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  Chip leaders have been an endangered species this year at the World Series of Poker. Most of them start off the final table at the top of the food chain and end the tournament as an obscure footnote to somebody else's amazing comeback. While the bars at the Rio have been filled with formerly potent chip leaders who seemed to need some poker Cialis to make it all the way to the climax, Vanessa Selbst doesn't seem to have had that problem. She finished each day of the tourney with the chip lead, including the only day that really matters - the last one.



  She started the day with the sort of commanding chip lead that could have only been overcome if ESPN accidently dropped a boom mic and television camera on her head. Even then her opponents would have also probably needed that cartoon foot from Monte Python to squash whatever was left. She started off fast and quickly eliminated Ken Lairson from the tournament. He was gone in 9th place. Selbst also eliminated Craig Natte in 6th place, beat Eugene Todd's Aces with a boatload of Jacks to eliminate him in fourth place, but allowed Stanley Statkiewicz to double up through her.



  While unwillingly subsidizing Statkiewicz's continued run for the championship, she also lost a hand to Jamie Pickering that allowed him to double the size of his stack. At that point each player was working with an almost equal number of chips and things were getting really interesting.



  Vanessa wasn't ready to let somebody build their "feel good" media talking points on her back. Over the next several hands she gutted out enough wins to not only erode Pickering's stack like a piece of sandstone in a hurricane, but she broke Stanley Statkiewicz and sent him packing in 3rd place.



  Pickering spent the final table channeling the spirit of P.T. Barnum, and turning the climactic final hands of poker into the greatest show on Earth. More than once he played aggressively, betting and raising with impunity without even looking at his cards. Play was stopped for fifteen minutes at one point after one of these performances paid off, and the crowd erupted with unrestrained enthusiasm.



  The final hand featured a rarely seen limped pot with Selbst winning the bracelet with nut straight and a flush draw. With this championship she becomes the first lady ever to win a WSOP Omaha event - only one of a dozen women who can say they beat an open field in a World Series of Poker event.