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Yale Law Student's Recession-Proof Game Plan: Professional Poker

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At least one student at Yale Law School has a game plan that appears to be recession-proof.

A world champion poker player, Vanessa Selbst has brought home some $800,000 in winnings during the four years she has played professionally, reports the Hartford Courant. She hopes to become a public interest attorney after earning her juris doctor degree, while continuing her poker-playing—and coaching others on the game—as a sideline.

Selbst learned the game from her mother, who put herself through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on her own poker winnings. Selbst herself began betting her lunch money while still in high school in the New Jersey suburbs, the newspaper reports. She honed her skills in no-limit games with other undergraduates at Yale College, among other venues, then went on to play professionally after earning a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2005.

Now a Yale law student, she is struggling along with many others as far as a legal position is concerned, however.

“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,” she tells the Courant.

Hat tip: Above the Law.

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