Poker after Dark hand, many of you may have witnessed.

Forgot the exact action, but something along the lines of this
Berkey straddles to 1200, Cates raises KK early position, Berkey defends straddle with Q5o.
Flop Q97
Cates cbets, someone else calls, and Berkey raises the Q5o, a bit questionable in itself
Cates calls, turn is 8. Berkey bets 30k Cates calls again.
River 6, giving Berkey bottom end of straight, he checks, and Jungleman makes a play that I really admire, turning his KK into a bluff because of having virtually no showdown value given the action.
Now berkey got himself in a weird spot because of how he played the hand, but honestly i wouldnt mind checkfolding the river.
I am almost 100% sure Cates didn't put him on the bottom end of the straight, I strongly believe he put Berkey on 97/99/77 maybe 86. Because who the **** raises Q5o in that spot on the flop. Anyway, he turns his KK into a bluff, realizing that when he bets this river, it will be extremely credible, as there is a low chance he is merging his range here given the runout with hands such as QQ/99. I have thought about this hand a bunch and have many different logical points, but long story short, I think Berkey made a "**** it" call. Berkey had to assume Cates was turning KK/KQ/AQ/AA into a bluff (which I don't think he does nearly enough to justify a call). There are absolutely no bluffs Cates can have other than value hands turned into bluffs given how the hand was played. What better hands in terms of his value range is Cates betting here? That goes back to the merging point, which is very unlikely.


What are your thoughts on what Berkey should do on river

What are the stack sizes and the bet sizes on all streets? Suits of the cards?

Honestly, depending on sizing, I would probably think Berkey's river play might be his best play in the whole hand.

Without all of the information, I would generally think:

1. Don't straddle.

2. Fold pre-flop.

3. Call flop.

4. Check turn.

5. Probably fold river. But depends on sizing. If sizing isn't too big and a flush isn't possible (and especially if there were flush draws earlier that missed), calling might not be bad, I think.



I don't really get what he was doing here. But I'm certainly not playing NLH with blinds of 300/600 against Cates, so ...

This was a really cool hand. Hard to justify Berkey's flop raise, but whatever.

Key point I think is how many straights Jungle has on the river: all the JT combos, 3 T8, some QT, possibly some stubborn KT/AT flop floats. As you said, very hard to find bluff on this river if you're Jungle, and seems very creative to turn his overpair into a bluff.

Cliffs: Jungle made a good bluff. Berkey made a better soul read.

Yet another hand where Berkey more or less button clicked his way to winning a big pot.
He should probably fold pre, fold flop, and check turn lol.

Thinking about it, KK is probably jungles best bluff combo on this runout. The only thing that I don't like about the play from Jungle is how ****ing nervous/guilty he looked when he made the bet - but maybe I am letting the results cloud my judgment on this aspect...

Idk if Berkey should be calling here - but he had a straight and Jungle is pretty capable...