ACR Poker Pro Ebony Kenney Accused of Using Computer Assistance in Tournament

Poker pro Ebony Kenney (pictured) has been accused of using a Game Theory Optimal poker assistance software during an online tournament on the poker platform Americas Cardroom, for which she is an ambassador.

Online poker fans dug up a two-year-old Instagram story from Kenney’s account in which she was playing an ACR tournament. However, there was also a poker analyzing program called GTO Wizard up in the background.

GTO Wizard is a legitimate and widely used poker practice tool and not always proof of cheating. Solvers can be used to learn from past hands by working out what the optimal play should have been. However, it’s generally considered at minimum bad etiquette to be using them in a tournament.

Kenney – no relation to all-time poker winnings leader Bryn Kenney – has yet to comment on the issue. Although there has been plenty of negative attention towards her from the poker community.

Kenney is the second ACR Poker-connected player to be recently accused of using poker solver software during online gameplay.

Last month, ambassador to the site Nacho Barbero posted a picture on social media of him playing the ACR Venom tournament. And he also had a GTO Wizard open in the background. In mid-2024, ACR was also involved in a bot scandal during a large Venom tournament. 

The Incident 

Ebony Kenney is 16th on the all-time female poker pro money list, having won several million-dollar-plus tournaments. Her biggest cash was at the 2022 Triton Super High Roller series, where she won $1.7 million for a third-place finish.

Since 2020, she has been an ambassador for offshore online poker site America’s Card Room. Recently, she finished at the final table in an ACR Venom tournament, where she took home a $150,000 Mystery Bounty prize. 

However, after that February 2 success, this week things went downhill for Kenney. A February 2022 social media post re-emerged of her competing in another ACR Venom online tournament, with a GTO Wizard tab visible underneath the poker client. Kenney has yet to respond to online criticism, and neither has ACR. 

The Potential Fallout 

This new report of another ACR-sponsored player caught using assistance software while in-play on their poker client is another embarrassment for the operator.

Earlier this year, World Series of Poker bracelet winner and ACR representative Nacho Barbero was also accused of using computer assistance in-game after similarly accidentally sharing evidence in a social media post.

Barbero claimed he was using the solver in a session with poker coaching clients earlier in the day and simply forgot to close tab. ACR Poker also made a social media post defending him, claiming their sponsored player wasn’t a GTO-using player. This despite the photo evidence against him.

As an unlicensed offshore poker site focused on U.S. players, there’s no real way of telling if these controversies will have any impact on ACR’s business in the long or short term.