Winning a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet at the age of 23 is an incredible feat. Accomplishing such a victory as a woman is even more remarkable. But when that young lady also happens to be a lesbian who is out and proud … well that’s the stuff of major headlines, and that headliner is Vanessa Selbst.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1984, Vanessa Selbst started playing poker online as a teenager as a way of earning a little extra cash. After graduating from high school, she attended Yale University to major in Political Science, partly financed by her success at the virtual tables of the Internet and at live No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha cash games.
Upon obtaining her Bachelor’s degree, Selbst’s intention was to go on to Yale Law School for post-graduate studies. She saw herself becoming an attorney with a specialty in the field of civil rights law. However, that plan did not take into account how lucrative her extra-curricular poker activity would become—worth over $4.9 million in earnings over the course of just half a dozen years.
Selbst’s first breakthrough came in 2006, when she made her first WSOP final table. She was playing in the $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event, finishing 7th for a payday worth $101,285. The following year she showed everyone that her talents had improved by taking 3rd place in the $5,000 Championship Heads-Up event for $128,968.
The stage was then set for some real news making. At the 2008 WSOP gathering in Las Vegas, she outlasted a tough field of 759 competitors to capture the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event. Along with the title and bracelet, she took home $227,993. At that same confab, she nabbed two other cashes playing No Limit Hold’em to add $122,426 more to her total, while “earning the respect of the poker world along the way.”
In 2009, tuition being no particular burden, Selbst skipped the WSOP action to concentrate on her law studies at Yale and get involved with political issues, especially the fight for social justice. She became the head of the Yale Queer-Straight Alliance. She also took a little time to enjoy some of her other favorite pursuits, such as playing basketball, tennis and games like pool and darts.
In 2010, however, it was once again poker that commanded Selbst’s attention. She scored a massive $750,000 win by taking down the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Mohegan Sun Main Event. Then she finished 4th at the EPT London High Roller event for $226,910 before claiming victory at the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event for a whopping $1,648,470—the biggest cash of her career to date. Her notoriety also earned her a membership on Team PokerStars, where goes by the moniker “V. Selbst.”
In 2011, “V” returned to the NAPT Mohegan Sun event to make history. She won it again—the first player ever to succeed in the same PokerStars live event two years running. That win was worth $450,000. She also picked up four more WSOP cashes worth $61,341 in 2010-11, plus 3rd place in the 2011 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $338,351. Those numbers put her ahead of Annie Duke and right behind Kathy Liebert as the winningest woman in poker history—not bad for a grad student.
But Vanessa Selbst is nowhere near the end of her epoch-making foray into the top ranks of pokerdom. She finished up her law degree in 2012, relocated from Montclair, New Jersey to Toronto, Canada, and continued her winning ways by capturing a $5,000 Buy-in event at the Los Angeles Poker Classic worth just over $140,000. That has moved her closer to the top of the women’s all-time earnings list, now trailing Liebert’s $5,837,481 by less than a million dollars.
Although Selbst’s status as a “woman who likes women” has gained her even greater celebrity status in some circles and ridicule in others, the fact remains that poker has long been a male-dominated sport. It is refreshing to see a young woman challenging the status quo. Some predict that Vanessa Selbst will break through other “glass ceilings” as she continues to rise. As one observer put it, she is “not only well on her way to being one of the best female poker players of all-time, but also as one of the best players period.”