You Won’t Believe What’s Next
By Dana Craven | Staff
In the 14 months since the infamous J4 hand took place on Hustler Casino Live, the poker world has not been the same. The polarized firestorm of viewpoints has ranged from very strong opinions to absurd conspiracy theories thrown all over social media, poker forums, and even at our local casinos and home games.
Both players involved in the hand, others who weren’t, and even HCL employees, have been targeted with finger pointing and insults while also amassing many supporters along the way. From possible-to-outrageous accusations, from independent-to-mainstream-media interviews, and plenty of investigations, that one hand may very well be an unsolved poker mystery for many more years to come.
Recently, the one year “anniversary” of the event seemed to stoke the embers of the “Poker Twitter” firestorm. Strong-minded stances of “Garrett was cheated” versus “Robbi was cheated” were quickly brought to the forefront when a post from Garrett Adelstein surfaced on X and was followed quickly by a cheeky reply from Robbi Jade Lew.
“A year ago exactly I was almost certainly cheated in a compromised poker stream. I’ve been fake threatened with lawsuits endlessly ever since in a weak attempt to silence me. These cheaters f*cked with the wrong guy. This will not go away for them, I assure you. Stay tuned.” – @GmanPoker
“Happy Anniversary” – Robbi Jade Lew
While the vast majority of people took action by sharing their opinions only online, one man from Canada decided to make his opinions known in a unique and surprising way. A singular photo was dropped in a reply by “Terry @TerryOsat” to Robbi Jade Lew’s “Happy Anniversary” message to Garrett, on November 24th.
“Please return the money to Robbi. Please do the honorable thing. You will be liberated. Your actions are harming the reputation of the poker community. Robbi Jade Lew is a victim.” – @TerryOsat
From that day on, Terry would continue to post the photo as a reply to dozens upon dozens of poker-related tweets. Eventually he included the comment, “I will be in LA hustler casino with my sign soon” within those replies. Despite very few views and nearly nil engagements on his posts, Terry continued to distribute his message to the poker masses – one reply at a time.
On Tuesday, December 5th, a flabbergasted Nick Vertucci posted a photo on X with the comment: “You can’t make this up. Pulled into the Hustler just now and saw this.” Continuing sarcastically, Nick’s post read: “Let’s see if we can start a rumor that I paid him !? Maybe start a spaces over it and discuss it for five hours.” – @NickVertucciNV
The next day, PokerNews even posted a short two-minute video of Terry on social media – where he tries to tell the poker community why he’s there and holding a sign at the entrance of the Hustler Casino’s parking lot.
EXCLUSIVE
In late December, Terry decided to tell more of his story first via HCL News and now in an exclusive extended interview with Rounder Magazine.
In his own words, Terry shares why he decided to make his journey to the Hustler Casino, his opinions of what happened during and after the J4 hand along with what he thinks should happen next.
ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH ROBBI, HCL, OR HUSTLER CASINO IN ANY WAY?
The only association I’ve had with Robbi is when I’ve watched her on the Hustler livestream and what I’ve seen of her on Twitter and other social media. We have never talked – ever – in our life.
Monday (December 4th) was the first day I’ve ever been in Hustler Casino. I’ve never been there before. I do not know anybody there – except in the last couple of days, I’ve kinda met Nick Vertucci, Ryan Feldman…– but I’ve never talked to them prior to this – never ever. I do watch the live stream on a regular basis – that’s my only connection.
WHAT DO YOU IMAGINE ROBBI THINKS ABOUT YOUR EFFORTS?
Obviously, I don’t know what she really thinks. I think she’s being very careful and keeping her distance. Here’s this guy from western Canada, right off the farm – right off the hay rack, so to speak – a cashier at Wal-Mart, who all of a sudden shows up in LA with these signs and she’s wondering who is this guy? What is this guy? She doesn’t know what my motives are – I mean, I know what my motives are, but she doesn’t.
Robbi is very, very smart. She’s very articulate. She knows what she’s doing. Robbi has a tremendous inner strength and that is how she deals with the character assassinations – it’s like water off a duck’s back. She certainly does not need me in this. She can accomplish whatever she accomplishes on her own.
WHAT PART OF CANADA ARE YOU FROM? HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO TRAVEL ALL THAT WAY? DID YOU DRIVE OR FLY?
I’m in Western Canada. I drove – it took me 35 hours, approximately. I drove straight through. (Chuckles) I took about three Red Bulls and 10 or so cups of coffee and I was able to survive it.
I got here and I love it here! The weather is beautiful – they don’t know how good they have it in L.A.! They should come to Canada!
DO YOU STILL PLAY POKER?
I just don’t have the stomach to play the high stakes– and I don’t have the money. I play online a lot on ACR – America’s Card Room – and I play extremely low stakes. I’m talking like 50-cent tournaments and stuff like that.
ARE YOU ON VACATION FROM YOUR JOB AT WAL-MART?
I’m on a sort of a leave of absence. I said I needed some time off to do something very important and they’re really good to me. They treat me super good. I’ve worked there for a long time and they said, “Yeah, go ahead; do what you need to do.”
Read the full story in the FALL 2023 issue of Rounder Magazine featuring WPT host Tuğba Ercan
Headline photo credit: Garrett Adelstein (photo: Haley Hochstetler) and Robbi Jade Lew (photo: Drew Amato) at 2023 WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas
