Vanessa Selbst Poker Strategy

Matt VIP• 8,082 Views • on 21/10/16

Casual poker enthusiasts may have a wrong idea about her poker skill just because Selbst participated in some unfortunate hands during televise tournaments and cash game events.

Vanessa Selbst is very interesting, highly intelligent and incredibly volatile poker player. She has three WSOP bracelets to her name, more than 10 million dollars in tournament winnings, a large library of quality strategy videos she created as a DeucesCracked coach and because of that it's impossible to deny that she can play some mean cards.

At the same time, Vanessa is mostly known by poker fans for her insane blowouts. Casual poker enthusiasts may have a wrong idea about her poker skill just because Selbst participated in some unfortunate hands during televise tournaments and cash game events.

Let's take a closer look at some of those spots and try to figure out what makes Vanessa's game so unpredictable and entertaining to watch.

Relentless Aggression

In this particular hand against Scott Seiver, Vanessa decided to go for an ambitious bluff that many other players couldn't really pull off. The flop cbet with 3c3d on a Ad5c2c was fairly standard. Vanessa had some decent equity and she could expect a fair amount of folds given the somewhat dry board texture. The turn gets really interesting. Conventional wisdom dictates that ace pairing the board and completing the flush should - in theory - be a terrible card to bet on for a number of reasons.

First of all, it's now harder for Vanessa to represent an AX type hand, and second of all clubs are a very real part of Scott's range even if Vanessa was blocking some number of those. However, both the Ac turn and 6c river make this particular board texture the absolute nightmare when it comes to the relative hand strength of hands like straights, flushes, and trips. While it could be argued that Vanessa was beating a good number of hands by the river if there ever was a board to turn a small flush draw into a bluff that one certainly qualifies.

It's impossible to evaluate exactly how good (or bad) this line was without knowing more about the table dynamics and player history but the fact that Vanessa has lines like this one in her arsenal is enough to constantly keep her opponents guessing.

Preflop Wars

Another play that many other players wouldn't be able to go for especially in a tournament setting. Again, it's impossible to honestly evaluate the quality of the play due to imperfect information, but the idea of shoving every pair over the top of an aggressive preflop bluffer isn't anything outrageous and many players use this approach on regular basis... though not necessarily in the context of an EPT tournament.

Vanessa's reaction to MacPhee's play was far from stellar as far as proper poker mindset is concerned, but it's also somewhat excusable based on setting and the fact that she clearly didn't expect that her opponent was capable of calling with a similar holding.

Unconventional Wisdom

From one aggressive play to another. This time around Vanessa proved her love for unorthodox lines with this little gem of a hand against Antonio Esfandiari. With Q9o blocking tons and tons of different pair and draw combinations (QTs, QJ, 9d8d, 9d7d, 9dJd etc. etc.) this was a prime spot for an aggressive play especially against someone like Antonio who - with all due respect - isn't really known for his amazing hero calls.

While most players would've continued their aggression on the turn by barreling on a card that gave them additional equity Selbst decided to utilize her knowledge about the stab-happy opponent and go for a check/raise instead.

After Antonio called, most players would just shut down on the river, and so Vanessa naturally went for an overbet bomb putting enough pressure on the opponent to cause him to release most if not all of his medium strength holdings.

You Live by The Sword...

So far one thing is certain - Vanessa Selbst is an ultra aggressive player. Her lines are so audacious and unorthodox that it's very hard to evaluate their quality. That's why it's probably best to leave that to Vanessa herself.

Selbst's reaction to this particular hand against Prahlad Friedman clearly shows that while her plays have a lot of merit to them and while they obviously worked very well for her over the years she can't help herself in some situations and has trouble taming her own aggression.

Again, her line and reasoning aren't entirely outrageous and while 6bets bluffs are not something that we see every day they can be viable given the adequate dynamic, info and history.

A Living Nightmare to Play Against

While most of the hands presented above can be considered blowouts they also paint a false and highly subjective picture of Vanessa's poker skill. She obviously couldn't stay on top of the poker world for so many years if her strategy wasn't +EV in the long run.

We're all attracted by extremes and that's why the YouTube clips of Vanessa's blowouts gained such a big viewership while thousands and thousands of extremely aggressive winning hands went unnoticed. This is a very important lesson for every poker player out there. Poker isn't really about the handpicked flashy plays, it's about staying consistent during the course of an entire career.

Vanessa Selbst has consistently been a nightmare to play against at the table and while that approach is bound to result in an occasional blunder it can also be extremely profitable and difficult to counter by other players.

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Author

Matt VIP

Matt is predominantly a mental game and planning expert, with a terrific knowledge of science, meditation, practical methods of improvement and of course, a good level of poker skill! Look out for his strategy articles and follow him for hi ... Read More