Vanessa Selbst is the most successful female poker player of all time in terms of career winnings, which total over $9 million. She was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1984 and is currently 29 years of age.
Vanessa has plenty of smarts behind her, and is a graduate of Yale University and also holds a law degree from the school, having recently taken a couple of years off from the professional poker playing scene to complete it. She has a passion for social issues and is intending to pursue these interests further once her professional poker playing days are over.
They are far from over now though, and she has accomplished much over her relatively short career and continues to do so. She got her start playing online poker about 10 years ago, which eventually led to live tournament play as well, and she hasn’t looked back since.
She first rose to prominence through some impressive finishes at the World Series of Poker. In 2006, she made her first final table at the WSOP. The next year she finished tied for third in a WSOP heads up event. She continued her progress in 2008 when she finished tied for third once again in the same tournament, and also won her first WSOP bracelet, in a pot limit Omaha event.
She has gone on to add a second WSOP bracelet since, and has a total of 5 final tables to her credit, in addition to 16 total cashes. Her total WSOP winnings exceed one million dollars.
In 2010, she won the Poker Stars’ sponsored Mohegan Sun championship on the North American Poker Tour, pocketing a cool three quarters of a million dollars for her efforts. Amazingly enough, she won the championship at the Mohegan Sun the following year as well, becoming the only player to win this title back to back.
Vanessa’s poker successes have extended to the World Poker tour as well, although she has been less prominent on that scene. Although she has yet to win a WPT title, she has finished second in one major event and third in another, both leading to very significant paydays.
Her biggest payoff though was at a Partouche Poker Tour event in France where she pocketed almost two million dollars for the win. She also has won a Pokerstars Carribean Adventure high roller tournament, resulting in another $1.4 million being deposited to her bank account.
Vanessa also still finds time to play online as well, as one of the sponsored pros at PokerStars. The future certainly looks bright for her and she should continue to do very well on the poker scene.
