Wednesday, April 08, 2009

You gotta know when to hold em...

Check out this cool story about a Yale Law School student who doubles as a professional poker player. From the end of the story:

After graduating from Yale in 2005 with a degree in political science, Selbst pursued a Fulbright Scholarship in Madrid. When she returned the next summer, she turned pro and, within a year, won the first of her World Series payouts, taking her game to the final table of the No-Limit Hold-Em event, which ESPN broadcast, and banking $101,285 for her seventh-place finish.In the summer of 2007, Selbst again reached the WSOP finals and took home $140,000.Before returning to New Haven for law school, on June 12, Selbst won the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the WSOP, taking home her first bracelet and $227,933 in winnings"People still say to me, 'Oh, you play poker. Do you make a living at that?'" Selbst says."I'm going to try to make it out for a couple of tournaments, if I can, this summer, but everything is up in the air until I find a summer job. Law school kind of gets in the way of it all."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seems like I saw that in a pleading once upon a time...

Michael Froomkin said...

U. Miami law had a student, Vanessa Rousso, who played while getting her degree and is now full time on the poker circuit and seems to be one of the top figures on it.

Michael Masinter said...

The newspaper reporter doesn't know much about poker. Deep stack play does not describe a game played with lots of decks (we're talking poker, not pan); it describes a game with a high ratio between the buy-in and the blind. In a deep stack play game, players may bet many times the blind before exhausting their stack; the large range of possible bets reduces the likelihood of going all in, increases the likelihood of large (relative to the blind) pre-flop bets, and encourages more conservative play since you can fold and wait without the ante and periodic blinds exhausting your stack. In a short stack game, all in bets are routine; conservative play is dangerous since antes and blinds can exhaust your stack before a decent hand appears.