Garrett Adelstein

Garrett Adelstein, widely known as “G-Man,” is an American professional poker player from Tucson, Arizona, best known for high-stakes live cash games. Before becoming a fixture on televised and livestream poker, he built his career online, specializing in short-handed and heads-up no-limit hold’em before shifting his focus toward the Los Angeles live scene after poker’s Black Friday.

Adelstein has an unusually academic background for a poker professional. He was valedictorian of his high-school class and later graduated summa cum laude with honors from the University of Arizona, where he studied Marketing and Entrepreneurship. His analytical and highly competitive personality became a defining part of both his poker career and his public image.

Outside poker, Adelstein appeared on CBS’s Survivor: Cagayan — Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty after being discovered by casting producers rather than applying through the usual process. He spent months intensely preparing for the show, studying previous seasons and adding swimming and yoga to his training. He has also pursued endurance running, hiking and long-term volunteer mentoring through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles.

In recent years, Adelstein has expanded beyond playing into coaching, poker education and writing. He previously created training content for Run It Once, now offers private coaching and is developing the Destroying Live Cash course. His memoir, Beneath the Cards, explores poker alongside perfectionism, identity and the psychological cost of extreme competitiveness, themes he has discussed publicly while describing himself as a “recovering perfectionist.”