Poker News

One of those double eviction nights, so we here at Poker News Daily will bypass our usual public service announcement and state you should have seen this episode!

Just a couple of weeks ago on the hook for being tossed out of the game, poker professional Vanessa Rousso has made a startling recovery on the CBS reality show Big Brother to now having a decent shot at winning the $500,000 first prize. Along the way, however, she has drawn the ire of CBS executives and producers of the show for potentially trying to sway the game.

After earning her third stint as Head of Household a week ago Thursday, Rousso was quietly called into the “diary room” for a discussion with the producers. While it might be thought the conference was because of a special occurrence on the show this week, it was actually in response to what has been going on off the general airwaves. Rousso emerged from this meeting and gathered her alliance members Liz and Julia together for a meeting in the HoH room soon afterwards.

In years past, the hundreds of cameras around the house kept rolling, providing additional live programming for Big Brother on the cable channel Showtime. These 2-3 hour episodes sometimes provided more interesting material that what came up on the edited television broadcasts (the elimination episodes hosted by Julie Chen are live; any additional programming on CBS is usually edited footage from the week) and aired under the moniker Big Brother:  After Dark. This year, the extra coverage has aired on POP-TV (apparently Showtime wasn’t getting the hard-core inside story from the extra footage) and viewers apparently caught something that made them contact CBS and forced the producers of the show to have their meeting with Rousso.

During these off-hours shows, allegedly Rousso had been caught trying to make “outside the house” deals with some of the members of the Big Brother household, especially the twins Liz and Julia. Allegedly promises of divvying up the $500,000 prize pool, cars and other items were mentioned by Rousso, a strict no-no when it comes to the rules of the show. In meeting with the twins, Rousso said that she had been “spanked” and was only “joking” when discussing any arrangements. Only those that are in the household can know if these alleged grievances are true and what effect they will have on their future game.

Anyway, back to the REAL game. With Rousso in the HoH seat, the options were aplenty. Would Rousso put up James and Meg, who have been targeting her for some time? Would she go after Steve and John, who although quiet know how to mentally play the Big Brother game? Or would she realize that in her “Sixth Sense” alliance with Austin, Liz and Julia she would be the “odd man out?” The editing of this weekend’s program demonstrates how well Rousso knows where she is on the show and what plans she is making to counteract them.

The final two questions she addressed first. Knowing that if it came down to her “Sixth Sense” alliance members she would be going out in fourth, Rousso teamed up with Steve and John to tentatively form a separate alliance against Austin, Liz and Julia. She also gave the option to James and Meg to give her any information to use against any of the other houseguests in exchange for not being put on the eviction block, but they didn’t pass any information to her. As a result of Rousso’s actions and the other information she had, the only players she could put up for eviction were James and Meg.

That was fine until James won the Power of Veto for the week. He utilized that on himself and, after some deep thought, Rousso put Julia in his place. Knowing that she had the two “Sixth Sense” votes for Meg, Rousso only needed to lock up one more and utilized her new group with Steve and John to get that vote. As such, Meg was sent to the jury house by the Big Brother houseguests.

If this wasn’t enough, they crammed an entire week into the remainder of Thursday’s episode. Within 30 minutes a new Head of Household was crowned (Liz), two people put up for eviction (John and a devastated James, who had become close with Meg), a Power of Veto contest held (won by Julia, who left the nominations alone) and another player knocked out of the house (James, joining Meg in the jury house). As “Double Eviction Night” ended, Steve won the next Head of Household battle and the Big Brother competition reached a crucial point for Rousso.

Rousso is now faced with making a decision as to her allegiance. With her old mates in the “Sixth Sense” (Austin, Liz and Julia), Rousso knows that she won’t get any deeper than fourth place in the game. With her new partners John and Steve, she has a much better chance to get to the final three and have a great shot at getting to the $500K bounty at the end. With Steve in as the HoH this week it might be time for Rousso to make the split, but it could behoove her to continue to play both sides as long as possible.

It should be an interesting and entertaining coming week as we learn where Rousso’s allegiance lies. It could also be the determining factor as to whether Rousso can take the $500,000 prize for Big Brother or not.

4 Comments

  1. Judi says:

    Vanessa is above average in her strategic involvement with Big. brother. I am hoping she wins.

  2. Trish tohey says:

    It is dispectable that CBS allows her to get away with bribery as well as the others being used in that way. The bribery has been going in since the start.

  3. Anonymous says:

    unfair advantage and cbs is bias

  4. BigBrotherFan says:

    I only know of one instance that Vanessa told one of the twins she would have given her money from her own pocket if she was evicted, when Vanessa put her up as a pawn. Vanessa was called on it by production, and Vanessa had to tell the twin that was a gambling term or something. I don’t know of any other instances other than that one. But because there was ONE, of course Vanessa haters will blow it out of proportion, and make it into many more times than what it actually was.
    Truth be told, Vanessa is the ONLY one playing the game to it’s full potential against a bunch of whimps, and she is strategic enough, and a strong enough player to be able to keep herself safe, and to get others to follow her lead and advice. She does what’s best for her game…who wouldn’t. If Vanessa can Win it all, YEAH for her! She deserves it!

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