot to start with.(not needed)

LPA:   Being a law student, you have to be competitive. 

VR:      Yes.  In high school I was valedictorian.  My class was nine hundred students.  So, the valedictorian race was very competitive.  To be #1 in my class I had to work really, really, really hard.  So hard that I couldn’t even afford to waste much time.  And I had to not only get straight A’s, but I had to get straight A’s in college-level classes because they were weighted.  And then in college, I graduated in two and a half years.  In order to do that I had to be really efficient and apply the same work ethic from high school.   Now with law school, which in and of itself is a very competitive environment, it takes a lot of time.  I was able to do law school and poker at the same time.  But that is just me, I learned how to work hard, and poker is hard work.  Anything you set your mind to is hard work. You just have to make the commitment. 

LPA:   So where did you grow up?

VR:      When I was born, my family was living in Paris, France.  My Dad’s French, my Mom’s American.  So I’m a dual citizen.  We were living in France and they flew to New York to have my birth in the States.  So I have United States citizenship.  We went back to Paris and I lived there until I was ten.  Then we lived in the United States.  I lived in Greenwich, CT, upstate New York, south Florida, Miami and Palm Beach.  So, I have a diverse knowledge of people. I did my undergrad work at Duke University, and law school at the University of Miami.  And now I’m kind of like splitting life between LA and Vegas. 

LPA:   What  inspired you to get involved in poker?

VR:      I studied game theory and I started studying poker actually.

LPA:   That is fantastic.

VR:      Yeah, it was really interesting.  I studied it from an academic perspective and, being such a serious student, it was never a real aspiration to like ‘Be a poker player.’  No, I was going to be a lawyer and I wanted to go through law school and take over the corporate world. 

Until, April of this year, that was still my primary goal.   Poker remained a hobby, but it was a lucrative hobby, a very exciting hobby, but it was still just a hobby.  Then when I came in seventh in the WPT championship event, which was not my first final table, I realized that I may have a real career in this.  I’d had five final tables on the circuit.  I mean I’d had success, but this was huge success.  A final table in the WPT championship, the biggest event in poker.  I mean, there wasn’t a player in the entire tournament that I didn’t know.  Six hundred of most qualified and well-known players in the world, and I make the final table.  To finish there was like the twilight zone, it was so bizarre.

But I also realized that in that event there was a lack of successful women.  Of course there are women who are professionals, but not as many women as men of course.  And I think I’m a bit unique in that I’m young, in that I’m not from the poker world.  I’m from a whole different world.  I just segued over into the poker world.  I think I’m unique in that way, because I have a unique and fresh perspective. So that’s my story.

LPA:   Where do you want to go in poker?

VR:      I’m definitely finishing my law degree.  I wouldn’t quit law school or anything.  It’s taking me a little longer to graduate now that I’m so serious about traveling on the circuit.  I’m at the top of my class for two years.  You’ll never meet anyone who’s top of their class going into their last year of law school who all of a sudden decides to turn their last year into two years.

That’s me.  I’ve always been that way.  I’m the kind of person that I do what I want.  I don’t do things because that’s what you’re supposed to do or because that’s what I’ve been told to do, or because anyone wants me to.  I do things that make me happy.  I’ve been really lucky that I’ve been able to do what makes me happy and been able to put food in my mouth and support myself.  I’ve supported myself since I was eighteen.  It helps that I was on scholarship in both undergrad and in law school.  But, I’m doing what I wanted. I am definitely going to use my law degree.  I think that I’ll probably play for the next five years, very seriously and full time.  I’ll finish my degree in the meantime, at night, independent study through the University of Miami. Then once I get my degree, I’ll be really interested in lobbying for Internet casinos.  I really think it’s asinine that internet poker is illegal.  If they want to make the sports betting illegal that is one thing.  But tournament poker, the law can’t touch it.  I can prove tournament poker is not gambling from a game theoretic perspective.

I definitely want to use my degree in that way.   You know I see myself being involved with poker.  I don’t see myself really ever separating my life from poker.  But I want to make poker my business besides being a good player.

LPA:   Are your parents OK with you playing poker?

VR:      My Mom was like, ‘What the hell are you doing at these things. It’s seedy playing at casinos.’  But I say ‘Mom, it’s not seedy playing poker.  I love it.’  She was like, ‘As long as your grades are up, that’s fine.’  But I was keeping my good grades up and she really had no leg to stand on and argue with me.   Then after I won the tournament I get a sponsorship and I’m doing six different TV shows.  She can’t really complain.  She would probably rather have her daughter be a big corporate attorney since that was originally supposed to be my life. But, you know, she sees that I’m happy and she sees that I’m successful and that’s important to her.  She is very supportive now.  She just wants to make sure I finish my law degree. 

LPA:   You came in 7^th at the WPT championship event.  You had Ace King and the table was down to seven.  You lose that hand and you are out on the TV bubble of six players.  What was your thinking at that point?  Do you regret playing the hand?

VR;      What was my mental process?  Well, at that point in the tournament I had roughly $2 million in chips.  The blinds were very expensive.  The blinds are going around very quickly.  I can only survive five rounds at that point, which is only thirty five hands.  I can’t wait for Aces.  I mean Ace/King suited -- give me a break!  There was a raiser under the gun -- James Van Alstein, who was playing very aggressively.  I felt that, especially short-handed players have a tendency to slow-play monster hands because there’s such a small number of players at the table.  a monster’s not – there’s not such a huge risk in slow-playing monster hands. 

But when you raise, and you’re under the gun, I wait for a raise and then I re-raise.  That’s the play.  I put him on exactly the hand that he had.  He raised to $500,000, and I go all in and put in $1.5 million more.  It’s $2 million, but 1.5 million to him.  I’m really thinking he can’t call with an Ace.  I mean he has to at least put me on Ace King.  Maybe with a pocket pair he’d call. But I knew he didn’t have a high pocket pair, because I didn’t think he would raise in that position at that stage in the game with a pocket pair.   So I’m almost positive I’m taking it down there.   I can’t sit around and wait.  I know how important it is to be in the Top 6, but I have to play.  So, all right, here I am.  I’m all in with Ace King.  He turns over Ace Jack and lands a Jack.  Right bet, right read, bad luck. 

Let me tell you, nobody wanted to be closer to the Top 6 than I did.  But I couldn’t sit around and wait.  I had to play.  Ace/King/Queen makes sense.   I had to if I put him on something like the Ace/Jack.  That’s the clear for me.  Of course when I saw the turn, that hurt, really hurt.

But here’s the thing, I know it won’t be the last time I play in the Top 6 players of a Championship event like that.  Give me a few years.  I’ll continue to play.  That was my first time even playing the $25,000.  Give me a few years.  I’ll eventually win one of these.  You know the key is, every player goes out of every tournament with a better game.  And I’m one of those people.

LPA: How did you react?

VR:  It was really frustrating at the time. It was an emotional experience.  At the end of the day I had some hormones.  I did go into my room and I had a little moment.  Then after that I sucked it up and I took a deep breath and realized, you know, hey, it was a great thing.  It wasn’t a bad thing.  I could have been sucked out way earlier in the tournament and never even been there.  So, after I got that far, I was happy.  It was really fabulous.

LPA: You just won the Borgota $5,000 event, tell me about that?

VR:  I was so emotional after the win, I didn't realize how much it meant to me at the time, but now I really appreciate it. It did give me a new level of confidence that I had not felt before, however I am still trying to learn the best way to channel that feeling.

LPA:  How many women were playing in the event?

VR:  I think there were 3 other women playing.

LPA:  How do you prepare for an event like that?  Or winning an event like that?

VR:  My normal routine of healthy eating, light exercise,  and a very loud ipod!!

LPA:  Did you have a plan or strategy for the day?

VR:  I was really in the zone that day. I felt that I really understood what every player was thinking and my plan was to just use my reads and exploit all the information I could assimilate.  I focused on what my opponents where thinking, and then tried to use plays to counter what they would have wanted me to do. I felt that most of the experienced and aggressive players thought they could run me over, I used that to my advantage and won a few pots with more marginal hands because they felt they could raise me off any marginal hand easily.

LPA:  Was there a turning point in the tournament for you?

VR:  It was more of a steady climb.   I continually won small pots over and over again. Obviously the last hand in heads up, I made an extremely difficult call when my opponent moved all in with A high on the turn and I call with mid pair.

LPA:  Who were your toughest opponent? 

VR:   Joe Sebok and Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, not to mention Hasan Habib was very tough as well. It was certainly not easy and I had to work REALLY hard, but it sure was a lot of fun after I won!!!!

LPA:  Thanks Vanessa we appreciate your time and good advice to all the women out there.