Final-Table Takedown: Vanessa Selbst Uses Dead-On Reads to Dodge Bullets and Trap Opponents

Vanessa Selbst, 26, is a Team PokerStars pro. She also works as an executive producer and private poker coach at DeucesCracked, where she produces a tournament-strategy podcast called “Tournamentality.” Selbst has won three major-tournament titles — at the 2008 World Series of Poker, the 2010 North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun main event, and the main event of the Partouche Poker Tour. She has more than $3.7 million in tournament winnings, amassed in just four years of part-time play, and currently is in third place on the women’s all-time tournament money list. In her time away from poker, Selbst attends Yale Law School, with hopes of eventually working on civil rights issues.
Event 2010 Partouche Poker Tour main event
Players in the Event 764
Buy-in $9,809
First Prize $1,823,430
Finish First

Hand No. 1
Stacks: Vanessa Selbst – 6,800,000 Raphael Kroll – 5,500,000
Blinds: 30,000-60,000
Antes: 5,000
Players Remaining: 5
Key Concepts: Game flow; stack protection in late-stage tournament play
Raphael Kroll raises to 140,000 from the cutoff.
Craig Tapscott: Set the stage in regard to any preflop history that you may have had with Kroll before this hand?
Vanessa Selbst: Well, Raphael and I had been the most aggressive players at the table, and I had been using my position and betting him pretty hard the entire time. So, we had an aggressive dynamic going together.
Selbst reraises to 320,000 from the button with the K♦ K♣. Kroll reraises to 740,000.
CT: If you two had a very aggressive dynamic going, K-K figures to be an exceptionally good hand five-handed for your button three-betting range, right?
VS: Normally, yes, and normally I would five-bet and stack off without thinking twice about it, but I thought this situation was different.
CT: How so?
VS: Well, first of all, right before the dinner break, I had run an unsuccessful three-barrel bluff on Raphael, and he picked me off with a very weak hand. I also had lost some other pots, so I was on a steady decline in chips. Earlier, I had held a huge lead over the table. Combine that with the fact that it was the first hand after dinner, and I thought it was much less likely than normal that Raphael would be four-betting me light.
CT: Anything else that would weigh heavily into your decision about how to proceed?
VS: I also thought that the stacks were interesting here; we both had position on the weakest player at the table, who had a big stack, and the other two stacks were short. So, based on that, I thought it was less likely that Raphael would four-bet a hand like Q-Q or A-K, just because there was a good chance that he’d want to play those hands conservatively in order to avoid a coin flip, with so much value in both of our table and chip positions. Put those pieces of logic together and I’m looking at a range mostly of A-A and bluffs, and one that I think is heavily skewed toward A-A rather than bluffs. So, my kings shrank quite a bit, considering the situation. Based on all of this, I elected to …
Selbst calls.
CT: So, now what’s the plan on the flop? And how is Kroll going to view your hand range?
VS: I was planning to call on the flop and shut down if Raphael continued betting. I think calling a four-bet shows strength, and he wouldn’t risk barreling off, considering that I can have a huge hand, and I also have shown a propensity to call him light. I also thought that a hand like Q-Q was still somewhat possible, but that he’d slow down if I called him on a raggedy flop, as he’d be concerned about my having a better hand. I thought that if he two-barreled me on really any board, he was very likely to have A-A.
Flop: A♦ Q♠ 6♣ (pot: 1,595,000)
Kroll bets 540,000. Selbst calls.
Turn: 2♥ (pot: 2,675,000)
Kroll bets 1,150,000. Selbst folds. Kroll wins the pot of 2,675,000.
CT: How did you feel about the fold after the hand was over? Is it an easier fold with the ace on the flop?
VS: Honestly, I still thought his range was mostly A-A and bluffs, and if that’s the case, neither the ace nor the queen on the board really changes very much. Although, the ace might slow him down on his bluffs, because he might put me on it. I would have folded on a raggedy board, too, because there’s less of a chance of him barreling, since it seems like I have an overpair. But, at the end of the day, I just felt that he had a very big hand, and despite the fact that I had a hand that was obviously at the top of my three-betting range, I didn’t think it was profitable to go with it, especially considering that I still had a big stack with position on the weak player, who also had a lot of chips.

Hand No. 2
Stacks: Vanessa Selbst – 5,100,000 Ibrahim Raouf – 5,500,000
Blinds: 30,000-60,000
Antes: 5,000
Players Remaining: 5
Key Concepts: Playing the player; disguising hand strength preflop to maximize value against bluffs
Ibrahim Raouf raises to 240,000 from the cutoff. Selbst calls from the small blind with the J♠ J♣.
CT: What’s the thinking behind your call with a pretty strong hand against a cutoff raise?
VS: Ibrahim had been relatively tight up until this point. And because he opened so big, I elected to just call, as I thought that if a lot of money went in preflop, we would be coin-flipping, which I did not want. Also, if I just called, I would disguise my hand and encourage Ibrahim to bluff, which I know that he loves to do.
Flop: 10♣ 9♦ 8♦ (pot: 565,000)
Selbst bets 200,000.
CT: Why did you choose to lead out?
VS: I had a very good hand here, and Ibrahim had been checking behind on a lot of flops. I knew, based on playing with him earlier, that he was likely to peel the flop with almost any two cards if I made a small bet, so that’s what I was hoping he would do.
Raouf calls.
Turn: 9♣ (pot: 965,000)
Selbst bets 500,000. Raouf raises to 1,050,000.
CT: That’s kind of a weird line for him to take here. It’s pretty much a min-raise [minimum-raise].
VS: Normally, a min-raise on a paired board can be quite scary, as it seems like it wants a call and might very well be a full house already. I also thought it was possible that Ibrahim was just milking me with a 9 here. It was more likely, however, that he was bluffing with a weak hand with which he continued on the flop and wanted to maximize fold equity later. By min-raising, he leaves a very large stack behind to bully me with on the river.
Selbst calls.
River: 7♠ (3,065,000)
Selbst checks. Raouf moves all in.
CT: Pretty good river card, right?
VS: Well, once again, against his range, the 7 is less irrelevant than it otherwise would be. Most people in this spot would be representing a full house or nothing with such a massive overbet on the river. At the same time, I know that this player in particular loves the phrase, “All in,” so I thought that sometimes when I called, we would be chopping the pot. That made it a slightly easier call, but not too much. The mistake of calling and losing would cost me my tournament, but the mistake of folding when we could have chopped would cost me only 1 million out of a stack of 5 million. I had to be pretty convinced that he was bluffing here to make this call.
CT: So, how do you go about making such a critical decision?
VS: At the end of the day, it came down to a read. I thought Ibrahim was getting antsy and wanted to put his stack in the middle. His opening raise of four times the big blind showed me that a bit; sure, it could have meant that he had a huge hand preflop, but it also could have meant that he just wanted to play. Since he no longer could have had a hand that was huge preflop (like A-A, K-K, A-K, or something), I figured that he just wanted to play. And based on that, I figured that he was liable to make a huge move if I gave him some rope. That’s why I donk-bet into him a few times, and why I eventually made the call on the end. Luckily, I was right. This pot propelled me into a massive chip lead, and I never looked back from there.
Selbst calls. Raouf mucks. Selbst wins the pot of 10,275,000. ♠