Die Hard - Poker Edition

Over a year after the infamous hand that thrust Robbi into the poker limelight, she is still widely known in the industry and has become somewhat of an icon amongst recreational players who want to battle against the best. Our own Ryan Dreyer spoke with her about how she got into poker, the hand itself, and life after the controversy.&nbsp;<h2>Getting Into Poker</h2>After starting poker as a hobby with her family during the pandemic, Robbi found herself on the Hustler Casino livestream after the lockdown ended - a decision that would completely transform her life. In the aftermath of the infamous hand against Garrett Adelstein, Robbi Jade Lew was the name on everyone&rsquo;s lips; who was she? How did she get into the game? Is she a cheater? Is she a genius?The reality, as it often is, is much simpler than that; she&rsquo;s just a woman who loves the game and wants to see the game grow. Robbi&rsquo;s main game was tournament poker, as that was the format she had been coached in, and had relatively decent success at the 2022 WSOP. The buzz of a successful female player who&rsquo;s up and coming in the game quickly found its way to the Hustler Casino Live stream, and she was naturally invited on.&nbsp;<h2>Playing High Stakes</h2>As someone who had plenty of experience working in a male-dominated environment, Robbi felt that she was well-placed to feature on the live stream and give it her best shot. Even with superstar pros like Phil Ivey on the table, Robbi was unphased; she admitted that she did not grow up watching poker and wasn&rsquo;t star-struck in the way that many of us would be if we saw Phil Ivey sit opposite us.She jumped in head first, playing the highest stakes she could find - she wanted to play against the best and become the best, no matter what. Her success in her previous life gave her the flexibility to pursue poker at levels that would far exceed those of the average beginner. That&rsquo;s what allowed her to play $10K WSOP tournaments with Phil Ivey, and what eventually led her to the J4 hand.&nbsp;<h2>Intro To Hustler Casino Live</h2>After initially being wary of playing on a live stream as she didn&rsquo;t want to expose her playing style, Robbi was invited to play after winning a tournament at the Bicycle Casino in L.A. In her first appearance, she performed moderately well, making around $1,000, but her second appearance was incredibly profitable for her, as she made over $100,000. That performance prompted Ryan Feldman to ask if she&rsquo;d like to play in the big game, to which Robbi agreed.While she was being partially bankrolled by Rip, Robbi still had her huge profit from the week before, and split her total stake into two buy-ins; the initial amount she sat with, and the ~$130,000 she had behind her. Robbi went on to say one of the reasons she called Garrett in that hand was because she knew she had plenty of money left behind her, and would be able to just buy back in if her read was incorrect.&nbsp;<h2>The Infamous J4 Hand</h2>When guiding us through the decision-making in the J4 hand, Robbi could look back and laugh at the looseness of her call but went on to say that she thinks J4/J3 would be the bottom of her defending range on that flop. On the TT9 flop, Robbi explains that she has a backdoor flush draw and backdoor straight draw so she wasn&rsquo;t going to go anywhere against a c-bet from the aggressive Garrett.While it&rsquo;s loose, many people have said that the flop play is understandable; it&rsquo;s the turn play where things get crazy. Robbi does clarify that she thought she had J3 rather than J4, so when the offsuit 3 hit the turn, she thought she had a bluff catcher against hands like ace high, and raised the turn to see if he had anything better than that. When she faced the shove, Robbi had noticed that she had been making good calls against Garrett when she felt like she should fold, so she looked him down and decided that he just didn&rsquo;t have it and that her pair of threes might be good - so she made the call.When the cards were turned over, she saw the good news that her read was correct! Garrett was on a draw, and she had the best hand. However, when she turned her own hand over, she saw the bad news that she misread her hand, and that&rsquo;s when the shock really set in for her. However, the poker gods rewarded her gutsy call, and even though they ran it twice, Robbi scooped.&nbsp;<h2>Aftermath Of The Hand</h2>Despite not being happy with how Garrett handled things, Robbi understood the shock that he must have felt at the time, particularly as she felt that not many people made big calls against Garrett in those games. When speaking on the altercation that happened after, Robbi explained that she didn&rsquo;t even anticipate the cheating allegations that were about to be levelled at her, she just thought that Garrett was being a big baby for losing a hand!She details how she was taken to a secluded room away from the rest of the poker area and was confronted with the image of Ryan Feldman stressing out and Garrett furious about the situation. After learning that the game was still in progress and worried about production, Robbi asked what she could do to make things right, which was the point that Garrett asked for his money back.Robbi then agreed to give him half the pot, on the condition that he would come back and finish the stream. When she was in the process of giving Garrett his refund, that&rsquo;s when Rip noticed what was happening, and given he was partially staking her in the game, that&rsquo;s when the drama ensued. Looking back on the hand, Robbi said that she wished she immediately said that she thought she had J3, but admits she was too embarrassed to do it at the time.&nbsp;<h2>Dealing With Life After J4</h2>Despite it being over a year since the hand took place, Robbi still has to deal with accusations of cheating from random players, but she&rsquo;s not letting it get her down. While the level of celebrity that she has in the poker world is still strange, she was touched by the overwhelming amount of love and support she received from people who are on her side.After hearing stories of how she inspired other women to play, Robbi has really embraced the role of poker celebrity and has been using it to try and grow the game and increase the number of women who take part. While it&rsquo;s far from what she wanted or expected from poker, she&rsquo;s taken the responsibility she&rsquo;s been given and is trying to use it as a tool for good, and for that, you have to applaud her.&nbsp;Robbi teased a documentary on the J4 hand as well as a book in the works, so look out for those in the future!

Robbi Jade Lew shares her secrets to success, as well as discusses the infamous J4 hand that shocked the poker world.

Robbi Jade Lew shares her secrets to success | PokerDeals Podcast Episode 13

Check out some of the biggest poker player celebrities in the world. You might recognise some of these famous faces.

Biggest Celebrity Poker Players - From Hollywood Stars to Sporting Legends

Biggest Celebrity Poker Players

Happy 2023 poker fans! We&rsquo;re back after a six-month hiatus with another PokerDeals podcast, and this time we&rsquo;re interviewing Angelica Hael. An inductee into the 2022 Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and the <a href="https://pokerdeals.com/rooms/wpt-global" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WPT</a> Vice President of Global Tour Management, Angelica&rsquo;s certainly had a busy year! We caught up with her at the end of 2022 to talk about her poker journey and what the WPT has been up to this year.&nbsp;<h2>Joining WPT</h2>Starting off her poker life as a croupier in her local casino, Angelica naturally gravitated towards poker thanks to the energy and excitement she felt from the players at the table. This developed into a true love for the game of poker, and while she&rsquo;s the first to admit she&rsquo;s not much of a player (not through lack of enthusiasm), she&rsquo;s worked her way up to a powerful position in one of the world&rsquo;s most prestigious poker brands.Angelica will be entering her 13th year at WPT in just a couple of months as VP of a department that didn&rsquo;t even exist until she arrived! While she&rsquo;s quick to say she&rsquo;s worked with a lot of great people during her time, it&rsquo;s no secret that Angelica has done a lot to further the company&rsquo;s brand during her time, and this latest tour could be her greatest work yet.&nbsp;<a href="https://pokerdeals.com/redirect?url=aHR0cHM6Ly93bHdwdG9ubGluZS5hZHNydi5lYWNkbi5jb20vQy5hc2h4P2J0YWc9YV85MWJfNzVjXyZhZmZpZD0zJnNpdGVpZD05MSZhZGlkPTc1JmM9" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="../../../../api/v1/uploads/news/5e81b722-9816-4e13-805c-a262a75c26bc_gallery-image_Website%20Article%20Banners%20(1080%20%C3%97%20200%20px)%20(4).png" alt="wpt global banner" width="1080" height="200" /></a>&nbsp;<h2>WPT World Championship</h2>In a tournament series that some have called the winter WSOP, the WPT World Championship at the Wynn Las Vegas was a mammoth poker event put on by Angelica and the WSOP for the first time this year. It was said that every single employee at the WPT had a hand in creating this event, whether it was liaising with sponsors, creating the schedule or marketing the festival; it was a real team effort.There&rsquo;s a lot that goes into creating a championship of this magnitude. Angelica says she considers everything, from the continent where the event is taking place down to the casino they partner with. As a global brand with many prestigious events, it&rsquo;s important not to overload players with too many choices at the same time, and Angelica makes sure that every event gets its time to shine throughout the year.&nbsp;<h2>Handling Covid</h2>Obviously the Covid-19 pandemic hit everyone hard, but for a live poker tour that relies on hundreds, if not thousands, of people being in the same room together, there isn&rsquo;t much worse! As the pandemic hit at the start of 2020, the WPT were in the middle of their WPT Philippines event and had to cancel the event due to the seriousness of the virus spread, issuing refunds to every player who participated in the event.While the hope was that this would be a localised issue, Angelica realised in March 2020 that this would be a worldwide issue, affecting every stop of their worldwide poker tour. She described the event as the darkest period of their time, and it&rsquo;s easy to see why, as there are still ramifications affecting their tournaments to this day.&nbsp;<h2>Bouncing Back</h2>Once the restrictions had been lifted and the WPT could start to invite players back to their tournaments, Angelica was thrilled with the turnout she saw. After seeing smaller events have successful returns, she was quietly optimistic, but by all accounts, the numbers far exceeded anyone&rsquo;s expectations.In fact, the WPT has had their best year in over 20 years, thanks in no small part to the number of players chomping at the bit to get back to the live tables after the pandemic. Angelica mentioned that they smashed the projections for the World Championship series events and, at some points, had completely sold out the rooms at the Encore and the Wynn!&nbsp;<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="../../../../api/v1/uploads/news/c240c5bf-f0c6-4130-aaef-a3637af62bac_gallery-image_image_2023-01-10_08-29-56.png" alt="Angelica Hael Poker" width="795" height="495" />&nbsp;<h2>Thanking The Players</h2>One of the first things Angelica mentioned when talking about the attractions at this year&rsquo;s WPT World Championship was what she called the &ldquo;Thank You Players&rdquo; party, hosted at Area 15 in Las Vegas. After having a record year, bouncing back from the global pandemic, it&rsquo;s easy to see why she would want to thank the players. Still, you can tell that Angelica has a real appreciation for everyone who interacts with the WPT brand, from the players at the events to the people who watch the stream back home and everyone in between.&nbsp;<h2>$15 Million Guarantee</h2>The headline from the WPT World Championship was the $15 million guaranteed Main Event, something which Angelica was equal parts excited and nervous about. When asked whether she ever gets nervous about not making the guarantee, Angelica said, &ldquo;You&rsquo;d be a dumbass if you weren&rsquo;t sweating! Any time you have a guarantee, the casino partner, WPT, you sweat it.&rdquo;While we can only imagine what kind of nerves you have to have to put on a $15 million guarantee, that doesn&rsquo;t seem to be enough for some people; as Angelica said that there&rsquo;s a lot of side action on whether the guarantee will be met! That being said, she wanted to reiterate that the tournament and the guarantee are taken very seriously, as everyone wants the tournament to be as successful as possible. Whatever they were doing, they were doing a good job, as the tournament reached a massive $29 million prize pool!&nbsp;<a href="https://pokerdeals.com/redirect?url=aHR0cHM6Ly93bHdwdG9ubGluZS5hZHNydi5lYWNkbi5jb20vQy5hc2h4P2J0YWc9YV85MWJfNzVjXyZhZmZpZD0zJnNpdGVpZD05MSZhZGlkPTc1JmM9" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="../../../../api/v1/uploads/news/f59eef19-e674-4d26-a209-2a9391c7ce2b_gallery-image_Website%20Article%20Banners%20(1080%20%C3%97%20200%20px)%20(5).png" alt="wpt global welcome offer" width="1080" height="200" /></a>&nbsp;<h2>Power To The People</h2>One of the most important aspects of this festival to Angelica is accessibility. With the world as it is right now, not everyone has $10,000 to play the Main Event, so she has focused on creating a festival where everyone can come and have fun, no matter their bankroll. There are hundreds of satellites taking place for the events during the series, as well as a range of buy-ins and tournament structures that make everyone feel included.As tempting as it is to cater to the high rollers, it&rsquo;s nice to see that ordinary people are being considered so heavily by such a global brand.&nbsp;<h2>Being A Woman In Poker</h2>When asked about what it&rsquo;s like being a woman in such a male-dominated space, Angelica said she often didn&rsquo;t notice! She told a story of being in a boardroom early in her career where she was the only woman in the room, and it was only after someone brought it up after the meeting was finished that she even noticed. As she puts it, &ldquo;I don't really pay attention to those things,&rdquo; and, &ldquo;We bleed red, and we care about, for the most part, the same things as everyone else.&rdquo;The main thing she attributes this to is her early days as a croupier in her local casino. There, she said, &ldquo;I dealt to a whole gamut of human beings,&rdquo; and it was interacting with this large spectrum of people that made her realise that we&rsquo;re really all the same underneath, no matter what you look like.&nbsp;<h2>What Got Her Here</h2>When asked about the qualities that brought her to where she is today, Angelica initially joked about her serious OCD issues! While being obsessive would certainly help someone who has to manage as many things as Angelica does, the main quality she attributes to her success is her drive. Although she says she wasn&rsquo;t naturally gifted, her determination took her to places she otherwise would never have reached. To use Angelica&rsquo;s words, she&rsquo;s &ldquo;built different.&rdquo;Part of that drive and determination is attributed to her mother. Growing up in a single-parent household, her mother had to work multiple jobs to keep the family afloat. Angelica believes that the drive she saw in her mother imprinted onto her growing up, and has allowed her to be the woman she is today.As well as the natural determination she has, her love of the game is without a doubt one of the main driving factors in her reaching the level of success she has. Without her love of the game, there&rsquo;s no way she could climb the ranks as quickly as she has, and it&rsquo;s clear that her love of the game is having a positive impact on the WPT and the poker world as a whole.&nbsp;<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="../../../../api/v1/uploads/news/63bdd87a-64e3-418f-9d4c-9f5aefb8cc8f_gallery-image_image_2023-01-10_08-30-09.png" alt="angelica hael wpt" width="1200" height="630" />&nbsp;<h2>Advice For Making It In Poker</h2>When asked what advice she would give to anyone looking to follow in her footsteps, Angelica spoke about having the confidence to jump into whatever you&rsquo;re doing with two feet. As she says, &ldquo;When you first start your career, you don&rsquo;t know what you don&rsquo;t know, so you figure it out.&rdquo; As well as learning on the go, you need to be prepared to put in the effort if you want to succeed. I think nothing sums up Angelica&rsquo;s attitude better than when she said, &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not going to give it your 110 freaking percent, go find something else to bloody do!&rdquo;&nbsp;<h2>The Resurgence In Poker</h2>It&rsquo;s no secret that the poker market is an ever-changing environment. So many factors influence the success of the poker world at any one time, and despite many harbingers of doom, the poker world is still alive and kicking. That&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s so positive to hear, when asked about the biggest difference she&rsquo;s noticed during her time in poker, Angelica highlights the resurgence that&rsquo;s happened since we&rsquo;ve come back from the global pandemic.She speaks of seeing people attend events that haven&rsquo;t been to one in years, or flying across continents to attend one of their events. Despite the attempts within the company to take the general positivity they&rsquo;re seeing in the poker world with a pinch of salt, Angelica has said that the numbers are there to show a real resurgence in the poker world. And as far as we&rsquo;re concerned, long may it continue!&nbsp;&nbsp;We&rsquo;d like to thank Angelica for joining us on this podcast, and we hope you all enjoy it as much as we did! If you want to catch the next podcast, subscribe to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt9tNTkkYOjX9ediWEgR6Zw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PokerDeals YouTube channel</a>, join our PokerDeals <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/812533823466141" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook group</a> or follow us on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/pokerdealsofficial/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram</a>.

Angelica Hael has become one of the most respected players on the poker scene, and we get some insight into her journey to the top. 

Finding Success in Poker with Angelica Hael | PokerDeals Podcast Episode 12

Adam Carmichael Interview – Becoming A Poker Athlete | Episode 11

Alec Torelli Interview – Mindfulness in Poker with ConsciousPoker | Episode 10

Poker Podcast by PokerDeals #9 Marthijn Lakerveld (Malta Poker Festival Champion)

Die Hard - Poker Edition

Die Hard - Poker Edition

Robbi Jade Lew shares her secrets to success | PokerDeals Po...

Biggest Celebrity Poker Players

Finding Success in Poker with Angelica Hael | PokerDeals Pod...

Adam Carmichael Interview – Becoming A Poker Athlete | Episo...

Alec Torelli Interview – Mindfulness in Poker with Conscious...

Poker Podcast by PokerDeals #9 Marthijn Lakerveld (Malta Pok...