Less than a year after Vanessa Kade signed on to become an ACR Team Pro, she resigned that position. Details remain somewhat scarce, but Kade would like to keep it that way. She purposely released a brief statement about her departure from Americas Cardroom. And when we asked her for more information, she declined to add to her statement.
While I am only making an educated guess here, the most likely reason for remaining vague should be obvious. To call out a particular person or incident that prompted her resignation would put her in a public online war. Too many people on social media would have hot takes, putting Kade in a position to have to constantly defend her decision. The social media drama – especially for a woman in this still-male-dominated world of poker – would be a hassle to handle.
So, just days after Americas Cardroom signed Ana Marquez as its latest ACR Team Pro, the roster decreased by one.
Let’s go back nearly two years to put the biggest pieces of the story together.
Rewind to March 2021
Vanessa Kade had just been through months of ridiculousness. At the beginning of December 2020, GGPoker made the still-unbelievably shallow decision to sign Dan Bilzerian as an ambassador. And while many women in the world of poker spoke out against that decision, Bilzerian chose Kade as the one comment to which he wanted to respond. He did so with a misspelled insult. While it was amusing to see him put his ignorance on display, it brought a great deal of unwanted nastiness to Kade via social media.
Several months later, when GGPoker attempted to recognize International Women’s Day while keeping Bilzerian on its roster, Kade had more to say. She was one of many, but she was also one who had an old affiliate account with GGPoker. The site severed that deal and insulted Kade in the process. And then the site tried to apologize, which was a mess in and of itself.
Things began to quickly turn around for Kade, though. She signed on to become an ACR Team Pro in mid-March. And one week later, she won the PokerStars Sunday Million 15th Anniversary tournament for $1.5M.
Summer 2021 Controversy
Americas Cardroom parent Winning Poker Network (WPN) became the focus of some negative publicity in June 2021. Specifically, WPN CEO put himself in the middle of it.
https://twitter.com/user_1290/status/1404617211386466308?s=20&t=U-Stx5ZY4u-55wKSpI2mHA
On a livestream, Nagy made various sexist and harassing comments to and about female streamer WeePro83. Her significant other, Ruben, was also on the livestream and got angry. He subsequently quit as an ACRStormer. Nagy admitted that his comments were wildly inappropriate, and he sincerely apologized to both of them. They accepted the apology.
https://twitter.com/wugwugwugwug/status/1404902918491418628?s=20&t=tBKanHXxVI758k8eWd2i6w
Some vocal people on social media directed their interest in the story to Kade, who had recently joined the ACR pro team. People questioned her affiliation with a company whose CEO would act in such a way. That misdirected concern prompted her to post a statement about the situation. She did so, saying that she did have concerns over the incident and expected better from a company she represents.
https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1405327973469745156?s=20&t=eU9k_CjUpPOyMD0JI9j9Zw
Nagy then felt bad about the scrutiny placed on Kade and decided to release his own public statement:
https://twitter.com/WPN_CEO/status/1405560420241391616?s=20&t=HoFL5zcK0qX1sKmVYFUeVQ
Poker player Melissa Schubert had a different take on the situation, suggesting that the aforementioned incident was far from an isolated one. She noted that several women had spoken about similar comments from Nagy. In addition, she pointed a finger at Kade for knowing about said incidents and signing on to represent Americas Cardroom anyway.
https://twitter.com/poodawgmelissa/status/1405578914446020609?s=20&t=UVyOGDYyX0FvdPIWs0zIQw
All of these sides of the story garnered much attention, a disproportionate amount of which appeared on Kade’s doorstep. Regardless, everyone seemed to address at least part of the situation, and the person at the center of the controversy apologized and – publicly and privately – vowed to learn from it and do better.
Fast Forward to February 2022
Everything died down for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, at least on the surface. And according to Kade in her resignation statement this week, Nagy and the company did address the aforementioned issues.
However, there was another incident happening behind the scenes. It was more of an ongoing situation, a serious one. From what I gather, Nagy was not the person directly causing the issue. Kade only said that there was a situation that she had wanted ACR to address for some time, and they refused to do so. So, Kade made the tough decision to step down.
https://twitter.com/VanessaKade/status/1491479467461529601?s=20&t=9e6Y_TCBBb4tcx1qAzQIag
As I mentioned, I reached out to her for more details, and she declined to say anything else publicly. She was disappointed and frustrated with the powers-that-be at ACR and WPN, but she did not want to name names or point fingers. As the previous summer’s drama unfolded, it demonstrated that Kade would be the center of public scrutiny rather than anyone else she might name. So, she kept her statement brief but inclusive of the most important points.
In my personal investigation of this issue, I have learned that the situation was an ongoing one that Kade tried to address for many months. And it was serious enough – important enough to her – to continually hold on to her principles and eventually resign because of the company’s inability or unwillingness to properly address the situation.
Kade confirmed that she did not and does not have another sponsorship deal waiting in the wings. Her resignation was specifically due to the company’s actions (or inactions, if you will).
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