The internet has not finished with Abby Merk’s viral Lodge Poker Club hand. If anything, the argument has become nastier since the cards stopped flying.
After AbbyPoker’s bizarre $821 shove and table-talk exchange with Susan exploded across social media, some of poker’s biggest personalities have weighed in. Merk has now responded herself, admitting she was tilted, saying she misjudged their friendship and making one point very clear: Susan did nothing wrong.
The original hand already raised questions about friendship, soft play and what players owe each other in a streamed cash game. The latest reaction has shifted the conversation somewhere else entirely, with critics questioning Merk’s poker credentials while Ben “Bencb” Rolle offered perhaps the most interesting poker explanation of the lot.
Ryan Depaulo Questions the Friendly Fold
Ryan Depaulo was among those to focus on the contradiction at the centre of the hand.
Merk had four-bet shoved for $821 after Susan limped and called a three-bet. Once the other player folded, Susan asked Merk whether she wanted action and was told she did not really want a call.
Depaulo questioned the idea that Merk could make such an aggressive bluff against somebody she considered a friend and then expect that friendship to help get the shove through.
His point was simple. If you are willing to put your friend in a difficult poker spot by four-bet bluffing into them, expecting them to respond by protecting you from the consequences creates a rather strange version of friendship at the table.
The argument quickly moved beyond the hand itself.
AbbyPoker’s Credentials Come Under Fire
LimpCallJoe took a much harsher line, questioning why Merk is presented as a professional poker player on livestreams while simultaneously saying she does not know much about poker strategy.
Another widely shared response argued that inexperienced poker viewers could even interpret what happened as an attempt at an angle, while criticising the broader trend of poker influencers being given prominent seats despite not necessarily being established professional players.
That is where the discussion becomes considerably more complicated.
Abby Merk charts a career that is not built solely around being an elite professional grinder. She is a poker player, creator and former Poker Power instructor whose career has increasingly combined playing with entertainment and content creation.
Livestream poker has plenty of seats occupied by people because they are entertaining rather than because they are the strongest player available. In fact, that is often the entire point.
But once somebody is playing significant pots on camera, the internet is still going to analyse their decisions like poker decisions.
And this one gave people plenty to work with.
BenCB: Friends Usually Try to Outplay Each Other
The most interesting response came from two-time WSOP bracelet winner and Raise Your Edge founder Ben “Bencb” Rolle.
Rather than focusing on Merk’s personality or credentials, Rolle went directly at the poker logic behind expecting special treatment from a friend.
Rolle described the combination of aggressively four-bet bluff-shoving against an opponent and then invoking friendship when the play failed as a “wild take.”
He also made a broader point that anyone who has played poker with friends will recognise. Friendly games do not necessarily mean players protect each other. Quite often they produce exactly the opposite.
Friends try ridiculous bluffs against each other. They make hero calls they might not make against strangers, needle each other, use speech play and desperately try to earn bragging rights that will survive considerably longer than the money in the pot.
In that environment, Susan calling is not especially difficult to understand.
Abby Merk: ‘I Was Tilted’
Merk has now addressed the growing reaction in a lengthy Instagram response.
She said the situation was more complicated than the short viral clip suggested and explained that she had played with Susan regularly, spoken with her many times and believed the pair were friends. When Susan asked whether she wanted action, Merk says she interpreted the question through that friendship rather than simply as poker-table speech play.
Merk also acknowledged that she completely misjudged the situation.
Most importantly, she did not accuse Susan of cheating, angling or doing anything improper. Quite the opposite.
“There was nothing technically wrong with what Susan did,” Merk said while explaining that her reaction immediately afterwards came from frustration.
“In the moment, I’ll be honest, I was tilted. I’m a human being with emotions about the hand.”
That also explains the moment immediately afterwards when Merk asked for the minimum possible rebuy and suggested she did not really want to continue playing. She says the smaller rebuy was because she did not want to risk more money while emotional.
The cameras therefore caught something poker players normally have the luxury of experiencing without millions of people watching: somebody losing a painful pot and reacting badly for a few minutes.
Susan and Abby Have Already Settled It
There is another detail being lost as the argument continues online.
Merk and Susan have already spoken privately.
According to Merk, they talked after the stream once the cameras were off and cleared the situation up. There are no hard feelings between them.
Susan has also defended the integrity of her decision. Because another player had already invested money before being pushed out by Merk’s four-bet, simply folding because Merk was a friend would have created its own uncomfortable questions about how fairly the game was being played.
That is arguably the biggest lesson hiding underneath a viral poker clip that has now generated everything from strategy analysis to personal attacks.
You can bluff your friends. Your friends can call.
And once the chips are in the middle, friendship does not come with a fold button.
