Robbi Jade Lew Booted from Reality TV Show – “We Were the Guinea Pigs of the Entire Game”
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In the middle of August, it was revealed that poker player Robbi Jade Lew was cast on a new reality TV show on the USA Network – The Anonymous, a competition in which the players compete to potentially win up to $100,000.
While Lew proved to be a threat on the show, even winning the first challenge, her time was cut short as she was eliminated from the competition in this past Monday night’s episode.
“There's a lot of luck involved, kind of like poker. I didn't get lucky this time,” Lew told PokerNews of her time on the show. “They found me to be the biggest threat and it was probably the right thing to do. I really felt like I was going to win it.”
For those who don’t know, here is how the show is described:
"The Anonymous is a strategic competition played in two worlds: the real world and anonymous mode. The Digital Anonymous Networking Interface, or 'DANI' for short, has invited 12 players to live in her domain and work side-by-side to raise a prize fund of up to $100,000.
Despite their close quarters, all players will have their own private underground hideouts, where each is completely anonymous and can say anything and everything behind the mask of a unique handle. In their hideouts, players can provide raw, unfiltered takes on their fellow contestants. They will scheme, connive, and deceive to build influence and advance their game." - USA Network
Becoming a Threat
Lew was one of a dozen contestants competing on the show, which was filmed earlier this year before the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
“I don't know what it is but reality game shows love poker players,” Lew said when asked how the opportunity came about. “It's not the first time I've been asked to be in a game show like this and it was a perfect fit. You know, this is a game about deception. It's kind of like being two-faced, kind of living a double life. I was like, wow, that's really cool. I felt like I could really do it, but I also knew that if I was going to go in my strategy was not going to be to come off as a poker player because I felt that I would be an immediate target and an immediate threat to the household. So, I just hoped and prayed that nobody recognized me whatsoever and I was able to get away with it as long as possible. Unfortunately, I ended up being a threat anyway, but I think it would have been like a double threat if I had come off as a poker player.”
One of the reasons Lew came off as a threat was because she showed off her mental acuity early by winning a challenge in which she memorized and successfully recited back a 10-digit sequence.
“It felt awesome, but I also knew right away that I had a target on my back after that happened,” Lew said when asked what it felt like to win the first challenge and secure immunity for herself, thus ensuring she wouldn’t be the first to go. “It's like one of those things that I was like, I'll deal with that later right now tonight, I'm safe. I obviously contributed to the prize pool. Ultimately, if you look at what the strategy and the game are and there are two sides of the house, there were those that felt that they wanted to get rid of the threats and then those that thought that they wanted to get rid of the weaker players.”
She continued: “When they said memory, I was like, oh, I got this one. I didn't think I’d do as well as I did. I was also very nervous, you know, you're in a really high-pressure environment. We were being timed and we couldn't decide the speed of how fast it was coming out. We were freezing that night as you can tell we're all like these jackets and stuff and it was the first challenge. But I will say that that was one of my favorite ones and I really liked like the team dynamic ones.”
Finding an Alliance
While Lew may be a celebrity in the poker world, her fame has permeated the mainstream. That wasn’t the case for some of her fellow competitors. That included for Big Brother winner Xavier Prather, Australian Survivor legend Nina Twine, and Andy King known for his role in the Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix.
"Our goal was just to make sure that the person that was The Anonymous is not somebody who wanted to eliminate a threat."
“The alliance that I had formed with the people in the house were the ones that were the strong contenders in the house that were contributing to the prize pool and felt that we should get rid of the weak players in the beginning,” Lew explained, “and then ultimately, we can deal with each other at the end, but we all wanted to get to the end. Our goal was just to make sure that the person that was The Anonymous is not somebody who wanted to eliminate a threat. Unfortunately, when the three new people came into the house, we weren't able to do that. When the new people came it kind of threw everybody for a loop and our strategy went out the door.”
She added: “You could see Xavier doing what he did in Big Brother, which is he knew the importance of forming alliances and Nina was part of that too. I knew right away when I met them that they were people I wanted to kind of like align myself with because they had that experience behind them. It was very cool to be outside of the poker element, of like these poker nerds that I deal with all day, and be in like this real-life environment with people that kind of like to get out and see the sun. You know what I mean? Like they are normal people, they're doing normal things.”
Would She Do It Again?
Lew, like the rest of her castmates, had to learn on the fly as there were no earlier seasons of The Anonymous.
“We were the guinea pigs of the entire game show. We were still trying to figure out how to strategize as we went,” she admitted.” One of the big things that we realized earlier on is it only takes one vote to be eliminated. I think that Season 2 is going to come out and they're going to do it bigger and better and strategy will be crazier. You'll see that. It's so difficult when you're standing there and you're still trying to figure out what the strategy of the game is because we don't have anything, we have no like golden rule or standard.”
She continued: “The longer you play that game, you realize that there are only two people that are safe – The Anonymous and the person that is safe because they won the challenge. All it takes is one vote to get knocked out. I only had one vote. I was only up there one time when I got eliminated next to somebody who had like five votes. It just takes the wrong person being The Anonymous and you having one vote to be eliminated. So, the ultimate goal is just to be safe or be The Anonymous.”
So, would she do it again? How about a different reality TV show?
“I would do anything competitive-wise. I loved this competition. I didn't think that I would like it, that I would really appreciate the experience of being there, but I would do it again. As long as it's not super long weeks, I would consider anything that has a competitive basis the way that The Anonymous did. Anything that's competitive you know I'm doing it, that's why I love poker so much. And as a poker player, anything fits into our schedule.”
As they say in poker, on to the next one!
Watch all-new episodes of The Anonymous on Mondays at 11 p.m. ET/PT on USA Network. The Anonymous is available to stream on Peacock.
Images courtesy of USA Network and Rico Torres.
