Ebony Kenney versus Joey Ingram

[Dan Druff]

Chicago Joey had Ebony Kenney on his show, and the whole thing degraded into controversy in the final hour or so.

For background, Ebony Kenney is a mixed race female poker player who, despite some moderate tournament results (about $400k cashes in 15 years) was more known for her social media presence than her poker accomplishments.

Earlier this year, she got into a spat with Daniel Negreanu, when she called him out for "staring at her" and then bragging about it when confronted, in a story which supposedly took place in 2008. In her story, she claimed Daniel made her feel so uncomfortable that she felt a relief busting out with aces from that $10k event. However, Negreanu posted a rebuttal in one of his vlogs, pointing out that Kenney named him as her "favorite poker pro" with a "wonderful energy" in 2014, six years after that supposedly traumatizing incident. In short, it looks like she's full of shit.

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Daniel's response began at 1:45 in this video:






Anyway, I've never met nor played with Ebony Kenney, but in general she doesn't seem like a genuine person. Years ago on 2+2, she was very toxic and degrading toward both men and women in the community (something she admitted in the show with Joey), yet has recently taken on a social justice, holier-than-thou identity.




Ebony has been a sponsored pro on ACR for almost two years. Phil Nagy, the now-wealthy owner of ACR, decided to put her in to the high roller Triton poker series in Cyprus this month. Ebony did very well, scoring $250k in the $25k event, and then a whopping $1.7 million for finishing 5th in the $200k event. She will not reveal how much of herself she had in the event.

Because of her success in cashing almost $2 million in just a week, "Chicago" Joey Ingram had her on his show. However, it degraded into a lot of arguing and virtue signaling.


Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

Here's the video of Ebony Kenney's appearance, which lasted for almost 2.5 hours:




In case you're wondering, Ebony Kenney is of no relation to Bryn Kenney, who was also in controversy earlier this year.

It doesn't get that interesting until the 1:47:52 mark. There she denies that the opportunity given by Nagy had to do with her being a woman (it definitely was), via a bizarre rambling explanation about Nagy's daughter being proud that he gave a black woman a chance (lol).

At 1:51:02 she dodges the question regarding whether it's okay to shill for ACR given the site's issues, but does get in a little jab about Joey being friends with Doug Polk (who recently promoted a crypto which went bad). I will say that Joey seems obsessed with trashing ACR, and this wasn't really a fair line of questioning, since he hasn't gone after the other ACR pros to my knowledge.

At 1:56:23 she shows off the small vibrator she wears around her neck (!!), and says it's a product she believes in (lol).

At 1:59:29 she addresses the Negreanu thing, and insists that her story really happened, but she liked him in 2014 because he had "changed" since her bad experience with him in 2008, but has since changed back. Yeah, right.

But the real fireworks begin at 2:16:50. She goes into a speech about how she needs to advocate for women in poker, but about 90 seconds into the self-back-patting, she notices a person in chat named "Darkangel0715", who is apparently one of Joey's chat mods, criticizing how women in poker treat each other. Darkangel said, "Women need to stop being bitches and fighting with each and every one of the women playing." Ebony was furious and told Joey that he needs to delete the comment from this sexist guy. However, Darkangel is female, which killed the sexism angle of the reasoning for needing to delete it. However, despite Darkangel being a woman, and despite the comment not being aimed at Ebony herself, it provoked an angry rant about how Joey's chat is toxic and the reason more women don't play poker. Just 7 minutes later, Ebony abruptly quit the show, when Joey insisted that he no longer censors his chat, and that it's his choice.


Continued...

[Dan Druff]

Here is Ebony's explanation regarding her blowup at the end of the Joey Ingram show:

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This 9-tweet tirade doesn't address the three important points here:

1) The person who made the comment in chat was a woman, so there was no sexism involved.
2) Joey chooses not to censor his chat, which is his choice as a content creator.
3) The comment was not derogatory toward Ebony nor women in general. It was stating that too many women in poker fight with one another (which is somewhat true), and that's not good for solidarity.

It should also be noted that Darkangel apologized for the comment at the time, and in fact deleted it. Still not good enough for Ebony.


Notice she also took at stab at Joey again for being friends with Doug, and still seems upset about the ACR related questions.

Very off-putting individual.

[DJ_Chaps]

100% would polish her top while she polished mine.

[Dan Druff]

Oh, and Joey was so rattled by the way it ended that he had a 7-hour Twitch stream discussing it.

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Good grief.

If any topic doesn't deserve 9.5 hours of discussion, it would be this one.

[TheXFactor]

Nobody has any idea who she is.

She probably fucked Phil Nagy for a stake in those tournaments which she had 0% of herself. Phil just paid for her expenses and the ride home.

Too many media whores in poker.

We really don't need another one.

[JeffDime]

Great breakdown Druff. I swear once I saw Joey tweeting he was going to have her on…my immediate thought was this is going to be a disaster. I didn’t want it to be…Joey is an emotional guy and he was pretty upset after the Bryn Kenny Pod. I won’t even waste my time trying to analyze Ebony Kenney. I just knew it.

The reason for Joey’s long sabbatical are not important to me. Was probably a bunch of shitty things happening & then an event where he said he needed a break. I hope that break was good for him. But he has come back to the poker community when people are fucking lunatics & the non-stop drama has never been worse.

I promise everyone that if I have a week like hers you can ask my whatever the fuck you want. There are may cons to being a woman in poker but I have always said their success rate in “making a living” in poker is much higher than men. Of course there is a much much smaller sample size. I use the quotes because it’s the truth. They are more likely to get sponsorships, staking, etc. It’s the way the world works.

[SinglesHitter]

This lady isn’t bad for poker, as these pseudo controversies can be entertaining for a night or two, getting to see peoples’ feathers get ruffled and give ludicrous takes. She’s not doing herself or her “cause” any favors though. Actual civil rights contributors would look at her with disdain, I’d imagine. Sure, white privilege may or may not exist. But especially in poker, semi-attractive female privilege certainly exists. Whatever happened to humility and gratitude?

Iirc one of her first tweets after the big score was a sincere thanks to her friends and supporters and she noted how overwhelming the experience was. That’s all great stuff. This other side of her - the (mis) calculated social justice warrior, who is compelled to not take a step back ever - its trash. She’s very likely a decent person overall, not much of a poker player, and is delirious with regards to her takes on these issues and her own self-importance. She’ll get enough approval from some peers to avoid having to ever take a hard look in the mirror and consider changing her stance, or at least her presentation, of these issues. I remember during one of Joey’s pods she made sure to be seen in the background, lying on his bed “working” on the computer. Definitely a thot-ish maneuver. Eh, at least Joey probably hit it. I don’t find her attractive but she obviously qualifies as poker hot.

*yeah def agree that after a week like that, you could throw rotten tomatoes at me on a stage in front of my mother and I’d rofl

[JeffDime]

Druff did a great breakdown of this drama starting at 23 minutes in. Very fair and you know no one else is going to be this thorough about it.

https://pokerfraudalert.com/radio/ra...5-21-16-01.mp3

[FRANKRIZZO]

I enjoyed the segment , very hypocritical .

[Dan Druff]

I did a long segment (about 2 hours, 25 minutes) on PFA Radio, where I played the final 38 minutes of Joey's podcast, and then commented on it.

It ended up being one of the best received segments on PFA Radio in a long time. I've gotten tons of compliments on it, both publicly and privately. Negreanu himself listened (I didn't tell him about it), and tweeted out the episode:

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This will undoubtedly bring some new listeners to the show. That's how I get new listeners, in many cases -- when some higher profile figure in poker talks about the show, and directs people to it, with some percentage staying around and becoming regular listeners.

Also, that darkangel chat mod finally spoke out on Twitter. I feel bad for her. She comes off as a nice, middle-aged female fan of poker, who never wanted to be dragged into the spotlight, or the subject of negativity. When someone knowingly thrusts themselves into a controversial situation and gets bashed, I rarely feel sorry for them, even if I agree with them. That's the nature of the social media beast. However, this woman was simply trying to make a statement that women in poker need to be nicer to one another, and it was taken out of context, and she has become a villain to some people (mainly SJW types). Very sad. This is the type of person in the community who should never be attacked. Ebony still hasn't apologized to her, which is pretty bad.

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[TheXFactor]

STOP STARING AT HER BOOBS, DANIEL!!!

[hutmaster]

At my pizza place we host a social poker league. The league is part of the national organization The Bar Poker Open. Every year Bar Poker hosts a national championship at the Golden Nugget in Vegas. People win entry into the tournament by playing in their local leagues. This past year first place was $38,000. Anyways Ebony and Joey were both hired this past year to be the hosts / commentators of the tournament. They were also the featured players in a Pros vs Joes event.

I got to meet Ebony and interact with her quite a bit as did many of my friends who were there. She was a sweetheart in person. After coming back from the event I even suggested that Druff seek her out as a guest. Druff told me then that he thought she was a bit too “woke” to come on PFA.

I haven’t watched the video of her on Joeys show but when in Vegas they seemed
To get along like old friends.

She has a sex toy podcast that some
Might enjoy. She reviews 30 sex toys in 30 days.

[Backitup]

Ebony's a rat

[Dan Druff]

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