Famous poker player Vanessa Rousso has made the final 3 of CBS Big Brother 17, which means she'll be on the season finale. She has $4.5 mil in career winnings. After starting with 17 initial members, or houseguests, the cast of Big Brother is down to 11. Professional poker player Vanessa Rousso is still in the running, competing for the $500,000 first.
Way back in June, poker pro Vanessa Rousso entered the Big Brother house for the 17th season of the hit CBS television show. Rousso was joined by 13 other housemates, but over the course of 98 days all but three were evicted. On Wednesday night's finale, 22-year-old college student Steve Moses and 23-year-old marketing coordinator Liz Nolan joined Rousso, with the winner slated to take home a $500,000 first-place prize.
Despite being largely considered the best player of the season – thanks in no small part to her manipulation skills, game theory knowledge, and willingness to make big moves – and given a 64% chance of winning by Gold Derby, Rousso had to settle for third place after Moses won the final Head of Household competition and opted to take Nolan to the final.
“Vanessa, you have played the most brilliant game,' Moses said before evicting Rousso. 'I mean this as a student and super fan of this game. As a student of this game, you are the most brilliant female player this game has ever seen.'
It proved a wise decision for Moses, who ultimately won the game via 6-3 vote (Rousso voted for Nolan, who ended up taking home $50,000 for her runner-up finish). Still, many Big Brother fans were upset Rousso didn't win. Dan Gheesling, who is considered one of the best Big Brother contestants in history, said it best on Twitter:
In Big Brother the best player doesn't always win unfortunately for Vanessa. Vanessa played her tail off she should be proud. #BB17
— Dan Gheesling (@DanGheesling)Great to see Vanessa go out with class. Her saying good game to Steve on the way out makes me wish she won. #BB17
— Dan Gheesling (@DanGheesling)During the game, Rousso successfully hid the fact that she was a successful poker pro, instead opting to tell houseguests that she was a DJ in Las Vegas. It wasn't exactly a lie as Rousso had been known to dabble in music in her free time. After being evicted, Rousso came clean to the rest of the houseguest, who in turn gave her credit for having a stellar poker face.
According to HendonMob, Rousso has $3,530,832 in live tournament winnings, which puts her fifth on the Women's All-Time Money List. Her biggest score came back in 2009 when she took down the European Poker Tour Grand Final €25,000 High Roller for $700,160. She's also finished third in the 2010 World poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $358,964, and won the 2006 WPT Borgata Poker Open $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em event for $285,450.
'I gave this thing my blood, sweat, tears, agony,' Rousso told BB's Jeff Schroeder after the show. 'I have no regrets about the choices that I made … I’m trying not to come out of this depressed.'
With such a strong performance on BB17, we certainly wouldn't be surprised to see Rousso get another shot at the game, perhaps in an all-star season. Rest assured, if and when that happens, PokerNews will be there to let you know.
*Lead photo courtesy of CBS.
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Vanessa Rousso
Poker professional Vanessa Rousso has made it to the final of “Big Brother 17”. To make the finals of the popular reality TV show on CBS, she had to make the final three competitors.
The last person standing in the Survivor-style format wins $500,000, while the runner-up wins $50,000. Instead of living on a tropical island, random strangers instead live inside a house while cameras film them 24/7. Like Survivor, members of the cast must face challenges to win immunity. If not, they face a vote which would put them out of the house.
Big Brother 17 Broadcasts
Rousso made the finals on the Wednesday night broadcast. The next broadcast is on Sunday night, followed by a 90-minute season finale on Wednesday, September 23. Moviefone, which measures call-in voters, has Vanessa Rousso as the favorite to win the show at this point.
While the $500k winning prize would be a nice score for Vanessa Rousso, it would not be the biggest prize she’s won. Over the past 10 years, the 32-year old poker player has won $4.5 million in tournament winnings. In fact, the $500 thousand in prize money would be the third-largest jackpot Rousso has won.
How Poker Translates to Survival Games
The poker lifestyle might have prepared her for Big Brother 17. Poker not only requires players to use strategy to best their opponents, but it has a significant social element. Players must read their opponents’ intentions, while also masking their own intent. The best poker players are masters of charm and intimidation, while sensing traps set by their opponents.
Twitter followers suggest that Vanessa Rousso is one of the best players in the history of the show. She was given the ability to send a person off when only 5 were left and chose to send Austin. While Austin told her she doesn’t have any jury votes, most fans believed the blindside would win her votes from those offended by Austin’s antics.
The Jury of Seven
At the end of the show, the last seven contestants sent off represent the jury which votes on who wins. Thus, a player who has offended too many people or the wrong sort of people end up losing in the final vote.
Big Brother therefore requires people to plot with fellow contestants, but at the same time against them. They also must avoid being seen as too much of a danger (too loyal) or at too much of a weasel (not loyal enough). While it might seem like a ridiculous reality show to an outsider, game theorists would find Big Brother to be a challenging study, because of the shifting dynamics of the game’s many challenges.
About Vanessa Rousso
Vanessa Rousso has been a professional poker player since 2005 and ranks among the Top 5 female poker players in career winnings. She was a member of Team PokerStars from 2006 until 2015 under the online username “Lady Maverick”. Over the years, she has been a spokesperson for GoDaddy.com. Rousso has finished in the money at the World Series of Poker seventeen times. At the 2007 World Championship of Online Poker Main Event, she finished in second place and won $700,000.
Education and Playing Career
Vanessa Rousso graduated from Duke University in 2 and 1/2 years with a Major in psychology and a Minor in political science. She has studied game theory, which she has incorporated into her poker style and the Big Brother competition. She began law school in 2004 at the University of Miami, and was the inaugural recipient of the Chaplan Scholarship. During that year at law school, Rousso served on the University of Miami Law Review.
During that time, she was also studying poker. By 2005, she had won several times at the Hard Rock sit-n-go tournaments. She parlayed a $1,500 entry fee into an Atlantic City tournament into $17,000 in winnings, which allowed her to pay for a trip to a World Poker Tour event in 2005 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Since then, the has appeared in numerous WPT events on the Travel Channel, along with WSOP broadcasts on ESPN. Born to a French father and an American mother, he is a dual citizen of the United States and France.