Most poker players are happy to win one major tournament in a year, and odds dictate that even that feat is a difficult one. Players who win two big events in one year are few and far between, and they are typically hailed as the next coming of poker greatness when they do such a thing. And in all fairness, the acclaim is well-deserved.

Vanessa Selbst did just that with $2,865,830 in live tournament winnings in the current year. And there is still more than a month left in it.

Many forget that her year started with two cashes at the 2010 Aussie Millions in Melbourne, including a seventh place finish in the heads-up event. In April, she played in the PokerStars-sponsored North American Poker Tour events at Mohegan Sun, where she promptly won the $4,700 buy-in no-limit hold’em Main Event for $750,000. She didn’t have a fabulous World Series of Poker during the summer, though she did make it to 476th place out of 7,319 players in the NLHE Main Event for $27,519. At the European Poker Tour stop in Tallinn in August, which was her first foray out of the U.S. as a member of Team PokerStars Pro, she finished fourth in the heads-up tournament for €11,400. And shortly thereafter, she headed over to Cannes, France, for the Partouche Poker Tour stop, where she promptly made her way through the 764-player field of the €7,750 buy-in NLHE Main Event and hit the final table, though the players then went on a several-month hiatus before reconvening in November to play it out. During that break, she finished fourth at the EPT London high-roller tournament for £145,000. And in November, she returned to Cannes and won the Partouche tournament for a whopping €1,300,000.



Let’s also not forget that she was not a full-time player in 2010. If her accomplishments that included two major tournament victories and millions of dollars in earnings weren’t impressive enough, Selbst was also attending law school for several of those months and handling an internship. And as a new member of the PokerStars team, she played a good deal of online poker and fulfilled obligations per her sponsorship agreement.

We should also mention that her performance this year has catapulted her into third place on the all-time live tournament female-earned money list, with her $3.7 million only trailing Annie Duke in second and Kathy Liebert in first. And on the 2010 list of money earners, she is in sixth place, with the five players in front of her - Duhamel, Racener, Cheong, Mizrachi, and Candio - all members of the WSOP November Nine. Take the WSOP out of the picture, and she has earned more money than any other poker player in 2010.

All in a year’s work? One might think so by the ho-hum treatment her 11-month performance has garnered in the poker media. Though her recent win wasn’t ignored by most outlets, it was certainly glossed over in many of them. Part of the reason for that was surely the unfortunate timing of the Partouche final table - the same weekend as the WSOP November 9 - and most people couldn’t get past the Mizrachi spectacle and the tens of millions of dollars waiting to be awarded in Las Vegas. It was also unfortunate that one of the players at Selbst’s final table was accused of cheating and subsequently banned from playing the event. The WSOP and a live tournament cheater were certainly deserving of news, but as a result, a great poker accomplishment lacked the attention it deserved.

One could easily argue, on the other hand, that Selbst’s Partouche victory and stellar year have been downplayed by some in the poker media. It is more entertaining to discuss the fact that she has a girlfriend (tee hee, giggle giggle, hubba hubba) and that a poker player cheated his way to the same final table (gasp). Moreover, Selbst doesn’t have the same magazine cover appeal to the male poker masses as someone like Liv Boeree, who deservedly received praise for her 2010 EPT San Remo win, or even Maria Ho, who recently signed a sponsorship deal with UB and started singing with Tiffany Michelle.

How sexy is a law school student? Sure, it’s Yale, but there’s not much glamorous about an internship or studying for the bar exam. Does Selbst wear tight clothes and high heels to tournaments? Of course not; she’s a practical woman with a very busy schedule. Don’t men love the idea of lesbians? Sure, when they’re models and/or making out in public.

The fact that Selbst isn’t easily stereotyped or doesn’t fit into a category that the male-dominated poker community would enjoy relegates her to a position of missing out on some of the notoriety and publicity that many other players receive.

It is true that Selbst could still end up on the cover of one of the poker magazines before the year is over, and more articles could be written about her impressive year in poker. However, in glancing at the two major “player of the year” rankings, she is in third place via CardPlayer and doesn’t even crack the top ten via Bluff. Unless she wins yet another tournament in the next month and a half, she may lose honors to Tom Marchese and Sorel Mizzi.

I sincerely hope that the poker business steps up and gives her the attention she deserves for her poker abilities and the challenge of accomplishing a great deal in poker and in law school simultaneously. The industry could prove me wrong on this one, and I would like to see that happen.

See also He said: Selbst Getting Her Due