$1/$2 NLHE

I told the dealer afterwards that he was making me work for it... the blood was flowing in this one and he remarked to me that this was a fun hand to watch. First some context...

UTG+2 - We have some interesting recent history here. He makes strange turn bets with middle pair and we have played some interesting hands against him when he does this sort of thing. We have probably logged about 20 hours of play with this guy recently and he is a super-reg at the local room. I think he is likely a breakeven player, able to beat the rake at times maybe. I have been thinking about a particular hand for the last few weeks where he made a strange bet with middle pair on the turn. I called, he wound up sucking out on the river and we paid him off, but this was not the first time I had played well when he made strange plays on the turn with weakish hands. The fact that I had been thinking about that particular hand a lot plays a role here.

Cutoff - that's me

Button - fat guy

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We have j-9 diamonds.

Pre-flop - UTG+2 limps as do I and an untold # of others.

Flop brings 9-6-3, two hearts.

UTG+2 checks, I check, button bets $5.

the blinds fold etc, UTG+2 raises to $10, I re-raise to $20. Button calls and UTG+2 calls.

Turn brings 9-6-3-8

UTG+2 bets $15

I raise to $45

Button calls $45

UTG+2 calls the raise.

River brings 9-6-3-8-Q

Check, Check, Check - we win.

The button could be seen holding up his cards to his pal showing all his outs that he had so this sounded like a draw or poss combo draw w/ pair etc.

The flop - This was funky, but our history with UTG+2 is very big here. I just thought his min-check-raise was weak and the button betting $5 was weak. I thought I was maybe good here but wanted some info, wanted to take the betting lead, wanted to charge the draws, and thought the third bet was an interesting idea here. It is not often you can put in the third bet on the flop and it is still only $20, so this was also part of my thinking. I accomplish a lot but we are not bloating the pot too big.

The turn - $15 is a weak lead here into a $65+ pot. This looked like an A-8 hearts who just hit an 8 and wanted a cheap river etc. There are other possibilities, but this is a spot where I usually attack again. My read on the button wasn't anything specific in particular, but I just didn't feel too intimidated by him with a $5 bet and then smooth call of $20 onn the flop. Raising is my choice play here, but it does bring the caveat that we are folding to a re-raise by the UTG player... in that case, we have been fooled by his weak lead and we likely made a mistake and overplayed our hand. We are pleased that this did not happen.

The river - We hated the queen. We know the button was drawingl. The Q makes a straight and we thought either player could have potentially hit that. We think long enough to determine that turning top pair into a bluff does not seem like a reasonable idea and we don't like betting. We check and are super stoked to show down and win here.

There is no question here and it just generally seems like a brag post. Good luck.