Vanessa Kade versus Ryan Depaulo -- battle of two fired ACR pros

[Dan Druff]

Streamer Ryan Depaulo was fired from ACR for promoting with another company without getting prior permission.

Vanessa Kade claims to have quit ACR because of their CEO Phil Nagy mistreating women (though not her), and for supposedly having a general female-hostile culture there, but Ryan Depaulo claims she was actually fired for being "toxic".



Background on Vanessa

For a few years on Twitter, Vanessa Kade was pleasant, upbeat, positive, and sweet. However, this also got little engagement, notice, or attention, and she did not have any sizable tournament scores yet.

However, in late 2020, she abruptly changed her public demeanor at the time Dan Bilzerian was hired to be a GGPoker Pro. She was not a known player at the time, criticized the hire because of Dan's history of treating women as objects, and he infamously responded, "Shut up hoe, nobody knows who you are." As Bilzerian was seen to be punching down (he was a rich and famous male, she was an unknown female), plus the fact that his statement basically confirmed her misogyny allegation, the poker community rallied around her. This elevated her to a revered status on poker social media, and she handled it well at first, even changing her profile picture to that of a garden hoe. However, soon after, she made a series of awkward missteps, including a weird thread where she complained that most male poker pros were not fit for dating -- something which struck people as very hypocritical, given her prior complaints about gender-based stereotyping against women!

She once again took heat when she attacked GGPoker for ending her affiliate deal with them -- something people saw as again hypocritical, given that she had spent the prior 3 months openly bashing them (and not disclosing that she was still receiving an affiliate check each month!)

A huge win in a Pokerstars event then restored her rep, especially because she bravely refused to sell action or make deals once at the final table, despite not having a big bankroll.

Shortly before the Pokerstars win, she was signed as an ACR pro. Later, she took heat from people when Phil Nagy faced allegations of making lewd comments toward female ambassadors and streamers for the site, yet Vanessa didn't quit. More allegations of hypocrisy flew. She eventually separated from ACR as her yearlong contract was ending -- she claimed she quit because of ACR/Nagy's treatment of women, while Ryan Depaulo now claims she got fired.




Background on Ryan

Ryan Depaulo is a social media personality and streamer. He was best known for winning a WSOP Online Bracelet while sitting in a New Jersey Whole Foods parking lot, after having driven across the border from New York to play.

DePaulo, who is married, is outspoken, politically incorrect, and on the political right. For this reason, some people don't like him or find him to be boorish, though those tend to mostly be people on the political left.

He was also banned from Borgata in 2019 for filming without permission, and apparently people reported him because they didn't want to be on camera, and Ryan didn't care. My comments about the matter in 2019, in the 2+2 thread (page 8):

Reporting the guy's channel is lame if you're just outraged by things he says.

If you're in one of his videos after you asked yourself to be excluded, and you report his channel, that's more appropriate.

Regarding Borgata, it just seems like Ryan has no regard for anyone else's wishes or privacy.

People go to the casino to get away, gamble, and enjoy themselves. Many don't want their actions filmed by someone whose intention is to place it on YouTube for a large audience. If people want to be left alone and left out of the video, you should respect that. If you don't, then a ban from the casino is the right consequence.

There is little question that Ryan has a general "I don't give a shit" attitude, and easily offends people. Vanessa claims that he harassed women (including female players) while working at ACR, which Ryan denies.



As a result of their controversial backgrounds, both Vanessa and Ryan have lots of fans and detractors on social media, making them both polarizing figures, albeit for different reasons.

I will get into the exact claims on each end in the upcoming posts....

[Dan Druff]

Vanessa, who in late 2020 reinvented herself as an extreme poker feminist, decided to complain about CoinPoker hiring Ben "bencb" Rolle as an ambassador.

Rolle is a winning online pro who runs a training site. He caused some controversy in June 2024 when he claimed that women are naturally inferior in competitive games like poker.

It is likely that Rolle is on the autistic spectrum, and he has a habit of tweeting blunt and socially inappropriate things.

Vanessa was angry about the hiring of Rolle, and voiced it:

disappointing hire

you know, I love this industry so much but it's so disheartening to see players can be overt sexists and it carries exactly no consequences whatsoever

(but *pointing out* sexism trying to make positive change gets you max punished and makes you unhireable)

I often wonder if people were overt racists to the equivalent degree if they'd still turn a blind eye or if that's just a special exception we make when it comes to women.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862360433446805923


This got a lot of people angry/annoyed, as they felt this was an example of cancel culture. Many just see Rolle as a harmless but intelligent European autist, who tweets his true opinions without bothering to think about the controversy they might cause. They don't want to see him canceled as a result. To be clear, Rolle has never been accused of harassing or being rude to any women, and in fact almost all of his play is online.

"Carlos Figgy", who is a PFA Radio listener and occasionally posts here, tried to politely debate with Vanessa, and she blocked him.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862365054106050642

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862368200693866976


Even Will Jaffe, longtime white knight and Twitter feminist, couldn't let this slide:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862712129071325310


Most people responding, especially to Jaffe's post, had harsh or critical words for Vanessa, though some were on her side.

But this kicked off the real battle... Ryan Depaulo versus Vanessa Kade.

[Dan Druff]

Depaulo, who to my knowledge hadn't posted about Kade on Twitter in the past, decided it was time:

You produce no content, you do not stream anymore, and you were a negative toxic life suck as a co worker.

You were a horrible force. But luckily not relevant enough to have equal succubus forces on the industry.

Complaining and taking 3 selfies flying around the world losing in $10ks is much less of a contribution than Ben makes.

Lastly, You have BENEFITTED from your gender in poker- objectively. This is fine because we need and want women in poker badly. But you are FAR from a victim. Women are welcome women are needed in poker. Ben said one thing not nice. You ARE THE ESSENSE of not nice.

Please all ladies reading this the game needs and wants you. You are so welcome despite the stupid ass picture painted by clowns like this highlighting one aspect of one thing one guy says.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/depaulo_ryan/status/1862715600838991966

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/depaulo_ryan/status/1862948008922325390

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/depaulo_ryan/status/1862737774165590091


Here's Vanessa's response:

Ryan is big mad because the entire time I was at ACR, he repeatedly came at me unprovoked (constantly calling me trash and other things openly in group chats) despite that I never engaged with him or ever initiated a conversation with him ever, even once. (Frankly I'd never heard of him.)

He repeatedly harassed a number of women including other female streamers, and female customers on the site and I pressed hard for ACR to get him to curb his behavior which I thought was outrageous for any kind of ambassador.

When they claimed to support women but let him continue, I told them I felt it was disingenuous to their public promise to do right by women and it was a large factor in my decision to quit. I also suspect it was a large factor in his having been fired.

Ryan, if you want to go further down this path I have some good screenshots Twitter might enjoy.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862779318503444897

[Dan Druff]

Depaulo then responded with two videos, challenging Vanessa to "post receipts" and proof of her allegations, as she had offered to do:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/depaulo_ryan/status/1862873739135746225



Vanessa then came back with a bunch of screen shots from a group chat of ACR pros:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862918737394835835

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862928229482332435

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1862930244287816061


The chat isn't that interesting. You can click on the tweets and expand them if you want. In summary, Ryan came at her shortly after the GGPoker thing, where it was revealed that they killed her affiliate payments for bashing them for 3 months. Ryan was giving her a hard time (in the ACR pros chat -- which is only open to ACR sponsored pros), claiming that she was "acting like a clown" and making all of them look bad. Vanessa stated that Ryan had also been bashing her on one of his streams. Some of the other pros were trying to deescalate the situation, and Ryan wasn't having it. Interestingly, he also claimed that Jeff Boski is a holocaust denier (under the banner of "we all say things that others disagree with"). I guess they had a call where Ryan was forced to apologize to her, and then he kept bashing her. As her contract was nearing the end, Vanessa made a speech in the chat that she was upset about various things at ACR, including Depaulo. A call was scheduled to "discuss moving forward", and she announced she quit shortly after this. Vanessa claims in her tweet that she was scheduling a call to quit, but that's not clear from reading the chat. It seems she was expressing grievances and was angry about being made to look like a hypocrite (because of Nagy's scandals), and then a rep with ACR wanted a call with her.

Anyway, the quit-or-fired thing isn't very interesting to me. Her contract was nearing the end, and it was clear it wasn't a good fit on either side. This was like a breakup of a couple where both sides are unhappy -- it doesn't matter who initiated it.

What is my opinion? I'll get to it in the next post.

[Dan Druff]

Full disclosure: Vanessa and I don't like each other. I am neutral on Depaulo. We follow each other, but aren't friends, have never met, and have never interacted privately.

But I'll try to be as unbiased as possible here.

I think it is likely that both Depaulo and Kade were getting on ACR's nerves during their times as pros there, and actually for similar reasons.

ACR was likely tired of Kade's (often hypocritical) radical feminist routine, and probably thought she was turning into a net negative promotionally.

ACR was also likely tired of Depaulo's loose cannonish mouth on his streams, as well as his controversial tweets. At any moment, they probably feared he might create a headache for them.

They were probably also not thrilled about having to referee the infighting between these two.

When Kade gave them an ultimatum of, "Change shit now or I walk", they were probably thrilled to escort her out the door.

When Depaulo did some promotion for another company (albeit not one directly competing with ACR), and didn't ask permission, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and they decided they were done with him, as well.

Funny enough, despite their differences, Kade and Depaulo had one thing in common. Both had personalities which were likely to cause a headache for a large poker site sponsoring them.



With that said, Kade's attempt to cancel bencb for a politically incorrect opinion is a bad look, and in general most have grown tired of her sanctimonious and often hypocritical behavior.

Depaulo is just your typical blunt east coast guy who says offensive shit and doesn't care about the blowback. However, I will say that he has never tried to cancel anyone or interfere with anyone's poker career.

I do not see evidence from Vanessa's screen shots that Ryan ever harassed females at ACR, whether other ambassadors or customers. I only see evidence that he was nasty to her from the moment she was brought in, because he was upset about her antics regarding the cancelled GGPoker affiliate payments.



Oh, and by the way, GGPoker was 100% in the right regarding what they did. Vanessa was relentlessly bashing them for signing Bilzerian, and for not firing him after his "shut up hoe" comment. At the time, I thought, "Okay, fair. She has the right to her opinion about Bilzerian and GGPoker, and she has a right to express those opinions." However, I was absolutely shocked that she was still receiving a $2k/month affiliate check from them WHILE BASHING THEM, and of course didn't disclose this to anyone until the checks stopped coming in. For whatever reason, Kade did not understand that being an affiliate is basically getting paid for promoting. When you take the affiliate money, you also lose your voice to criticize the site -- or you risk losing the affiliate money! You can't have it both ways! If you want to be paid to promote something, you can't bash them. And if you want the freedom to bash any site you like, then you shouldn't take affiliate deals. Notice that PFA has no affiliate deals, and that's the exact reason why. I could have had them from day one.

Her relentless bashing of GGPoker, and then complaining when the checks stopped, was really off-putting. Hilariously, she complained that they informed her of this on "International Women's Day", as if that had any bearing on the situation. Should they have waited an extra day to inform her that her payments were stopping?

[Dan Druff]

Bonus content:

In 2022, while co-hosting the now-shuttered "Nick Vertucci Show", Veronica Brill bashed Vanessa Kade very viciously. She basically said some similar things to what Depaulo alleged -- that Kade is toxic and nobody likes her. At one point she even accused Kade of making a sockpuppet account to defend herself in a chat room.

It's unclear what caused Veronica to dislike Vanessa so much. However, given that Veronica has her own major issues, one can only guess who was really at fault here.

Both of them have faced a lot of criticism for posturing as outspoken poker feminists, yet hypocritically aligning themselves with males who harass women when it suits their goals. (In Vanessa's case it was Phil Nagy, and in Veronica's case it was Nick Vertucci.)

Go to the 26:11 mark if you want to listen:

[hesterandeldridge]

that sadly seems to be her MO ,she will block all dissenting opinions so then it's just an echo chamber of opinions lost or not responded to if she disagrees with them.

[Jayjami]

Who?

[nunbeater]

However, soon after, she made a series of awkward missteps, including a weird thread where she complained that most male poker pros were not fit for dating

lol I'm sorry but she fucking nailed it here

[Sloppy Joe]

However, soon after, she made a series of awkward missteps, including a weird thread where she complained that most male poker pros were not fit for dating

lol I'm sorry but she fucking nailed it here

I mean, yes?

No self respecting woman hears 'professional poker player' and dives in headfirst.

Pretty much on par with 'fentanyl junkie' regarding long term outcome, but with lower social skills.

LOL Druff in alignment with Will Jaffe. Stockholm Syndrome after getting gelded publicly.

[Dan Druff]

lol I'm sorry but she fucking nailed it here

I mean, yes?

No self respecting woman hears 'professional poker player' and dives in headfirst.

Pretty much on par with 'fentanyl junkie' regarding long term outcome, but with lower social skills.

LOL Druff in alignment with Will Jaffe. Stockholm Syndrome after getting gelded publicly.

Will Jaffe coming in my direction on this one, not the other way around. Nice try though.

Since Toughskinsgate, we haven't had any interaction.

[Dan Druff]

If you are a female poker pro yourself, you can't publicly drag male poker pros as far as being bad dating material.

You especially can't do that if you tie your entire identity to calling out alleged constant sexism in poker.

We aren't talking about whether poker pros are good mates for 9-5 businesswomen. This was the case of a female poker degen publicly complaining that male poker degens are unappealing for dating, months after making a name of herself by calling Bilzerian sexist.

[Sloppy Joe]

I wonder if she's ever been harassed, in person or online, by weird male pros that helped shape her position?

[TheXFactor]

I'm being "nice" and only showing her "hotter" pics.

Vanessa needs to be bent-over and given a spanking.

[hesterandeldridge]

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/KevinRobMartin/status/1863678584730292446


now she is getting called out by Kmart

[Dan Druff]

This is just a rumor, but...

I was told that, shortly after she left ACR, she wanted to sign with Pokerstars. In some ways, this would be a natural fit. She's Canadian, she's female, she's attractive, and she even won a huge tournament there for $1.5m.

So why didn't they sign her? Nobody knows for sure, but one of the pros there leaked it to a friend of mine that certain pros on the site despise her, and those people influenced management to say no.

Again, this is third party information, as a friend heard it from a Pokerstars pro, so this might be bullshit or semi-inaccurate. But that's what I was told.

[nunbeater]

If you are a female poker pro yourself, you can't publicly drag male poker pros as far as being bad dating material.

You especially can't do that if you tie your entire identity to calling out alleged constant sexism in poker.

We aren't talking about whether poker pros are good mates for 9-5 businesswomen. This was the case of a female poker degen publicly complaining that male poker degens are unappealing for dating, months after making a name of herself by calling Bilzerian sexist.

lol are you fucking serious?

[BCR]

If you gave me a choice of having to have 3 colonoscopies this week or sit between Veronica Brill and Vanessa Kade for like a 17 hour flight and listen to them wax on about sexism and misogyny, I think I am starting the bowel prep tonight. Some of these poker women are insufferable.

[Dan Druff]

If you are a female poker pro yourself, you can't publicly drag male poker pros as far as being bad dating material.

You especially can't do that if you tie your entire identity to calling out alleged constant sexism in poker.

We aren't talking about whether poker pros are good mates for 9-5 businesswomen. This was the case of a female poker degen publicly complaining that male poker degens are unappealing for dating, months after making a name of herself by calling Bilzerian sexist.

lol are you fucking serious?

Why wouldn't I be serious? The knife cuts both ways.

If your identity revolves around making a big deal over how men treat women in poker, then you're a huge hypocrite if you tweet blanket statements about most men in poker being unappealing.

Had she taken the attitude of, "Most people in poker are not desirable dating partners, whether male or female", that wouldn't be an issue. But her tweet was basically, "OMG it's so hard to find a decent guy in poker worthy of dating me", when poker is like 90%+ male. Really bad look. It went over horribly, and almost nobody defended her at the time.

[hesterandeldridge]

IMO , if you are a pro women poker player , you should never be single (unless you want to be). you being outnumbered 19-1 should never net you that problem.

I understand a lot of us won't date women poker players but they still have awesome odds .

I had a buddy who for years was a nurse and we must have gone on 50 different double dates as he could pick up a different nurse to go out with him every week . he was in a 5-1 field .