Hand Analysis (Bad play, unlucky or somewhere in the middle?)

[8burnleymik8]

Been a poker player for a number of years. Will try and help out here if its of any use

Flop - I hit the flush, inside I felt the hand was over.. I had to rope him in for all I could but ace high flush .. no way he was gonna have me over. When he raised I called .. looking back I probably should/could have raised but I didn't want him to think I had the flush. I wanted this sucker to get caught slipping by discounting my flush .. I was just hoping the next card wasn't a heart.

You flopped the joint, raising is just going to push out too many hands you crush. If he has a hand like KJ/AJ/JQ etc etc he is going to struggle to continue when you show a lot of aggression on a board like that. I think just calling here is absolutely fine.

Turn - This is where he roped me in, the damn check filled me with such confidence I thought I could buy the pot. I already suspected he might have a pocket pair and another 9 or whatever his pair was could really upset me.. raise 2000 .. he called, I wasn't particularly worried.

You still have to feel you have the best hand at this point, athough you can now slow down a little when the board pairs. I like your bet size here of 2k into the 3.3k. It's big enough to extract value and small enough to induce a call from a hand that may contain a Jh or Qh.

River - He checked again.. I thought he was now riding at best a 2 pair ignoring the 2's on the table. I doubt he had a 2 in his hand other wise there was little chance of him coming in past the very first raise I made, and he certainly didn't have pocket 2's and a 4 of a kind or else he'd have raised earlier when he had the full house.

I think you have to check behind here now. There are a lot of hands that now beat you. Any hand that contains a 2 or a 9 and the board being double paired means you probably just have to take a cautious line. Sometimes you will miss value from slightly worse hands, but not a lot can call a river value bet on that board that you beat.

How should I play an AK suited, what do you do when you have the ace high flush that early on? Buy the pot or suck people in .. were my bet sizes plain foolish or what?

It's really really payer dependant. In this instance he donk lead out into the pot so you didn;t need to raise as he was doing the work for you and as I said above re raising pushes out too many hands you can get value from. if he checked to you then yes, I would bet, for two reasons: 1. to try and build the pot. 2. to try and get the maximum value from my made hand.

When you flop the joint you have to start thinking about how you can try and get all the money into the middle. Think of a plan (so-to-speak) about what would be the best line to take to get stacks in the middle and try and put it into action.

As played, I don't really understand why your opponent only checks behind on the river. He should be pushing all in all day long and twice on a Sunday!