With March's fourth annual Global Poker Awards less than three weeks away, the second and final round of public voting for four "Fans Choice" awards continues. In each of the four Fans Choice categories, four finalists remain, including in the "Best Hand" category, where one of the finalists is controversial, perhaps even infamous, "jack-four" hand between Robbi Jade Lew and Garrett Adelstein during a livestreamed "Hustler Casino Live" episode last September.
As Global Poker Awards finalists go, the hand is unusual. The ceremonies have typically included a category each year that honors a hand or special moment in poker, and the Lew-Adelstein clash, with all that followed, certainly qualifies. It's been many years since such a controversial poker hand has gone viral to the mainstream in the way that hand accomplished, and that certainly fits the definition of "special".
Still, the hand is an outlier in a category typical devoted to bad beats, bluffs, and coolers that occur at rare moments in the game's highest circles. The other Best Hand finalists are more typical, historically speaking, including Daniel Negreanu’s runner-runner quads, a huge fold by David Diaz in the WSOP Main Event and a monster bluff executed by Papo MC. It remains to be seen how the voters define "unusual", and if the award should the J4 win it, is in honor of the hand itself or the later controversy that surrounded it.
The poker public still has the chance to vote in this and the other three Fans Choice GPA categories. Winners in all categories, including several GPI/THM Player of the Year races, will be honored on March 3 in Las Vegas.
