Vanessa Selbst Returns To Winning Ways At WSOP

Vanessa Selbst has had mixed fortunes at this year’s World Series of Poker; she began brightly with a final table in the second event, and has had two further small cashes in tournaments in which she looked as though she would make a deeper run than eventually proved the case.  She has also had quite a few very early exits, not surprisingly given her generally aggressive style of play.  But she bounced back yesterday to capture her second WSOP bracelet by winning the $2,500 Six-Handed Ten Game event.

Nineteen players came back for the final day, among whom were quite a few well-known names.  Bryn Kenney and 2012 bracelet winner Vincent van der Fluit hit the rail before the final table was set, but Chris Bjorin and Tom Chambers have a wealth of experience and made sure the final table would be no walk in the park.  Neither could survive until the heads-up however, which was contested by Selbst and Michael Saltzburg, himself a bracelet winner back in 2003.  Selbst began with close to a 5:1 chip advantage, and proceeded to win five of the six hands played in a round of 2-7 no limit single draw.  When she inflicted a quartering on Saltzburg in omaha hi/lo shortly afterwards, the tournament was nearly through, and a couple of hands into the 2-7 limit triple draw Selbst closed out her victory when she was dealt the nuts.

The final table positions and payouts were as follows:
1. Vanessa Selbst – $244,259
2. Michael Saltzburg – $150,849
3. Tommy Hang – $97,884
4. Chris Bjorin – $64,649
5. Tom Chambers – $43,099
6. Mike Gorodinsky – $30,169

The first day of the $1 million The Big One for One Drop event attracted a full field of forty eight players, producing a first prize in excess of $18 million.  The day will probably be best remembered for a fold by Mikhail Smirnov, who ditched quad eights face-up when the only possible hand he could be beaten by was a straight flush; opponent John Morgan did not show his hand and refused to comment afterwards.

Eleven players crashed out during the first day, including Jonathan Duhamel, Erik Seidel, Bertrand Grospellier, Nick Schulman, Eugene Katchalov and Mike Mizrachi – the latter recycling two-thirds of his prize for winning the Poker Players’ Championship back into the pot.  Brian Rast had the best day; he closed with more than ten million chips to his name, ahead of Phil Hellmuth, Frederic Banjout and Antonio Esfandiari.  Gus Hansen, who won his place through a satellite, finished the day in fifth, while Sam Trickett in sixth was the best of the four Brits in the events.  Those in immediate danger on the second day include Daniel Negreanu and Phil Galfond, both of whom have fewer than half a million chips remaining.

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