Vanessa Rousso

Vanessa Ashley Rousso (born February 5, 1983) is an American professional poker player, attorney, DJ, and television personality.

After her parents divorced in 1992, her mother moved Vanessa to Florida to be near her maternal grandparents.

Rousso attended Wellington Landings Middle School.

The oldest of three athletic girls, Rousso was active on the high-school swimming, lacrosse and debating teams.

She also played softball and basketball for fun.

In debating, Rousso excelled in national debating tournaments in policy debating.

Her mother is a guidance counselor at Jupiter Community High School.

Her nickname was given to her by a relative when she sold shares of herself to enter a $25,000 buy-in event in a manner reminiscent of the eponymous hero of the 1994 Western movie Maverick.

In 2001, Rousso graduated as valedictorian of her high school in Wellington, Florida.

She maintained a 4.0 GPA at Wellington High School while participating in the National Honor Society, and French Honor Society.

She founded the Environmental Club and served as its president.

She was also active as a violinist, varsity swimmer, and volunteer for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

She graduated early from Duke University after two and a half years with a major in economics and a minor in political science in December 2003.

Her collegiate duration of two and a half years was the shortest time to graduate in the history of Duke.

Rousso began law school in 2004 and was the inaugural recipient of the Chaplin Scholarship from the University of Miami School of Law.

During school she served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Law Review.

She has earned money as a professional poker player since 2005.

Between 2005 and 2011, Rousso finished in the money in numerous live poker events and accumulated nearly $3.5 million, but has been less active since, earning just $83,000 in live tournaments between 2012 and 2017.

She has placed in the money seventeen times at the World Series of Poker.

Rousso was a member of Team PokerStars from 2006 to 2015, with the online name Lady Maverick, and was a spokesman for GoDaddy.com from 2009 to 2013.

In 2007, she won over $700,000 with a second-place finish in the main event of the World Championship of Online Poker.

She has appeared on television in several cash or charity poker competitions, and finished in third place as a contestant on the 2015 season of Big Brother.

Her parents are Marc Rousso and Cynthia Bradley of Hobe Sound, Florida.

Rousso began talking and reading at early ages says her mother, Cynthia Ferrara.

Born in White Plains, New York, she moved with her family to France at the age of three.

She lived in Paris, in her father's homeland until she was 10, when she moved briefly to Upstate New York.

Rousso holds dual citizenship with the United States and France.

, having not cashed at a tournament since 2017, Rousso still ranks among the top ten women in poker history in terms of all-time money winnings.

Rousso has been a pro-gambling campaigner and activist.

However, she returned to school in the fall of 2017, and graduated magna cum laude in the Spring of 2018.

, excluding online winnings, and having not cashed at a tournament since 2017, she ranks as number eight among women players in terms of all-time money winnings.

She currently resides in South Florida.

Rousso has two younger sisters: Tiffany, a high-school teacher and contestant on the 18th season of Big Brother (US), and Leticia, an optometrist.

In college, she was on the Dean's list.

After studying some game theory, she became proficient with the Rubik's Cube and then chess.

However, because she considers both to be fairly objective static games, she began to prefer poker, which incorporated human psychology that allows for inferior hands to win.

In 2018 she enrolled in order to finish her law degree, which she completed that same year.

Soon after graduating she passed the Florida Bar Exam.

A poker player since the age of five, Rousso began serious poker tournament play during her summer break from law school.

Rousso did not initially finish law school, dropping out to pursue her burgeoning poker career instead.