Abby Merk is 25 years old. She's been in the poker community for a few years, and is best known as a short-form content creator.
For awhile she was relatively unknown, doing video reporting for various poker websites, and some short-form content.
She's the blond in this picture:
https://twitter.com/abbypoker_/status/1991715540621246733
She's presently a sponsored player by BetMGM.
She came to the attention of poker Twitter last year, when she made a somewhat cringy video about the "Onyx Cup" series in Cyprus. Her video was meant to poke fun at how no one had heard of the Onyx Cup before, and had her going around the hotel finding various cups, and repeatedly asking, "Is THIS the Onyx cup?"
Kinda juvenile and lame, but it didn't sit well with some women when she pointed to her bra and asked, "Are THESE the Onyx cups?" Those female critics, several of whom were better known than Abby, claimed that she was serving as a poor example of women in poker, and sexualizing herself for views.
Most people weren't on Abby's side. The women felt the video was objectifying, and the men just found the whole thing to be cringe. Abby was making the video for a poker news site (I think poker.org), and they deleted the video after the criticism, presumably at her request. Because it was a minor issue, the story quickly died down, and people forgot about it.
I had mixed feelings about this. I felt that, yes, the video was lame and stupid, but I couldn't fault Abby for using her looks and very mild double entendres to get clicks. That goes on in pretty much every industry. I will never fault people, male or female, for using their natural attributes to get noticed. If I were a pretty young female instead of an over-50 dude, I'd also be using my looks to get additional opportunities and sponsorships in the game.
In a way, I actually admired her don't-give-a-shit attitude. Even after the controversy, she continued to post pics and videos in bikinis, extremely tight pants, and other semi-provocative outfits. Yeah, these wardrobe choices were for an obvious purpose, but who cares? As the old saying goes, "sex sells". And nothing she did was overtly sexual or crude -- just a lot of pictures basically showing off her body, while pretending just to be doing mundane things while on poker travel.
https://twitter.com/abbypoker_/status/1978876958105833786
However, today she waded into a pool where she shouldn't have been, and the backlash has been harsh.
I'll explain in the next post...
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