Sports biographies often follow a tried and tested method. A prodigious childhood followed by a battle against the odds to make it to glory and fulfillment. This week’s poker autobiography, Garrett Adelstein’s Beneath the Cards, made its long-awaited bow on the bestsellers list and promptly stayed there as readers discovered that this tale of triumph and disaster wasn’t like all the others.
To coincide with its release, we spoke to the man himself, sitting down with Garrett to process what made him write the book and why he went so deep into a world few know much about. It turned out to be almost as revealing as the book itself.
No Hole Cards Barred
Many poker fans’ point of reference for Garrett Adelstein will be the infamous ‘jack four’ hand that he played against Robbie Jade Lew. Accusing Lew of knowing the cards when she called his bluff with just jack-high, Garrett walked into a polarizing firestorm online. But there is so much more to Garrett’s story than one cash game hand, and as he tells us, he doesn’t hold back in any part of the book.
I hold nothing back in the book, weaving between the personal and the professional throughout. I suspect the audience will be surprised by much of what I reveal, from a tricky childhood to mental health struggles to my very mixed feelings about spending most of my life playing professional poker.
Garrett is known as someone who has succeeded at poker and in many aspects of his life and career. As he describes, however, people might be shocked to learn the truth.
More than anything, I think people might be taken aback at how often I screwed things up, he laughs. Some people saw this stoic figure on livestreams and assumed I had everything figured out. Far from it. I’ve struggled throughout my life, and often had to make mistakes time and time again before the lesson ultimately stuck.
The Family Man with a Plan
Garrett may have eventually hit the big time in poker, but as he says, it was a grind. I sense that you’re at a crossroads within the game and his career. He could go back to live-streamed cash games or head back into the on-screen streets of reality TV instead. I wanted to know where he sees his next steps after the publication of his memoirs.
I love poker. Always have, always will, and I’ll continue to play sporadically. But at the great risk of sounding holier than thou, I’ve recently just been looking for something different out of my professional life.
Garrett’s four-year deep dive into his life came to a conclusion with the release of Beneath the Cards. There’s a strong sense of unburdening about the book, and Garrett believes this will lead to changes in his poker career.
I’ve revealed everything in my memoir – the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve given away the playbook in my Upswing Poker course, and I’m hopeful that I’m able to do something that helps people enhance their lives with my next big professional ambition…
I just have no idea what that looks like yet. I’m looking forward to being able to spend more time with my one- and three-year-old kids as I figure it out.
Running Well
I know from speaking with Garrett soon after the ‘jack-four’ hand that his pivot to growing his family gave him a lot of pleasure. It’s clear from speaking with him now that becoming a Dad has improved his life infinitely.
Being a dad is obviously the best, says Garrett. Many of the most blissful moments of my life have come during the quieter moments raising them over the past few years. No doubt, my life feels bigger, more meaningful, because I need to love, guide, and protect them always.
While family life is definitely for Garrett, he still has a lot of ambition in him. Being dumped out of Survivor early when he appeared on the show hurt and is covered at length in the book. Garrett is a natural competitor and loves nothing more than taking on new endeavors.
I’ve found marathon running. It’s been very rewarding and is a great outlet to channel my competitiveness. With running, there will always be a ton of people better than you. The battle is internal, and you can’t lie to yourself. The quantitative result, a.k.a. your time, speaks for itself. You can make it as high or low stakes as you want.
Hitting the Heights
With Garrett flying high on the bestsellers list, his book is the most popular across multiple genres during its opening days on Amazon. Number one in poker and sports biographies, it’s also at a lofty #408 on Audible, where Garrett spoke every word of his book across 11 hours of voice recordings required to put the recording together.
Beneath the Cards is by no means a simple story of Garrett’s rise to prominence in the poker world. He’s dug far deeper than that, covering previously unknown trials such as facing depression and body dysmorphia.
Garrett’s lowest ebbs are here, from drunken binges on the way up the ladder to the death threats he received. The public backlash from the ‘jack-four’ hand almost ruined his reputation, and Beneath the Cards could easily have been put together to repair that damage.
To me, it doesn’t feel like that is what the book represents. Garrett Adelstein doesn’t come out of his own autobiography smelling of roses; he emerges as a slightly battle-scarred version of the person he was before he entered the cutthroat world of high-stakes poker and reality TV.
During the book, Garrett doesn’t pull any punches, and with plenty of those aimed at the man in the mirror, there’s an element of risk to Beneath the Cards. The book will appeal to poker fans, but it should also be picked up by anyone who has faced adversity and wonders if they’ll ever survive it.
Because if Garrett Adelstein can get through the trauma, depression, desperation, and public outcry his life has included to this point, then anyone can survive anything.
Beneath the Cards is the story of the price Garrett Adelstein paid for the lifestyle of extreme competition he volunteered for. Costing around $20 in paperback, $16 on Kindle, and available as an Audible credit new this month, it’s essential reading if you really want to know what a poker life is like when it’s lived on the edge.
