Another Poker First for Vanessa Selbst

Vanessa Selbst is one of the fastest rising stars in poker. She quietly came to the live tournament poker scene in 2006 and 2007, having built a name for herself in the online poker world and via training sites.

Her third place in the 2007 World Series of Poker $5K No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up World Championship was impressive, and she won a ladies-only tournament at the L.A. Poker Classic the following year. But in the summer of 2008, she not only finished third in the $10K NLHE Heads-Up World Championship for the second year in a row, but she won a bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event.

Selbst only went up from there. She went on to win major titles and collect so much in live tournament earnings that she began passing names like Annette Obrestad and Annie Duke on the all-time women’s earnings list. She eventually passed longtime record holder Kathy Liebert and soared above. Selbst now has nearly twice the earnings of Liebert.

More importantly, Selbst gained respect from the poker community at large. She was recognized as a player, not a female player.

Last week, she made history again. She became the first woman to reach the top spot on the Global Poker Index worldwide rankings. As she won her third WSOP bracelet in Las Vegas, she passed names like Philipp Gruissem, Scott Seiver, Daniel Negreanu, and Ole Schemion on the list and took her place at the top.