I regularly contribute to a show over on pokerroad.com called The Poker Beat in which I join other poker media types in talking about industry issues of the day, each week. Each year, we typically tie things up with a "year in review" segment and this time around, we did so by each compiling a list of our top five stories from 2010 (which by the way, was kind of a boring year) and revealing them in backwards order on the air.

Here’s how my selection looked:

5.  PokerStars and FullTiltPoker withdraw from Washington.

4.  The Harry Reid Bill.

3.  Grinder and the Mizrachi Brothers.

2.  Hellmuth and Duke depart Ultimate Bet.

1.  Tom Dwan's bets, namely the Durrr Challenge and his many bracelet bets at the World Series of Poker.

OK, you can argue the validity of the list all you want, since it’s obviously an objective thing. The reason I bring this up to you though, is that it was when my estimable co-panelist, BJ Nemeth recited his list that I realized that I’d failed to pay appropriate homage to a story that should have made mine. It so happens to suit this website’s themes to a tee.

No, it wasn’t "Year of the Woman," a term that I think gets thrown around grossly and that ultimately will be laughed at when we look back a few years from now with women having far surpassed their efforts from 2010.

It was; however, that the woman who contributed most to that moniker--namely Vanessa Selbst--may have just had the best calendar year any woman has ever had in live tournament poker.

The following is a brief look at the best performances year-by-year by women over the last decade. Listed, you’ll find the women who have won the most money in each year along with any women who didn’t rank first but managed at least $1,000,000 in winnings:

So, first off, and probably most importantly in poker terms, Selbst won more money in 2010 than any woman ever has. She did so by notching two massive wins -- the first, a $750,000 win at NAPT Mohegan Sun, the second a whopping $1,823,430 score in the Partouche Poker Tour in Cannes -- something no woman has ever done before. Annie Duke won the 10-player, $2 million WSOP Tournament of Champions in 2004 and Annette Obrestad won the WSOP Europe main event in 2007 in nothing the only other $2,000,000+ years in women’s poker history. Neither lady managed another score in their banner years that earned as much at $200,000 (Duke won a bracelet in 2004 for $137,860). With the third biggest individual score by a woman, the highest gross total by a woman and the accomplishment of the twin finishes, it’s pretty easy to say that Selbst’s 2010 was the most fiscally successful by a woman, ever.

The only question then is how we value the number of cashes a player scored. Selbst, a full-time law student for parts of 2010, only had so much time to be playing poker between classes and exams. As a result, she only scored seven cashes over the year. Interestingly, Duke’s big ’04 number (which is mostly attributed to what many have called a sit’n’go) came on seven cashes and Obrestad’s ’07 on six cashes. By contrast, Kathy Liebert scored an astounding 21 cashes in 2002, (the year in which she became the first woman to win $1,000,000 in a single tournament, let alone a single year) with a number of them coming in smaller buy-in, one-day tournaments. How do we value a $490 win for a 20th place finish in a $200 buy-in event for an exercise like this one? My inclination is that we’re mostly judging how the player fared against top-level competition and to weigh accordingly. Of course, that’s a personal judgment and you’re welcome to yours.

The debate essentially comes down to Selbst, Duke’s 2004 (TOC, bracelet win and another six-figure victory) and Leibert’s 2002. Neither Liebert or Duke finished in the top 10 of the CardPlayer Player of the Year rankings in their respective breakout years, while Selbst finished 4th in 2010. That, Selbst’s twin-wins and her money won total, all coming in a year of only part-time poker made for the most impressive of all of them. If indeed she had the best year any woman ever has, she has to make my above list of the biggest stories of 2010.I’d probably put her at #4, right between Grinder Mizrachi and Harry Reid.

It was a historic year for a fantastic player.

Gary Wise is a regular contributor to espn.com/poker, can be followed on Twitter @GaryWise1, is a regular vi-cast host at pokerstatic.com and has a couple of new websites full of bloggy goodness coming up! Check them out:  jgarywise.com.