Dick, I'd have never pegged you as such a snowflake. You really have quit your subscription to the internet, where .... on AOL ?

Come on, David. It's not a big stretch to say that a woman who wears a vibrator necklace, and openly talks about masturbation at the table, isn't exactly the best representative of our community.

The "misogynistic" allegation is so played out. It's lobbed at anyone who dares criticize any woman via forums or social media, simply for the sole reason that it's a man criticizing a woman.

I have criticized women in poker. I've also criticized men in poker -- a lot more of them than I have women. I even frequently criticized the former owner of this site, who is a man. Do I hate men, too?

You’re really suggesting that women stopped playing poker because it got too “complex” for them?

Even if it were true that women are turned off by “complexity” and instead prefer “casual kill some time games”, poker for a large portion of the play pool -is= a “casual kill some time game”. You don’t have to study solvers to enjoy poker, and in fact 99% of players have never touched a solver and the vast majority have never seen a training video or posted a hand history.

I actually do think there are real differences between the way women and men on the whole approach games…

I read a book on professional Scrabble players several years back. Scrabble is certainly a complex game in which skill and hard work are rewarded even more so than poker. The book explained that there were six skill tiers on the competitive Scrabble circuit. The bottom two tiers were actually composed of about two-thirds women. But this proportion declined significantly as you moved up in tiers, and the top tier was like 95% men.

This suggests that women actually enjoy playing Scrabble at least as much if not moreso than men. But women as less likely to feel so passionately driven by the games that they are willing to devote every waking hours to study to succeed competitively at it.

This Scrabble scene sounds to me like how poker in the 1970s has been described. Women enjoyed playing 2-4 Limit lowball in cardrooms just as much as men, and felt welcomed into this social community, even while the highest stakes remained almost exclusively male.

So I think it is unsurprising that men today dominate the high-stakes poker scene. What is troubling is that they seem to also have been driven out of the low-stakes, casual scene. And there are several aspects about the way poker has developed since “the boom” that I think contribute to this.

I don’t think women have been driven out of poker because of “complexity”, because just like Scrabble, poker can be played with as much or as little complexity as one desires.

I also don’t think women are inherently avoidant of “risk”. Women actually outnumber men in several prominent gambling options (most significantly slot machines).

What I do think may be driving women away is -confrontation-. Poker at the live lower stakes nowadays is almost entirely NLHE, a game in which players are encouraged to literally stare down their opponent while forcing them into an tough decision. It is not just incentived to play well, but to make your opponent feel physically uncomfortable. I can easily see women would interpret such actions from a man much differently than a man would, even if only subsconsiouly. And also why the few women who are still drawn to poker are unusually toughened to these unconfrontation.

If we encouraged the spead games at lower stakes that didn’t reward this sort of initimidating behavior (especially limit games), women might feel more comfortable coming back to the game. And not because this games are “less complex” (which just seems patronizing).

Oh WTF, I missed that part of the video. (To be honest, I tend to skip ahead to when he arrives at the Rio/Bally's in those vlogs.) That's pretty nutso.

The Scrabble data is really interesting, that more women than men play at entry level and that perhaps it's an even split at, or just below mid level, but as you go past mid level and beyond it gets heavily skewed towards men.

But the key difference in poker is the money factor, something that is not a factor in Scrabble, and that if a player's progression is capped somewhere just above low level or just before mid level, it is going to start costing them money, or may not cost them money if they are competent up to their capped level, but will prevent them from winning significant money, then this may be what's putting a lot of female players off playing poker, either because they don't have the aptitude to break through to the next level, or they have the aptitude but they, as you put it regarding Scrabble, "(don't feel) so passionately driven by the games that they are willing to devote every waking hour to study to succeed competitively at it."

Of course, without that passion and dedication, they will lose money if they go up the stakes, even if they have the aptitude.

Women, by and large, also have a lot more common sense than men, so will realise (work out quickly) that having that passion and dedication to move up the stakes at poker, will likely or often require playing at unsociable hours, may cause them to have an unhealthy lifestyle and may damage their relationships and other aspects of their life. Whereas men won't work this out as quickly and even when they do, are more likely to just carry on regardless of all of the potential non poker negatives.

Also, there is more of a stigma of a woman being a professional gambler than a man being one, so this might put some women off too, even some women who have both the aptitude and are willing to do all the ugly stuff that it usually takes to move up the stakes. Women might be way more worried about what their family and friends think, than men are.

The being stared down at factor may as you said be a factor in driving some women away from small stakes, but we don't know to what extent.

Todd, the word "misogynist" is not "played out" by me. I doubt I've ever "lobbed" that description at anyone else, I don't recall ever having done so and I'm sure not "woke" enough to "lob" my words, whatever that means... You should own your own comments, instead of whining about society because you're getting directly called on specifically for what you posted.

Bluntly put, you've now shifted your ground from whining that Ebony isn't a good " role model" for women poker players to deriding her as not the "best" representative of "our community".

Yes, I do think you lack credibility to lecture specifically women poker players against seeing Ebony as a role model.

Also, stop mansplaining ,(another term I doubt I've ever uttered before). Your doubling down by now specifically focusing on some sexual background theme for your critique just digs you deeper.

Yes, the quiet part is that this woman is clearly a whiny narcissist and people jumping to her defense because of her gender or the tone of her skin are the lowest form of moron. If she can get people to stake her in massive tournaments because of her shtick, more power to her, but can we stop pretending she is some sort of victim for being judged on her own behavior?

Dude, she's a sex coach. Anyone who coaches people on sex and love is Above the Law.

LMAO

So her privilege comes from putting in the work and streaming hundreds of hours. Got it.

I can't tell if this is a humorous post or serious post (because of the AOL joke), but I can honestly say that when I tune into 'X' niche podcast, the last thing I want to hear is a woman talking about jamming a strap-on up a guy's ass. I listen to numerous podcasts from many niches. Not sure why 'X' person (literally any person in any given podcast) thinks they can get away with shoehorning the fullblown left-field topic of dominating a male anally, but I can guess why they (and others) think they can. I'm admittedly more Amish than the average person, so anytime I hear fullblown random sex talk thrown into an unrelated topic, it catches me off guard.

Just wanted to pop in (or shall i say peg in) to say that Dan_Druff is spot on in this thread and killing it.

She got staked into a tournament she can't come close to affording and is massively -ev in which had an entry fee of about 4 years of the median salary in this country .Yes despite non being a white male she is priveledged.

But I get it she's a special snowflake and perpetual victim.
Her meltdowns are totally warranted.

+1, excellent post after excellent post from him.

I was watching the Pokerstars Twitch stream a few days ago and Joe Stapleton et al were banging on about the WCOOP ladies event and how amazing it is. I asked in the chat if there was also going to be a men's event. I got insta-banned.

Also, if anyone has time to listen to Dan Druff's recent pod, he breaks down things about the Joey/Ebony pod exactly.

Cliff notes from Druff's pod:

* Joey did go in too hard calling out Ebony as a "shill" for ACR, when he hasn't done so in anything like as forceful a way to any other ACR sponsored pro.

* Ebony, stated her position on many things in poker to do with acceptable behaviour etc, but then contradicted herself and her standpoint on various things relating to it, multiple times during the pod itself, and again afterwards in her Tweets to/about how Joey conducted the pod.

* Ebony says that she doesn't want to live in an echo chamber as she needs to listen to others' viewpoints in order to grow as a person.
However, the reality is that she does listen to others' viewpoints, but then tells them that they need educating so that they will agree with her viewpoints.

*Ebony tried to dictate to Joey how his Twitch stream should be moderated and how he should manage the comments and content on his platforms, in respect of what kind of language is allowable and freedom of speech in general.

There are various other things Druff covers and the whole thing is a very interesting and entertaining listen.

The only thing IMO during his pod that he may have got wrong, is his degree of certainty that Ebony's story about DNegs staring at her in a bad way in a comp in 2008 is either exaggerated or made up. His reasoning is that she named him as her favourite player a few years later, using glowing compliments about him.

This doesn't prove that her account of 2008 is false or that she embellished what really happened. I say this because, a) there is firm and frequent evidence that victims of sexual harassment or abuse (yes, if her account of what happened is accurate, this was the mildest form of sexual harassment that exists), often put what happened to the back of their mind and keep it there for long periods, because they feel this is the best coping mechanism.

And b) in the poker world, it pays (is strategically smart) for players, (not all players do this, but many do), to suck up to important other players in the industry.

So IMO, Ebony's account might be completely accurate, I don't know. Obviously, we will never know for sure exactly what happened, but as even Druff said himself, some staring (whether it was done knowingly or not by DNegs) quite likely/possibly did happen, and was perceived by Ebony as harassment of some kind. So very likely it was either as Druff said, or it was full on staring as she described it, or something in between the two.

I don't even know how to respond to this one.

I actually have a 70-year-old white man accusing me here of "mansplaining".

If you have any real and tangible criticisms of my positions in this thread, feel free to present them. And if you're just trolling me by playing an absurd parody of an older man impersonating a millennial, great job, I guess.

Anyway, for the rest of you, I covered this story for way too long on my last Poker Fraud Alert show, which I completed yesterday morning. The segment starts at the 0:23:22 mark, and runs for about 2 hours and 25 minutes (don't laugh).

If you just want to hear the Negreanu-related stuff involving Ebony, you can go to the 0:25:19 mark, and then again at the 1:32:57 mark.

Daniel himself listened (I didn't tell him about it, but he found it somehow), and apparently liked it.

Plot twist:

DNegs puts Druff into the next set of Triton High Rollers on a 75/25 split (in DNegs favour, which is fair.)

But he also puts a big bounty on Ebony Kenney's head for Druff, in any tournament that they happen to be in together.

Oh wow she got staked for a tournament where she was freerolled probably around 10k or so after streaming hundreds of hours to have opportunities like that.

What a ****ing privilege!!

I would stream 1000 hours in 100 days ass naked for what she got and if I was given that opportunity I would think I won the lottery.

Ebony Kenney is probably listening to black rap music, where every 2nd word is bitch or n**** ...never heard her to complain about that...come tf on!

Stream naked 10 hours in a day I will freroll you 5% in a 2k mtt. Awaiting PM.

Assuming she only got 5% is a little silly (unless that was confirmed somewhere).

Also obviously not going naked on the internet for $100.

Lol
She claims to be a poker pro without actually being good at poker
She's made money playing a game and streaming.
That's a pretty priveledged life.

Then she got put into some big events including a 200k and will obviously continue to get put into more after a good run.
Nope not priveledged at all.

After all her friend called her an ACR schill,when she in fact schills for ACR -a site rampant with bots and cheating- contributing to her on air meltdown. Then a woman called her a bitch,a term she herself uses all of the time. Of course at first she assumed a man said it,and calmed down a little when she found out it was a woman.

Bottom line is she we wants to live her entire life out on social media because she's an attention whore and bc it gets her sponsorships. She knows the internet is filled with trolls and she will occasionally get called nasty names online but does this volentarily . If she actually had to make a living from purely playing poker on her own dime she'd still be on food stamps.So to her credit she figured out how to monetize her "poker career", but can't handle an ounce of criticism in any fashion. It's pretty asburd really.

Much of this saga overlaps with the modern day trend of being "woke". Fully signed up members of "wokeness" often display characteristics
of moral supremacy, dogma, narrow mindedness and intolerance. They also often have poor debating skills, so when cornered (proven to be either wrong or partly wrong about something in a debate or a discussion) resort to personal insults or just ghost or block the other person.

Well I have some news, one doesn't have be "woke" to be a good person. (Yes you can be a "woke" person and a good person at the same time, but many aren't.)

There are plenty of good people, with good values and good behaviour who are not "woke". They are like this now, and were before the term "woke" even existed.

If anything, many of the newly formed "woke" brigade are people who don't have particularly great minds, may well have behaved poorly themselves in the past in some of the very areas that "wokeness" aims to improve, and have now been easily convinced to follow a belief system that has a lot of flaws in it.

I would rather listen to someone, anyone, who has really extreme views, views that I completely and utterly oppose, if that person who holds them and who articulates them is willing to debate in a civil way and willing to potentially adjust their views, even if only by a little, than listen to someone who is "woke" and who is completely narrow minded and intolerant of any viewpoint other than their own.