A recent hand that took place at the Hustler Casino Live stream was a catalyst for old arguments to resurface — and for poker Twitter to explode once again.
The hand in question was not that out of the ordinary. It involved one of the Hustler Casino regulars, Luda Chris, and the player going under “GT.”
With blinds at $25/$50 (with antes) and after a bunch of limpers, GT looked down at pocket aces and went for a big raise of $1,000 straight. This raise significantly thinned the field, but Luda decided to get creative (as he’s been known to do) and 3-bet with 6-8 suited, making it $6,000 to go.
His 3-bet took care of the last couple of stragglers who wanted to see the flop, leaving just GT and his pocket rockets. Not wanting to get into tricky situations, he decided to play it straightforward and went for a fairly sizeable 4-bet of $19,000. And thus begins the fun.
Nobody Likes Their Aces Cracked
GT is a recreational player who doesn’t seem to have a very tricky style of play. So, his 4-bet was a fairly clear indicator that he was holding a premium hand like pocket aces or kings.
For many players, this would be enough heat to get them off of any ideas they might have had, but Luda Chris isn’t one of those players. He doesn’t like to give up, and so far, his LAG style of play has been working, as he’s won several hundred thousand on Hustler Casino Live.
So, Luda decided to call and see the flop, leaving himself with $47,000 after the call. And, as it sometimes happens in Hold’em (about 20% of the time), GT’s aces got out-flopped as the first three community cards gave Luda trip eights.
With a lot of chips already in the middle, it didn’t take long for what was left to get in the pot, and with no help from the deck, GT ended up holding the second-best hand. Luda dragged in the pot of over $130,000, and GT was visibly upset.
At first, he made a few snide remarks, “thanking” Luda, which nobody was upset about — after all when you get aces cracked in a massive pot, you get to complain a bit, especially as a recreational player. But a few moments later, things started to escalate, as GT went on a tirade, insinuating he was cheated out of his money and how many people warned him against playing on the stream.
Bad Rep Doesn’t Go Away
Anybody who’s played Texas Hold’em for any significant time has had their aces cracked more times than they care to remember. It’s a (not-so-fun) part of the game, but hardly something to warrant accusing someone of cheating.
GT was really grasping at straws, trying to figure out how anyone could call such a big 4-bet with such a weak hand, but, as many of the regulars pointed out, this wasn’t outside of Luda’s usual playing style. He’s not afraid of playing big pots and trying crazy bluffs for tens and even hundreds of thousands if the deck doesn’t cooperate.
And, on any other day, in any other game, GT would probably take the loss on a chin, rant a bit, and move on. The problem that Hustler Casino Live has is that there have already been a few scandals where cheating allegations were brought up, the biggest one involving Garrett Adelstein, Robbi Jade Law, and the infamous J-4 hand.
These things get out and spread like wildfire, and then people start seeing cheating where there is none. Once the word is out that the game might be rigged or unsafe somehow, it’s hard to put that genie back in the bottle. It doesn’t matter that none of these allegations have been definitely proven — as they haven’t been definitely disproven, either.
Although no one felt that this particular hand warranted any kind of investigation, it quickly caused a big stir in the poker community, rekindling many of the old feuds and bringing back bad memories, further proving the above point.
Garrett Adelstein Chimes In
It didn’t take long after the incident for things to take it to Twitter, where, unsurprisingly, Garrett Adelstein was dragged into the discussion. And although Garrett was quick to acknowledge that there was nothing particularly shady about this one hand, he didn’t miss a chance to mention that in the past, he deliberately avoided playing in the same games with Luda Chris.
This statement hinted at yet another story that the poker public wasn’t privy to and led to a big Twitter spaces discussion moderated by Joey Ingram (naturally). The discussion brought together Garrett, Ryan Feldman, and Nick Vertucci, and it opened a few new cans of worms.
Without going into details about the debate (suffices to say it didn’t end on a very friendly note), the whole situation raised some important questions. If a bad beat can create all this drama, what lies in the future for Hustler Casino Live? Will this make it harder for them to attract players? And, perhaps most importantly, what will it take to put it all to bed and move on?
In poker, like in life, perception is often the reality, and that perception is doing no favors to HCL at this point in time. And while most of us enjoy some drama, it feels like there’s been too much of it lately, taking the focus away from what’s really important — fun, enjoyable poker games with big pots and crazy moves that aren’t questioned every single time.
Sometimes, it’s just a crazy hand of poker — and we love to see it!
