Vanessa Kade quiets haters fast with $1.5 million tournament win

Everyone knows who she is now.

Rarely have the poker gods conspired to give the right person all the chips so conspicuously as this. Perhaps the last time it happened was Chris Moneymaker winning the Main Event in 2003.

Vanessa Kade of Kelowna, B.C.,won the PokerStars Sunday Millions 15th Anniversary tournament on Tuesday night, beating a field of almost 70,000 entrants, who each paid $215, to take home $1.5 million. An earlier tweet indicated that she had 100 percent of her action as well.

Kade, if you’ll recall, was told by sleazoid Dan Bilzerian, “Quiet hoe, no one knows who you are,” after she pointed out the problems with GGPoker making Bilzerian a brand ambassador last December. Kade, a well-known Twitch streamer, had her affiliate deal canceled by GGPoker a few weeks ago but landed a sponsorship deal from America’s Cardroom even as she took heavy criticism for continuing to call out sexism in poker.

Predictably, trolls, big-name pros, and the pick-me girls piled on to... well, defend blatant sexism in poker, with many of them questioning Kade’s skills. It took her a week to prove her sponsorship deal was well deserved.