Vanessa Selbst has remarkably claimed her third bracelet in a $25,000 buy-in mixed-max no-limit hold’em event at the 2014 WSOP on Friday evening.
It has created some poker history as it means she has become the first female poker player to have won three WSOP tournaments. Barbara Enright is another female with three WSOP titles to her name, but two of those came when playing in women’s-only events. It’s not just an amazing feat for the female poker world, there are only sixty three players that have won a total of three or more bracelets in WSOP events.
Excited after taking down the event, this is what she had to say to WSOP.com,
“There’s no feeling like having your first gold bracelet. But there’s no feeling like having your third, either. They’re all pretty incredible.”
Once the tournament reached the end stages and got down to the final two players there was still a lot for Selbst to do, who was up against a very aggressive heads-up opponent. But true to Selbst’s style, she played the end of the tournament when the big money is on the line extremely well, ending up with all the chips in play.
For beating Jason Mo in the heads-up match of the mixed-max no-limit hold’em event she received an impressive $871,148, boosting her total tournament earnings to more than $10 million dollars. It now puts Selbst in the top twenty five of the all-time money earners list and banging on the door of the top twenty.
Already regarded as being the best female poker player in the world, but with this win under her belt, it must be said she is becoming regarded as being one of the best tournament poker players in the world, female or not. This win will also do no harm when it comes to the Global Poker Index rankings, which ranks tournament players based on their results over the last few years, and should see her climb up a spot or two.
Selbst’s opponent, Jason Mo receives $538,308 for finishing runner up in the event. Unfortunately, he also finished runner up when he busted out in a $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em WSOP event losing to Brian Hastings in 2012.
Mo entered the heads-up match holding a chip advantage over Selbst, but couldn’t hang on to those chips. Once Selbst gained the chip lead late in the final day’s play, she never let go of it, and it didn’t take long from there before she ended up with all of the chips. Interestingly, Selbst was short-stacked for long periods of the final stages of the tournament before going on to claim the title.
There were several other recognizable names that cashed in this event, including J.C. Tran for $290,6222, Matt Giannetti for $171,461, Aaron Jones for $112,752, and Nick Schulman for $63,158. In total, there was a field of 131 runners. It was a mix-max event, which means the beginning of the tournament started out as regular nine-handed no-limit hold’em. The second day of the mixed-max event changed to six-handed no-limit hold’em, and the third day it became four-handed. Then on the final day it concluded with heads-up play.
It’s certainly an interesting addition to the WSOP schedule, having debuted in the 2012 WSOP schedule. Due to the format of the tournament it requires participants to be well versed in a number of different forms of the game. It isn’t surprising that online poker grinders have featured well in this event, given the fact that most online players like to play six-handed and heads-up poker games online.