I was playing pretty loose/aggressive tonight, mainly raising a lot more suited cards than I typically would. Villain was running 19/8 over 59 hands and has not 3bet at all until this hand in (if I remember right) 14 or so opportunities.

Obviously it's a fold preflop, especially out of position, but with the stacks pretty deep and me putting him on a pretty strong range, I decided to call anyways. My computer was lagging pretty bad too and that was tilting me somewhat and making even 4-tabling pretty difficult, but that's beside the point and is a lousy excuse for my preflop call.

So here's the hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($9.40)
UTG ($11.05)
Hero (MP) ($17.30)
CO ($10.15)
Button ($18.10)
SB ($6.15)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 7, 8
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.40, 1 fold, Button raises to $1.20, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.80

Flop: ($2.55) 2, 6, 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: ($2.55) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $3, Button calls $3

River: ($8.55) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $5, Button raises to $11.40

Total pot: $31.35 | Rake: $1.50


On the flop I was obviously going for the check/raise with such a huge draw. When he checked behind and I hit the turn, it's time to start building the pot. My bet is pretty big, but I think that he's going to call, raise, or fold regardless of my bet size due to his range, and since the bigger bet looks bluffier and builds the pot (and my 8-high flush is vulnerable to his holdings) I decided that betting big was the way to go. The river kind of sucks since it pairs the board, but I was thinking 99 probably isn't even in his range, so I'm trying to get more value.

The raise just sucks. As soon as he raised my first thought was 99, since his line would actually make some sense with 99 (although I don't like checking the flop, bad players love to), but I just could not see that card being a big part of his range. My next thought was AhKh or AhQh, but I couldn't see those hands checking behind on the flop.

In the end I made a crying call since all I could put him on was a stupidly-played overpair or maybe a hand like AhK (and besides his raise wasn't all that big in relation to the pot), but I really felt like I'm losing most of the time after this raise. Then again, if I'm winning even 21% of the time in this spot (getting 3.9:1), this call is profitable.

What do you think? Where should I have played the hand differently, or was my play not bad? Maybe a bigger river bet makes sense?