Poker Pro Alan Goehring

There are two basic types of big-money tournament players in the poker world: those who play for the money, and those who play for fun. You can safely file Alan Goehring away in the latter category. The Henderson, NV, resident is a retired junk bond analyst and trader who doesn’t need the big cash that major tournament prize pools offer in order to live. For Goehring, competition is the big draw. For the last 7 years Goehring has been playing in big events on the poker tournament circuit. While one could call him a professional player, that would imply that he lived off his earnings from poker tournaments. He’s more like Paul Phillips than Chip Jett - comfortable thanks to his previous career, he now pursues the game of poker as an intellectual challenge.

Goehring’s tournament record is an impressive one. His first major cash came in the $3,000 no-limit hold’em event at the 1997 World Series Of Poker, which featured 217 entrants and other accomplished money finishers such as Kathy Liebert, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Dan Harrington, and Bill Gazes. His next cash also came at the WSOP, when he finished 13th in a field of 112 at the $5,000 no-limit hold’em event of the 1998 WSOP. It wasn’t until the 1999 WSOP, though, that Goehring truly gained a reputation as a great player. That year he finished 2nd in the $10,000 Main Event to Ireland’s Noel Furlong. His runner-up position was good enough for over $768,000 in winnings.

Though he had proven his mettle, Goehring gained a reputation as someone who couldn’t win the big tournaments. While he made final tables regularly, he didn’t have any major wins to his credit. That all changed in 2003 when the  broke onto the scene. At the inaugural WPT Championship at Bellagio, Goehring bested the entire 111-man field to take home over $1 million in prize money. He also outlasted a tough final table that included the likes of Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Ted Forrest, and his heads-up opponent, Kirill Gerasimov. Goehring could no longer be considered an also-ran - he was now officially a champion.

After Goehring’s big win at Bellagio, it would be another three years before he would claim another major title. There may have been plenty of doubters, but with the WPT title under his belt Goehring had plenty of status in the poker world. In the meantime, he had good showings at a variety of tournaments on the circuit. In 2004, he took home over $375,000 with top-20 finishes in four different WPT events and a 2nd-place finish in a preliminary event at the Five-Star World Classic at Bellagio in December. 2005 was also a solid year for Goehring. He cashed in three WPT main events, including a final table at the Grand Prix de Paris, and also cashed three times at the WSOP. That marked the first money he’d won at the marquee poker event since his 2nd place finish in the 1999 Main Event. In all, he took home over $257,000 in winnings over the course of 2005.

In early 2006 Goehring finally broke his winless streak at the LA Poker Classic and took home nearly $2.4 million. His win was truly a wire-to-wire performance - he finished in the top 5 for the first five days of the tournament. His victory catapulted him to 12th on the all-time money list and 4th on the WPT all-time list, and brought him near the $5 million mark in career earnings. That’s not too bad for a guy who only plays big tournaments for fun - and not for the money.

Poker Professional Annie Duke

In a game that has historically been dominated by males, Annie Duke is making some serious waves. Beyond kicking the stereotype, Annie Duke has gone one better by not only beating the top women players, but taking out the men as well. She is currently the top female poker player in the world, and also has a WSOP bracelet to show for her success.

Annie Duke was born into a very competitive family, and family card nights were the norm during her childhood. Between herself and Poker star brother Howard Lederer, those must have been some pretty intense games! As a child, Annie excelled in school and went on to pursue studies in English and Psychology at Columbia University. As a student, Annie frequently visited her brother’s poker games, but oddly never joined in. Instead she continued her studies in cognitive psychology at graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, where she won an esteemed National Science Foundation Fellowship.

In the early 90s, Howard Lederer brought Annie to Las Vegas during a weekend off of Grad School. It was the WSOP week, and Howard taught Annie the basics of Texas Hold’em. A couple of trips to Las Vegas was all it would take for the competitive Duke to get hooked on the game, and in 1992 she left her studies to take up the game.

This was a very bold move indeed for a young woman who had just competed 5 years of Graduate School! Her poker career began in Billings, Montana, where she played the local tournaments. Big brother Howard taught her a few things, and after some small successes in Montana, he convinced her to enter her first WSOP tournament. She placed in 3 tournaments in her first year, and cashed out over $70,000 in winnings, and secured her future as a professional poker player.

Annie’s commitment to poker has paid big dividends for her; she has won major tournaments and even took the title (and $2 million pot) away from the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, knocking out 8 of the top players in the world along the way. She also does instructional seminars, and is even personal tutor to movie star Ben Affleck.

Perhaps the only thing that exceeds Annie’s commitment to Poker is her commitment to her family; she’s a mother to four children, and they will always take priority over Poker according to Annie.

When she does finally retire from the game, it’s safe to say she’ll be remembered as one of the all time greats, not one of the all time great women. Annie has proven herself against the top players in the game, irrespective of gender.

Vanessa Rousso Poker News

Vanessa Rousso can speak three languages. She’s a citizen of two countries, graduated from Duke in two and a half years, and one look at her academic resume (debate team, business club, mock trial, volunteer work and the Alpha Delta Pi sorority) conjures an image of an overachieving young woman not unlike Election’s Tracy Flick. Rousso has a knack for achieving her goals in record time and her rise in the poker world came on just as quickly. With less than three years of professional play behind her, Rousso has already earned close to $2 million playing tournament poker both live and online — all while earning a law degree on the side. Not bad for a 26-year-old.

Vanessa Rousso was born on February 5, 1983 in White Plains, NY. She grew up in Paris, living there until she was 10, when her parents divorced and her mother decided to return to the United States. Vanessa went with her and after moving around the east coast quite a bit, they finally settled down in Wellington, FL, where her mom worked as a high school guidance counselor. In high school, Vanessa showed advanced academic aptitude and graduated as her class valedictorian, earning a full scholarship to Duke University.

Rousso majored in economics and minored in political science at Duke. Several courses in game theory also drew her interest. She began playing backgammon and chess to apply the skills she’d learned in the classroom, but soon found herself taken with the mathematical and psychological aspects of poker. On track to graduate three semesters early, Rousso began playing online while she was applying to law schools. She was accepted to the University of Miami, and was offered a full scholarship. While at law school, Rousso turned 21 and was finally able to play live. The Hard Rock Seminole Casino was a short trip down the freeway and Rousso began making frequent trips, building her bankroll and gaining experience by playing $65 single-table sit-’n’-goes.

After completing her first year of law school in May 2005, Rousso traveled to New Orleans to play in a WSOP Circuit side event. She ended up finishing seventh in the $200 no-limit hold’em event, earning about $6,400. Buoyed by her success in the Crescent City, Rousso decided to hit up the World Series of Poker that summer. She cashed the ladies event in 45th place, and picked up an extra couple of grand when she won one of the Palms’ daily tournaments. In the fall she returned to law school, but played poker whenever she had a chance—either online or traveling to small buy-in tournaments on breaks. She made three cashes and two final tables in early 2006, her biggest score coming in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Event at Atlantic City’s WSOP-Circuit stop where she banked $17,550. That’s when Vanessa Rousso got a funny idea in her head — she wanted to play in the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championships.

To buy in directly would have nearly leveled her bankroll, so Rousso sought out backers, selling shares of herself to a number of friends to come up with the $25,000. With nothing more than a dream and a whole lot of chutzpah, Rousso sat down amidst poker’s elite and much to everyone’s surprise, she ground her way to a seventh-place finish and a $263,625 score, busting on the TV final-table bubble when her A-K fell to James Van Alstyne’s A-J. Her breakout performance at Bellagio put her on everyone’s radar, and soon she was signed to a sponsorship deal as a member of Team Poker Stars Pro. It’s also where she met the man who would become her fiancé, Chad Brown, who finished the tournament right behind her in ninth place.

Rousso cashed three times at the 2006 WSOP, her best finish coming in $5,000 Short-handed No-Limit Hold’em, where she finished eighth. She cashed the 2006 WPT Legends of Poker in 42nd place and appeared on the WPT’s Ladies Night Out IV, where she finished fifth. Returning to the east coast in September, Rousso ended up taking down her first major event, winning the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event at the Borgata Poker Open. The win was Rousso’s largest-ever live score, at $285,540.

In the two years that followed, Rousso added three WPT cashes, three WSOP cashes, and two WSOP-Circuit cashes to her growing C.V. She also made her largest tournament cash ever – via an online event – when she finished second in the PokerStars WCOOP Main Event for $700,000. Rousso also made several appearances on NBC’s “Poker After Dark,” winning $120,000 in a six-handed, winner-take-all sit-’n’-go with the theme “Gus and the Ladies” featuring Gus Hansen, J.J. Liu, Erica Schoenberg, Beth Shak, Clonie Gowen, and Rousso. She also started traveling on PokerStars’ Latin American and European Poker Tours, notching a tenth-place finish at the 2008 LAPT-Punta del Este and a 39th-place finish at the 2008 EPT London. It looked like Rousso was headed for her first WPT final table at the 2009 Southern Poker Championship in Biloxi last month, but she ended up with another break-your-heart seventh-place finish, bubbling the televised final table once again.

When she’s not living out of her suitcase on the tournament circuit, Vanessa Rousso lives in Las Vegas with her husband-to-be, Chad Brown.