Vanessa Selbst is interviewed at the PokerStars cocktail party from the World Series of Poker at the official gathering announcing that she is now a member of Team PokerStars Pro. She joins the team along with David Williams, who was coming off a win at the WPT Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Selbst herself was coming off a win at the PokerStars sponsored North American Poker Tour, otherwise known as the NAPT which was aired on ESPN from the Mohegan Sun. Her first place finish in that $5,000 tournament earned her a cool $750,000. Back in 2008 she won the Los Angeles Poker Classic WPT Ladies Event ($1,000 entry), defeating fellow pro Erica Schoenberg. A professional poker table with numerous final tables to her name, Selbst won the 2008 World Series of Poker $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. She plays online at PokerStars under the name “V. Selbst” often found in the major tournaments at PLO tables.
Selbst is a native of New York and graduated from Yale University. She is currently attending Yale Law School with the intention of becoming a lawyer in the field of civil rights law, all the while playing poker professionally. Selbst is known to many online players through her many training video series, specifically ones for Pot Limit Omaha, at Deuces Cracked where she is an Executive Producer.
In this interview with Sean Gibson, Selbst talks about the notoriety she receives at tables due to her coaching videos and how it’s come to bite her, specifically in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha WSOP tournament this year. She also discusses how the deal with PokerStars came about and what it means to be a part of their list of sponsored pros.
To date, Selbst’s total live tournament earnings amount to slightly more than $1.67 million and her seven cashes in World Series of Poker events amount to just over $600,000 of that amount.