Garrett Adelstein returned to poker for the first time in nearly 15 months Wednesday night, but not on Hustler Casino Live, and he didn’t appear to display much, if any, rust.
The Los Angeles high-stakes poker legend competed on Bally Live Poker (previously Bally’s Big Bet Poker and Live at the Bike) at Tropicana in Las Vegas in a $100,000 minimum buy-in game against Patrik Antonius, Eric Persson, and other live-stream regulars.
Prior to the start of the show, which began a little after 4 p.m. PT, PokerNews caught up with Adelstein to discuss his pre-game mentality.
Joey Ingram even came out of the woodwork to commentate on the live-stream. The pot-limit Omaha enthusiast said he couldn’t miss out on being on-site for Adelstein’s return.
Bluffing with “The Robbi”
Adelstein was last spotted at a poker table on Sept. 29, 2022 on a Hustler Casino Live stream that included Phil Ivey and Persson. During his last appearance, “G-Man” accused Robbi Jade Lew of cheating him out of a seven-figure pot when she called off a massive turn bet with jack-high (Jack-4 off-suit) and no draw, and won the pot.
That sparked a lengthy investigation throughout the poker community, and fans immediately took sides — either backing Garrett or supporting Robbi.
Fast-forward more than 14 months and Adelstein was back in action on Bally Live Poker where he jokingly bought in for $135,000, the amount Lew refunded him following the infamous alleged cheating incident. He then added on an extra $500,000 shortly after to cover the rest of the table, his usual routine.
In one hand, he couldn’t help himself from playing the infamous J4 hand, aka “The Robbi,” and he even pulled off a solid river bluff against Persson.
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Adelstein Dominates
Despite the long break from poker, Adelstein was up to his old tricks, pulling off bluffs, making polarized river bets to put pressure on his opponents, and chatting it up with the other players. As he always was in the past, the longtime cash game crusher was the star of the show, and he was also the biggest winner, finishing the stream with a $132,600.
At its peak, the live-stream on YouTube cracked 16,000 concurrent viewers and had over 13,000 for most of the nearly seven-hour stream, which ended just before 11 p.m. PT. Fans were tuned in to see Adelstein’s return to poker, and the YouTube chat was lively. Not all comments were positive, however, as some Robbi supporters entered the chat at times.
Prior to the start of play, an individual who has been protesting against Garrett outside Hustler Casino in Los Angeles the past week showed up to the Tropicana stream and shouted for Adelstein to refund the money to Robbi. He was promptly escorted from the casino.
Adelstein didn’t play any massive pots, but he won numerous hands for five-figure pots. In one interesting hand he played, Kirk raised to $2,900 with A♠K♦ before Adelstein, in the big blind with A♥6♥, made it $10,000. The original raiser decided to just call and see a flop of 3♣9♠10♥, and it checked around.
Both players were intrigued by the K♥ on the turn. Adelstein bet out $7,000 and his opponent made the call.
The 7♥ river completed the flush for “G-Man,” who made his traditional polarized bet-sizing, this one for $37,500. Kirk, who was running bad at the time, couldn’t find a fold.
Antonius (-$67,700) and Persson (-$35,600) were the biggest losers in the game. Adelstein will return to action on Friday during the World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship at in Las Vegas at Wynn for a WPT Million Dollar Cash Game, to be streamed on WPT.com.