Ebony Kenney might not be representing anyone, apart from herself.
The OP may be assuming that she is representing women and people of colour.
What she has said is that in her experience and in the experience of many other women in poker, she and they have encountered a lot of sexist treatment and bad treatment. I never heard her mention colour, If she did, I'd be interested to see the link.
And incidentally, where exactly is there an issue with people of colour in poker.
And by colour, do you mean people of African / Afro-Caribbean / part Afro-Caribbean ethnicity, or do you mean all people of colour?
If your point is that some "under-represented" groups as you put it, are under-represented due to unfair treatment, rules or regulations that discriminate against them, or any form of discrimination then please state examples of these and which under-represented ethnic or of ethnic origin groups it is affecting and hindering.
What I have heard previously and which I do not dispute at all, is that women players are not invited as often or as easily into study groups, and about the mistreatment of them by some male players in live poker. I would imagine that the former extends into women finding it harder to get backers, but I am not sure about that part, as is could be counter balanced by some male players backing women players because they like the woman as a person but don't think it a financially +EV investment.
But what evidence is there that people of colour are under-represented in poker due to any or some underlying factors that are unfair or discriminatory?
Also, how much effect are the known factors that make it harder or less attractive for women to get into poker affecting the end results.
That is to say, that if there are ~7% of poker players who are women now, if all of the known factors were completely removed, would the figure go up to 15% or 30%, or to what?
Returning to the point about people of colour, Prahlad Freedman has a strong view on there being barriers to people of colour being more prominent and/or in more numbers in poker / top poker. I do nor remember his exact assertions on the topic. He went on to fund a poker training/coaching programme for people of colour and made some forecasts about its likely success. I don't know what the outcome of the training programme was or if it's still a work in progress.
My guesstimated feeling (I do not know for sure, it would need a proper detailed study by someone or a group to know for sure), is that the two most likely factors why people of colour (what I think the OP's definition of people of colour is), are not as prominent in poker as their group's occurrence in the general population, are:
(in no particular order, and these are sweeping generalisations, but sweeping generalisations over very large sample sizes do have some validity)
1. People of colour, for a range of reasons, some unfair lack of opportunity, and some cultural preferences, do not study in school / college / university in the subjects of maths, computer science and finance, as much as some other ethnic groups.
2. People of colour, primarily through unfair lack of opportunity, are on average of lower average earnings than some other ethnic groups.
Certainly there are some stand out players, Phil Ivey most notably, that one could say according to my 1. and 2. should not be a prominent poker player, but that is just one person. The fact is that people of colour (OP's assumed definition) are way less prominent than their percentage within the population.
Regarding point two, although it is of course possible and doable (although harder than it was 5, 10, 15 years ago) to move up the stakes from a tiny or even zero bankroll, it is still a fact that a lot of players, more so live than online, already have money to start off with. Even players who player a weekly $50 Sunday comp at their local room and maybe a 1/2 cash game after it, in the main are not in the economic group that are living from hand to mouth. So over a big sample size of people, a group that is worse off economically are less likely to get into poker, because of the lack of funding.
N.B. There are going to be many, many anomalies to my general points above, I could name a lot of anomalies to them myself!
Naming an anomaly is not a strong argument again the general points. I am not saying there isn't a strong argument or arguments against them, there may well be, I am just saying that citing single anomalies isn't really one.
P.S. I may have been reading too much into the OP's post, apologies if I have. I still stand by my general points though.
Last edited by PokerPlayingDunces; 09-14-2022 at 09:51 AM.
Reason: Correcting grammar
