Vanessa Selbst, born on July 9, 1984 in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from the Yale University. She has been making a name for herself in the World Series of Poker in the recent years. She is the 2008 $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha event champion and became the first female player to win a WSOP open event that year since Katja Thater in 2007. In time she decided to return to study law and to work on behalf of human rights issues.
The 23-year-old student played varsity tennis and hockey at M. I. T. In Yale she was a bright student and it was during her freshman year in college that she learned to play poker with her friends and the poker pro Alex Jacob. Vanessa Selbst says that the school where she had the better poker experience is Yale because there they had several great poker players, like Alex Jacob, Nate Mavis and others. She honed her game in cash games and developed a super-aggressive style.
Vanessa Selbst has had seven cashes in the World Series of Poker. Her first real shot at the big tournament was at the 2006 WSOP, where she made the final table of the $2,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event, finishing in seventh place and earning $101,285. It is interesting to know that at this event she eliminated the former World Champion Carlos Mortenson, who was Spanish. Vanessa Selbst has the right to be proud of herself for this, because she had studied in Spain and she herself says that everyone knows Carlos as a legend in Madrid-“the best player to ever come from there”.
Her next accomplishments are an eight-place finish at the 2007 WSOP Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Event, where she earned $20,480 and a third place finish in the 2007 WSOP $5,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em World Championship, beating Amir Vahedi, Doyle Brunson, Paul Wasika, Shannon Shorr and Peter Jetten and taking home $128, 968. In 2008 Vanessa Selbst won her first Poker Tour title, taking down the Ladies Championship event at the 2008 LA Poker Classic $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, after defeating the professional poker player Erica Schoenberg. Later, she came in second at the first-ever World Poker Tour Ladies Championship, earning $40,815.
Her greatest accomplishment, however, is her first-place finish at the 2008 World Series of Poker $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, winning her first gold bracelet and collecting $ 227,933. She defeated a lot of inexperienced players, with the exception of a few who had cashed in WSOP events before. She used her confidence and experience, eliminating a table, filled with men. And what is more, Vanessa Selbst followed that win with another third-place finish in the World Championship heads up No-Limit Hold'em event, earning $108,288.
Although Vanessa Selbst is considered to be one of the best female poker players, she shares that her goal is higher than that - she would like to be one of the best poker players, male or female. Besides poker, though, Vanessa Selbst is a producer of a website called Deuces Cracked- www.deucescracked.com , whose aim is to serve as an instruction course for poker players. She has trained more than 40 students as a poker coach and her fee is $350 per hour.
Vanessa Selbst makes her own living by playing poker, but she thinks that one should have a life aside from poker and could become a better poker player through what she calls proper balance. As she says in a post-tournament interview: “I really think it's important to do other things. We have to give something back”.
When she is not playing poker, she gives her time to a non-profit organization in Brooklyn, called “Make the Road by Walking”. She is also civically-active and politically-minded. As of 2008, her total live tournament winnings exceed $680,000