Vanessa Selbst’s recent victory in the North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun earned the Yale law school student a cool $750,000 first prize, moving her past the $1.65 million mark in total career tourney earnings. Her victory was a notable achievement in its own right, but also caused some to think about how rare -- relatively speaking -- it has been to see a woman win a major no-limit hold’em tournament.

Soon after Selbst’s triumph, some of us in the media began a conversation over Twitter in which we recalled how she was the last woman to win an open bracelet event at the World Series of Poker. I remembered the event well -- the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event in 2008 (Event No. 19). I happened to have helped cover that one, and recalled how as happened at the NAPT Mohegan Sun event, Selbst accumulated a lot of chips early on in the 2008 WSOP PLO event, then took a big lead to the final table where she continued to use aggression against the smaller stacks on her way to victory.

I remembered also how Selbst was one of only a few women in that event -- something like 10-15 out of 759 entrants total. I covered several PLO events that summer, and had noticed that not many women were turning out for those, never mind do well in them. Like a few other female players -- Annette Obrestad, Vanessa Rousso, Kathy Liebert, Sandra Naujoks, and Vicky Coren come to mind -- Selbst seems to be one of a select few women who have enjoyed success in tourneys when it comes to “big bet” games like PLO or no-limit hold’em.

But it does seem like a select few we’re talking about.

Our Twitter conversation continued, and I asked who was the last woman to win a no-limit hold’em bracelet in an open event at the WSOP, excluding Obrestad’s win in the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event. Several chimed in with guesses, though none were correct. Soon it became apparent that I had somewhat unwittingly asked a trick question. There was no “last woman” to win such an event. None have.

There have been 12 women to win bracelets in open events (that is, events that were not ladies-only, seniors-only, or for casino employees) at the WSOP, and none of those victories were in no-limit hold’em events. Most of those wins were in limit events (e.g., limit hold’em, stud, razz, Omaha/8). The closest was Barbara Enright winning a pot-limit hold’em bracelet in 1996. And Selbst’s win was the only one in PLO. Enright was, of course, also the only woman ever to make a WSOP Main Event final table, finishing fifth in 1995. None has ever won a World Poker Tour Main Event title, either.

Addressing this relative “drought” of women succeeding in high-profile NLHE tourneys, James McManus has suggested that “tournament-style gambling apparently isn’t something the average woman is biologically inclined to sign up for.” McManus advances this idea in a chapter titled “The Biology and Eros of No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments” in his 2009 history of poker, Cowboys Full.

McManus marshals together quite a bit of evidence to support his hypothesis. He cites an academic study that concluded men generally accept risks as well as invite competition more readily than do women -- not the only such study, of course. Then he quotes an anthropologist explaining how evolution has played a role here, too, having ensured that men who are willing to take risks have been rewarded with greater reproductive opportunities, while such a willingness has not been as significant a factor for women. McManus also talks about how “testosterone, a hormone closely linked with both stamina and competitiveness,” could be relevant here, as well as social conventions that allow men -- particularly younger men -- “fewer family responsibilities than women” and thus place them in positions where financial risks might be more readily taken.

That’s quite a list, one which includes psychological, anthropological, physiological, and sociological/cultural explanations for why men are more likely to gravitate toward no-limit hold’em tourneys. McManus adds a few more thoughts to the mix, but you get the idea -- for a variety of reasons (not solely biological, it turns out), men are more “inclined to sign up for” and, apparently, succeed in NLHE events.

So is McManus onto something here? Can we point to nature and/or nurture and find ready explanations for why men might be better suited for no-limit hold’em tournaments than women?

No-limit hold’em tournaments do tend to reward aggressive play. Additionally, those who regularly play higher buy-in events are obviously of the sort who do not mind taking risks. Anyone -- man or woman -- who willingly plunks down $5,000 or $10,000 along with hundreds or thousands of others with a goal of outlasting 90% of the field and realizing some sort of profit is clearly a person who can handle risks. So when we are talking about WSOP or WPT events, or other big buy-in, “big bet” tourneys, we expect to see a field of entrants who are not averse to being aggressively competitive and who (aside perhaps from satellite winners) are okay with taking financial risks.

That said, the factors McManus catalogues do suggest that when it comes to finding this particular sort of player, we probably are more likely to find that player to be a man than a woman. And I suppose those same factors could be cited to help explain why men succeed more often than women do in no-limit hold’em tourneys, although that result would be expected given the disparity of numbers one finds among the usual percentages of entrants.

Is there a problem here to speak of? I don’t necessarily think so. Anyone who consistently performs well in no-limit hold’em tourneys deserves acclaim for his or her achievements. And if it is a woman who has distinguished herself in this way, we might be inspired to remark on the uniqueness of that happening, and perhaps revisit some of these suggestions for why it is unique.

But really, those who consistently make final tables and take down these no-limit hold’em tourneys are all extraordinary -- and different from most of us, be they men or women.

Read:  She Said