Vanessa Selbst Wins PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller To Become Female Tournament Earnings Leader

Vanessa Selbst has won the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 high roller no-limit hold’em event, earning $1,424,420 and as a result overtook Kathy Liebert to become the all-time winningest female poker player in the history of live tournaments with $6,996,315 in lifetime earnings. In addition to the money and the title, Selbst also scored 1,260 Card Player Player of the Year points, moving into fourth in the POY overall standings.

This event drew a record turnout of 204 entries, building a prize pool of $4,998,000. After two long days of play, Shaun Deeb entered the final table as the chip leader with roughly 25 percent of the chips in play. Selbst took the fourth largest stack into the final day, but soon had overtaken Deeb after winning a gigantic hand against Ole Schemion, who fired a huge all-in bluff on the river with ace high into Selbst’s kings-full.

Perhaps the largest hand of the tournament came when Selbst raised the small blind to 75,000 with AK and Deeb defended the big blind with A10. The flop brought the 1032 and Selbst bet 60,000. Deeb announced a raise to 208,000 and Selbst three-bet to 465,000. Deeb shoved all-in for roughly 1.5 million in chips, and after some time in the tank, Selbst elected to call with just ace-king high on the dry board. She saw the bad news that she was reverse-dominated and drawing to only three-outs, and looked to be two cards away from losing the largest pot of the tournament. The 9 changed nothing on the turn, but the K changed everything, giving Selbst a pair of kings and the massive pot. Deeb hit the rail in fifth place with $289,880.

Selbst had soon made her way to heads-up play with a more than 3-to-1 chiplead over Vladimir Troyanovskiy. The Russian was consistently ground down, but was able to double up twice, keeping his hopes alive. Those dreams of a historic comeback were dashed when Troyanovskiy got the last of his stack in with KK against Selbst’s AQ, only to have Selbst once again hit a three-outer when the board ran out 82210A.

“I’ll take it,” said Selbst after the last card hit the river. “I just ran ridiculously hot at this final table.”

With that, Selbst secured her 11th career title, while Troyanovskiy was sent to the rail with $792,180 for his runner-up finish. He also garnered 1,050 POY points, catapulting him into fifth in the overall standings. This was the second largest payday of Selbst’s young but already illustrious career.

“I’m just really happy to win,” Selbst told PokerStar’s livestream commentator Joe Stapleton. “Any title is awesome, and I have never won a high roller before, It feels really great to be able to beat the best.”

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at this final table:

As a result of the win Selbst has climbed to 39th place in the all-time live tournament tournament earnings list with just shy of $7 million. She has also taken over the top spot on the all-time female live tournament earnings list with a more than $1.1 million lead over second-ranked Kathy Liebert, and a lead of more than $3.5 million on the next nearest competitor, Annette Obrestad.

In less than seven years on the tournament circuit, Selbst has made 14 cashes worth six-figures or more, including two seven-figure wins. She has two World Series of Poker bracelets and a number of other huge titles including a win in the 2011 Partouche Poker Tour main event and back-to-back wins in the North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun main event.

Here is a look at the top-ten female tournament pros based on live earnings:

Photo courtesy of PokerStars/Neil Stoddart.

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