Robbi Jade Lew Wins First Poker Tournament Since J4; Trolls Garrett Adelstein
Robbi Jade Lew won a $500 buy-in tournament at Thunder Valley Casino Resort Monday night, and she trolled the poker pro who once accused her of cheating — Garrett Adelstein — in the winner photo.
The tournament, an 8-max no-limit hold'em competition, attracted 89 players in the one-day event. Lew, who spoke with PokerNews following her win, which paid $11,115, defeated Barry Birdwell heads up to take it down. The runner up received $7,410 as a consolation prize.
Lew had initially intended to leave town after busting from the World Poker Tour (WPT) Rolling Thunder Championship earlier in the week, but she stayed one extra day, and it paid off quite well.
"There's two things that have to happen when winning tournaments — you have to play well and run well," Lew said. "That's really what it comes down to — make the right calls, make the right folds, and it just so happened it went down for me."
Lew won her first tournament since the alleged cheating incident at Hustler Casino Live in Sept. 2022. According to The Hendon Mob, she previously won two small events, one in 2021 and another one month prior to J4.
The Southern California poker player said her run to victory on Monday wasn't a piece of cake. She didn't build a monster stack until reaching the final table.
"I've always found that I generally do well where I'm not the biggest stack right away," Lew explained. "It's usually like I'm average stack and I grow it to a certain point. But I tend to do really well with a big stack. I know how to maintain it."
When the tournament dwindled down to five players, Lew wasn't in the chip lead, but she said "I just knew at that point I was going to win it." That prediction came to fruition.
Is She Better at Poker than You Think?
Nearly 18 months ago, during the most infamous Hustler Casino Live stream ever, Adelstein accused Lew of cheating him out of a six-figure pot. She has always contested that she didn't cheat, while he continues to disagree.
Lew said she isn't sure if Adelstein is just being stubborn and unwilling to admit that his initial reaction following the hand was wrong, or if he truly believes she cheated. But she adamantly denies having done anything nefarious in what has since become one of the most controversial and memorable hands in poker history.
"There's parts of me that really does think that he believes he was cheated, and parts of me that think he's still priced in at this point and there's this level of neglect that happens where you really start to believe what you initially thought, and you can't let it go," Lew argues.
After winning the tournament with AxJx, instead of taking the winner photo in traditional fashion with the winning hand, she removed the Ax in favor of a 4x to troll the poker pro who accused her of cheating.
"I just kind of did that for fun," she said with a laugh. "Jack-four is always going to follow me. At first I was a little annoyed about it, but now I just embrace it. It's to the point where I think it makes people happy when they confront me, but no one's going to come to me unless they're excited about it."
Immediately after Adelstein made the accusations during the infamous stream, he angrily walked out to the casino floor and engaged in a heated discussion with Lew. During that confrontation, Lew refunded him $135,000, the size of the turn bet, which as she claims was done to calm him down.
After word of the refund became public, many poker fans accepted that as an admission of guilt, which of course she's always denied. But others within the poker community have called upon Adelstein to give her the money back. Does she even still care whether or not he does?
"I don't feel like I absolutely needed that 135 back, but I do feel like I needed it back because he didn't abide to the reason I was giving the money back, which was to get him to come back to the stream," Lew said.
Adelstein didn't return to the stream that night, nor has he played on the popular livestreamed poker show since. In 2023, Hustler Casino Live co-owners Nick Vertucci and Ryan Feldman wouldn't go so far as to say Adelstein is officially banned from the show, but made it clear he isn't welcome back any time soon.
In December, Adelstein made his triumphant return to livestreaming on Bally Live Poker at Tropicana in Las Vegas and then later in the week in a WPT high stakes cash game at Wynn Las Vegas. He hasn't since competed in a public poker game, but is awaiting a game big enough for him on the Bally stream at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles where he resides.
*Feature image courtesy of Thunder Valley Poker Room/Drew Amato.
