The Garrett Adelstein vs. Robbi Jade Lew (part 6)
This week we conclude our series on an infamous poker hand between Garrett Adelstein and Robbi Jade Lew by guest writer Rigondeaux. As a reminder, here are links to parts 1 to 5:
If the topic doesn’t interest you, remember to scroll to the end for the puzzle section, where I answer the puzzle from last week and present a new one for this week.
Some say that nobody would misread their hand in such an important pot. In his video explaining why he thinks Robbi is likely innocent, Jonathan Little provides examples of top pros misreading their hands in big situations. Phil Ivey folded a winning flush in the World Series of Poker Main Event. Another player would have won WSOP player of the year by flipping over a winning hand. However, he had misread his hand and folded, costing himself that title.
More exculpatory evidence: HCL hired a firm called Bulletproof to investigate the case, paying several hundred thousand dollars for their services. The conclusion of the investigation was that there was no evidence of cheating in this case, though HCL was vulnerable to cheating.
Machiavellianism reappears here, as many claimed that the results of the investigation were fraudulent. Though Bulletproof is a very large company and this was a small case for them, they produced the results that HCL wanted and covered up the truth.
This is unlikely for the same generic reasons already given about the polygraph and other subjects. Also, it’s not even clear that HCL would want the cheating covered up. Would it be so bad for them if they said, “someone cheated on our show, but we investigated and caught them?” Certainly, by covering it up, they would risk being totally wiped out if the coverup was ever uncovered, as would Bulletproof.
Others complain that the investigation was not thorough enough and that Bulletproof lacks the powers of police or the FBI. This may be true, but a large, reputable investigative firm’s findings still carry some weight, even if they are not as good as the FBI.
The next piece of exculpatory evidence is that several well known figures in poker, including Bill Perkins and Haralabos Voulgaris put up $250,000 as a bounty for information that proved cheating. Many of these people were suspicious of Robbi and were hoping to catch her, not prove her innocence. The reward had a deadline that came and went. Nobody claimed the reward, nor was there report of someone inquiring about collecting.
If cheating occurred, several people might have claimed the reward, but the most likely party would have been Bryan. Bryan was the HCL employee who made $40,000 per year and stole $15,000 from Robbi’s stack. As the inside man in the conspiracy, Bryan would have been in a great position to collect the $250,000. He had already stolen $15,000 from a member of the alleged ring. Why not legally collect the $250,000? For a person like Bryan, this would be life changing money.
Team Garrett tried to explain this away with various stories. The fringier elements believed Bryan had been murdered or intimidated by goons. Others thought that the bounty would be too hard to collect, or Bryan would be afraid of going to jail. I’ve spent some time searching on the subject and I’ve never found a case of a person in the US going to jail for cheating at poker. This isn’t the kind of thing law enforcement worries much about.
You can quibble about how likely it is that someone would collect the reward. But ultimately, $250,000 is a very large sum and if cheating occurred, there is a good chance someone would try to collect. Maybe even someone like the significant other of one of the cheaters or the mother of Bryan’s children. Nobody even attempting to collect makes cheating less likely.
Maybe Bulletproof and the polygraph were both crooked. And Bryan was killed, or chose not to pursue the reward. And nobody else did either. Maybe the four Behavior Panel experts were all emphatically wrong and will be humiliated and discredited. Maybe Robbi was a mastermind of deception one minute, faking disappointment when the board paired, and was a mess the next minute for some reason. Maybe this was the dumbest cheating ring in history, using moronic methods and failing to win money, but they also brilliantly covered their tracks, using burner phones and an undetectable signaling system, leaving no concrete evidence. Maybe the 49ers, Chiefs, Lakers and Bucks will all cover. But probably not.
Oh right. One last thing. There are sites that track the results of HCL and it turns out that any combination of alleged cheaters was not beating the game.
They might be up a few thousand or down a few thousand, depending on how you slice it, but they are basically break even. So, somehow, a team of cheaters, with the ability to see their opponent’s hole cards, was not able to win.
There was a brief period where they would have been up the amount of money Robbi won in the j4 pot. But this would be a silly objection because 1) they got the money in as underdogs and won by pure luck. 2) they returned the winnings! So you would be saying that the cheating ring failed to create a +EV situation, and then, after lucking into a win anyway, returned the money.
I had to put this part last because I think almost anyone who is thinking straight would stop reading as soon as they saw it. Learning that the alleged cheaters were not winning was certainly a turning point for me, as cheating tends to be +EV.
I’m going to throw in a brief account of the fact that many other cheating conspiracies were spawned from J4. A number of online sleuths believed that billionaire Eric Parsons, who was at the table during the J4 hand, was involved with the Robbi conspiracy, or that he was part of a larger cheating operation. Others cited Garrett’s impressive results, along with those of Nick Virtucci: the owner of HCL. Nick plays in the games which, obviously, is unethical. Some concluded that Nick and/or Garrett had been cheating throughout the history of the show. Nick in particular made his fortune as a real estate tout, often targeting the elderly. Unlike Garrett, he was not a world class player, but he was a dishonest man who had great results playing on a show that he owned.
My favorite Robbi spin off involved a player named Billy who is a well known poker personality under the moniker DGAF. DGAF hosted a different game that was played on different days, but it was operated and broadcast by the same company, HCL. Like NFL Sunday games vs Monday Night Football. Conspiracy minded sleuths made a better case against DGAF than they did against Robbi, in my opinion. DGAF had been on a tremendous winning streak. He made many unorthodox plays and had been bluffing and calling bluffs with great accuracy. At several points during big hands, DGAF made an unusual gesture. He would push his sunglasses up by sharply pressing a single finger on the nose bridge of the glasses. The craziest part: at one point Bryan--yes, the same Bryan who stole from Robbi’s stack--can be seen handing DGAF thousands of dollars in chips on camera!
Nobody outside of the conspiracy theorists really thinks DGAF was cheating, but he did feel compelled to address the claims and offered to take a polygraph test. The point is, if we carefully scrutinize large amounts of information with a pre-determined narrative, we will find patterns that fit the narrative and “evidence” to support it, whether we are trying to prove that someone is a witch, a communist infiltrator, a lizard man or a poker cheater.
Well, there’s a lot to summarize here, but I’ll do what I can. 1)The only time Robbi or her supposed partners played in a manner consistent with cheating was 1 decision point in one hand. There were many times, including in that same hand, when they played in a manner inconsistent with cheating. 2) There are innocent explanations, the most popular being that Robbi simply misread her hand. 3) All cheating theories involve strange cheating systems that only complete fools would use. 4) Yet the cheaters masterfully covered their tracks and maintained the conspiracy. 5) Several outside investigators and poker experts suggested that cheating was unlikely. 6) The alleged cheaters did not win any money.
It was a fun ride. And honestly, I was rooting for it to be cheating. I really enjoyed the investigations of the Postle case and other cheating scandals. But this one just turned into debunking crazy theories and that’s fun too.
September 12, 2024 Puzzle Question
Three logicians are asleep under a tree. While they are asleep, a mischievous boy paints a smiley face on all three foreheads. Later, they all wake up at the same time. Each logician can see the other two have their foreheads painted with a smiley face and immediately start to laugh. Nobody can see their own forehead. However, after several seconds, they all stopped laughing because each realized he was painted as well. How did they figure this out?
September 12, 2024 Puzzle Answer
The logicians can clearly see the other two logicians are laughing. At first, this should not seem surprising. From the perspective of any one logician, he would initially reason the other two could be laughing at each other.
The logicians do not know whether he himself was painted. Each initially assumes the other two are painted, but not himself/herself. Let’s reason what would happen if only two were painted. Let’s call the logicians Alex, Bob and Cathy. Assume Alex and Bob are painted and Cathy is not. Let’s put ourselves in Alex’s shoes. He would initially laugh because he sees Bob is painted. Then, he would quickly see that Bob is laughing too. Alex can see Cathy is not painted. Therefore, Bob must be laughing at Alex. This would cause Alex to stop laughing because he realizes he is painted.
However, this does not happen. Since everybody keeps laughing for several seconds, the alternative must be true, that everybody is painted. When this is realized, they all stop laughing.
September 19, 2024 Puzzle Question
An evil warden gets together 100 prisoners and gives each a unique number from 1 to 100.Inside another room are 100 numbered boxes. The warden takes pieces of paper, numbered 1 to 100, and randomly places them in the boxes, one piece per box. The next day, the prisoners will be allowed into the boxes room one at a time. Each prisoner may open 50 boxes. If a prisoner finds his own number (for example prisoner 23 finds the box containing the numbers 23) then he will be "successful" and may leave early if he finds it before the 50th opening. Exits are made through a separate door than the entrance.
If all 100 prisoners are successful, they will all be set free. However, if one or more are unsuccessful, then they are all immediately put to death. The prisoners are allowed a day together to strategize. Once the first prisoner enters the boxes room, no further communication is allowed. Examples of communication include, but are not limited to, moving the papers around and leaving the lids open. If any communication is detected, all prisoners will be put to death immediately and painfully.
What strategy will maximize their probability of being set free and what is that probability?