Annie Duke Furious PokerStars Defends Negreanu “F**ing C***!” Quote

Professional poker player Annie Duke on Tuesday wrote an “open letter” to the folks at PokerStars.com, who responded to a Women’s Poker League participant voicing her opinion over the recent comments made by Daniel Negreanu towards Ms. Duke.  Negreanu.  In an interview conducted last week by a British poker news site, Negreanu was quoted as calling Annie a “f***ing c**t”.

Annie Duke was not exactly thrilled with what appears to be PokerStars defense of Negreanu’s quote (which appears below).

Hello ________,

Thank you for your email.

We are glad to hear that you are enjoying the Women’s Poker League and value

very much as one of our loyal female poker players.

Daniel and Annie are both passionate about poker, and both aren’t afraid to

speak their mind. I think this is a fact people like and appreciate about

both players. When you have two people that are similar in that regard,

there’s bound to be friction somewhere along the line.

Although Daniel Negreanu is a Team PokerStarsPro, he is an entity to himself

and as such will always be encouraged to express his views and speak his

mind as he would otherwise do so, PokerStars Pro or not.

I hope you will still enjoy watching both Daniel and Annie play as both are

fantastic poker players and an enrichment, on one way or another, for the

poker world.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions and

thank you for choosing PokerStars.

Regards,

Katja

PokerStars Support Team

In her open letter to PokerStars, Ms. Duke writes:

I am shocked that PokerStars didn’t even distance themselves from Daniel’s comments in this response. In fact, they did quite the opposite. The most alarming part of the response is this section:

‘…and as such will always be encouraged to express his views and speak his

mind as he would otherwise do so, PokerStars Pro or not.’

I am not offended by Daniel’s opinion. He has a right to disagree with me and dislike me. And I, just like PokerStars, would encourage him to express his views and opinions. This is not about his views. It is about a particular word he chose to express those views. The word “c**t” is not an opinion, it is an abusive epithet, and PokerStars is completely ignoring the use of that term in their response.

But more distressing is the use of the word encouraged here. So, PokerStars, you are encouraging Daniel to continue to express views in this manner, to conduct these public attacks using offensive slurs and inappropriate language? I am more than dismayed that PokerStars is making a statement here that they encourage this kind of behavior, this kind of language use. According to PokerStars, this kind of behavior enriches our community.

Why is it, then, that if you type the word into the chat box on PokerStars it comes out ****? Clearly, PokerStars finds this word offensive enough that they don’t allow their customers to use it to insult one another, yet they encourage their primary endorser’s use of the term.

So I have a question for PokerStars: Are you equally encouraging and accepting of Daniel expressing his own opinions and views if he utters the equivalent Anti-African American, Anti-Semitic or Anti-Gay epithets? Is it just the c-word that is okay with you? In my opinion, comments that are degrading to a person’s race, color, gender or sexual orientation are offensive and do not fall under the “that’s his opinion, not ours” category.

PokerStars recently formed The Women’s Poker League, presumably to support and encourage women in poker. Yet this response condones its star player calling a female poker player a “f**king c**t” in public. PokerStars had an opportunity here to take a stand and express regret that Daniel would say such an offensive thing and failed to do so.

Annie closed her letter by questioning how the National Football League (NFL) would react if one of its star players uttered the word to a female sideline reporter.

I am curious as to what Nike’s response would be if that player were an endorser of theirs. Would the NFL and Nike just shrug it off and say “his opinion, not ours?” I think not, and as long as the poker community is accepting of behavior and language like this, we will never be truly mainstream.

Again, this is not at all about whether you like me or whether you are on Daniel’s side of an argument. This is about PokerStars condoning an offensive term spoken publicly about me to a journalist by PokerStars’ biggest endorser. Like it or not, PokerStars, Daniel represents you and his behavior and choice of words reflects on you.

I would have expected a better response.

To date, Gambling911.com could not find an official apology issued by Daniel Negreanu.

Here is the problem PokerStars and Negreanu are up against:  It’s not just Annie Duke he managed to piss off with the offensive comment.

Female staff members of the Gambling911.com website, when asked their reaction, were absolutely mortified by Negreanu’s comments.

“He needs some serious counseling if he finds this comment acceptable,” said Jenny Woo, Gambling911.com’s ace reporter who has been known to defend Negreanu in the past.  “I dare say the men who are defending this comment should ask what their wives think.  I don’t believe anybody should be defending what Daniel has said.”

Ace King, Gambling911.com