For many poker fans, Garrett Adelstein shot to fame thanks to his appearances on high-stakes live poker streams such as Live At The Bike (LATB) and Hustler Casino Live (HCL).
For others, they came to know him thanks to one particular HCL hand: the famous ‘Jack-Four’ incident when his heads-up opponent Robbi Jade Lew somehow called his $100K+ shove holding nothing better than jack-high… and won.
Check out the original story here.
Was it a ‘soul read’, an honest misreading of her hand, or something more sinister?
Adelstein is certain in his belief that he was the victim of a con, and discusses why in an exclusive interview with PokerOrg’s Craig Tapscott.
Adelstein made a name as a big winner in high-stakes cash games, but also as the loser of one hand in particular.Ahead of the full interview dropping later this week, and the upcoming release of his new book Beneath The Cards, here’s a sneak-peek at what Adelstein has to say four years on from that memorable hand.
Read on or check out the clip above.
‘Just some people doing what they do’
The fateful hand and its resultant fallout saw Adelstein take a big step back from livestreams, and poker in general.
Not everyone took his side in the ‘he said, she said’ battle of words that followed, and he needed to take some time to reflect on why that was, besides other things.
In the end, as he tells PokerOrg, he had the revelation that while the alleged cheating had personal consequences for him, he was wrong to take it as a personal attack. It could have been anyone sitting in his seat that day.
“I felt like they had wronged me, that they had come after me, that this was an attack on me,” he says. “I’ve come to realize it wasn’t about me, this wasn’t personal.”
Robbi Jade Lew was the Adelstein's heads-up opponent in the famous hand.“These are, as I see it, alleged con artists,” he continues, “[they] found an opportunity, a weakness — there were a lot of vulnerabilities with the HCL systems — and they took their shot. It wasn’t personal, it wasn’t about me, it was just some people doing what they do.”
If Adelstein has moved on from taking it personally, does that mean he’s truly put it all behind him?
Watch the clip above for more, and tune into our full interview later this week for the answer to this and more questions.
‘Beneath The Cards: A High-Stakes, High-Anxiety Poker Journey’ by Garrett Adelstein is published September 1 by Permuted Press, and available at Amazon and via Adelstein’s website.
