Vanessa Selbst

Bio

Vanessa Selbst is a professional poker player and a member of Team Pokerstars Pro, where she plays under the username “V. Selbst.” Selbst has made five final tables at the World Series of Poker, and has one WSOP bracelet in 2008 in a $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event. Selbst had the best year of her career in 2010, when she won the North American Poker Tour stop at Mohegan Sun for $750,000, finished 4th at the EPT London High Roller Event for over $200,000, and won the Partouche Poker Tour main event in Cannes for over $1.8M. She once again made waves in 2011, finishing in the quarterfinals of the NBC Heads Up Championship for $75,000, third at the WPT Five Diamond for $338k, and pulling off an incredible back-to-back victory at the NAPT Mohegan Sun. Thus far in 2012, Selbst has already captured one title: a victory in a $5K buy-in event at the Los Angeles Poker Classic, good for just over $140k. Selbst’s live tournament earnings now total over $4.9M, and she is in 2nd place on the women’s all time earnings list.

In addition to being a successful poker player, Vanessa is also an executive producer and private poker coach at DeucesCracked. She had made dozens of instructional videos in various disciplines of poker. She has also coached over 70 students, and currently focuses on live tournament coaching. In her time away from poker, Selbst managed to complete a law degree at Yale Law School. She graduated in January 2012 and plans to use her law degree some time in the future to fight for racial justice and economic equality, and against police misconduct and government abuse of authority. Selbst hopes to earn enough money to eventually fund a foundation dedicated to the creation of national civil rights projects.

Video — NAPT Mohegan Sun

Latest from the Blog

Happy new year everyone!

I don’t know about you all, but personally, I’m ready for the next step of life. I’ve already sent in my SAW, which is the paper everyone is required to write before graduation (mine was on Glik v. Cunniffe and the future of the First Amendment right to record the police or other government officials doing their official duties). Now I have two finals to go, and I’ll be done with them in 4 days. I’m almost ready for the finals, but I’m very ready to be done with them. I’ve really enjoyed law school during some points, but in the recent past it’s felt like a weight pulling me down, distracting me from doing all of the things I want to do. I realized recently that it is not that difficult to balance law school with poker playing, but it seems to be incredibly challenging to balance law school with a career as a professional poker player. I don’t work on my game very much, I don’t learn new games, I don’t update my website often enough, I never play cash games, I don’t have time to coach, and I don’t pursue other poker-related projects that I’ve thought about or had friends speak with me about. These activities always take a backseat to the poker playing itself, but it’s important to do them all to really become and stay one of the best (and most profitable) poker players out there. These are the things I’m excited about doing again… in just 4 days.

More here.

Coaching Tip of The Month

Question (submitted by Rob): I play quite a lot of hold em playing once a week live in tournaments in a league over 13 weeks that rolls all through the year and then most nights online in sit n go's. I am reaching more and more final tables however seem to finish more often than not around 6th place. I was wondering if you have any advice on final tables as I seem to either get blinded out or have a strong hand and be beaten by a monster hand which I know is going to happen a fair bit but cant find a happy medium. So I guess my main question is what is the best way to stop bleeding chips rapidly on the final table and then be forced all in on an average hand. Answer: I think the key is to play more aggressively before you get to the point where you are short stacked at the final table. If you find yourself with a big stack on the bubble, make sure to play very aggressively (3-betting preflop, firing multiple barrels) to put the short stacks in uncomfortable spots in order to chip up. Take advantage of resteal situations (i.e. a very aggressive player raises and someone else calls, you have 17-20BB, you can shove a very wide range here) at the final table. Don't be afraid of busting on an aggressive play. As long as it makes sense and you can justify your reasoning, it usually is never really a bad thing. When you get under 20BB, don't open raise in early position with anything speculative (even KJ should be folded) because you can't stand any pressure, and it's an easy way to bleed chips. A 15-20BB stack is best used as a weapon for successful resteals that can net you a lot of chips, and open-raising with speculative hands that you later will have to fold very often is a surefire way to bleed your chips down into the danger zone.