The Hustler Casino Live “Jack-Four” hand heard round the world is now four years old to the day, and we still don’t have any concrete answers.
Garrett Adelstein, the most popular player on the poker cash game show, accused newcomer Robbi Jade Lew of cheating him out of a six-figure pot on Sept. 29, 2022. A poker community-wide investigation ensued, leading poker fans to take sides — Team Robbi or Team Garrett.
Evidence Points to Cheating and Not Cheating
There’s never been a consensus from the community on if she cheated or not. Four years, a highly-publicized book, and more hours spent investigating the scandal than Watergate later and nobody (other than Robbi) truly seems to know what really happened.
The outcome of the hand, cheating or not, never made sense to most experienced poker players. Robbi called off a six-figure all-in wager on the turn with jack-high and no draws. She couldn’t even beat most bluffs. Ace-high, king-high, queen-high, pocket deuces … a bigger jack … all those bluffing hands beat her.
Adelstein, one of the top high-stakes cash game players in the world, had eight-high but with an open-ended straight flush draw. Both players agreed to run the river twice, and both runouts went Lew’s way, so she scooped the entire $269,000 pot.
That caused Adelstein to suspect cheating occurred. Moments later, he quit the game, went on a social media tirade against his opponent, before soon being banned from the show. The once prominent Southern California livestream legend has since appeared on a handful of livestreams and rarely plays poker these days.
Adelstein, earlier this month, released a book titled Beneath the Cards, which he used to tell some crazy gambling stories he’s experienced and address the “Jack-Four” scandal.
The book appears to be doing well in terms of sales and has been well received by those who’ve read it. But it doesn’t seem to have swayed many skeptics over to Adelstein’s side.
Still to this day, there seems to be few who were on Team Garrett or Team Robbi early and have switched sides. Unless cheating actually did occur, the only people who truly know it happened are those who were involved. But there also appears to be no way for Robbi to prove she didn’t cheat.
There’s questionable evidence for and against cheating. On the “for” side, it simply doesn’t make any sense for Lew to call such a big wager with jack-high and no draw. And on the “against” side, Robbi was an inexperienced player who simply may have just made a silly mistake (although she did have the best hand).
We may never know if Robbi cheated. She’s adamantly denied it over and over again. But we also may never know if she didn’t cheat.
