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:

  1. Anonymous3:10 PM

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

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

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