So, here's a case where a player makes a deal then wins. I'm sure she's happy but sometimes you wonder...

South Florida's Vanessa Rousso, who's been in print more this year almost as much as Barack Obama, prevailed in the €720,000 first-prize tournament in Monte Carlo.

Poker News has the story.

UPDATED: Turns out the player she beat in the heads-up portion was Fort Lauderdale resident Randy Dorfman, 51. I'll do a separate update on him later this afternoon.

The gist, to me: When it got to the final three, they all agreed to a €450,000 deal, with another €150,000 going to the winner. So instead of winning €720,000 (about $1 million), she got €600,000 (about $800,000 by my math). Chopping up the prize money is common when it gets late in a tournament; I look at it as buying insurance, kind of.

I'm emailing her for a further quote on how she feels about that. After you read the details in the Poker News story, tell me what you think.

So far this year, Rousso finished second in the National Heads-Up Championship, started a poker boot camp and posed for a two-page advertorial spread in Sports Illustrated.

For you Twitterers, she Twittered her tourney: go to http://twitter.com/VanessaRousso.