Live return

So far, so slow. My return to live play has been with mixed results. I have learned a couple of moves that are very important, and was essential for me to see and experience live to really get the concepts into my head.

I stumbled into learning something the other day: I hold 99, my table image is loose but knowledgeable, I raise to 3x bb, 6 handed UTG, which should let me know if someone has a larger pocket pair, and should announce that I hold a hand stronger than my usual crap.

2 callers,

Flop is ATT, two diamonds.

Simply terrible. I need to know where I am right now, so I bet pot, first to act. The first player hems and tosses, then the button tosses… I win?

Why did I win? Player one is fairly tight, and uses pot odds a lot. Button likes to be aggressive, only if he can be first aggressor. The first player says he had an ace with a strong kicker, the button says he had QQ. They both were sure that I had trip T's

Given that neither one had a flush draw, how did they put me on trips? When I bet pot, I ruined the odds to draw to the flush, and I had a reasonably strong hand. Also, the loose image provided the possiblity that I had TJ KT, AT, even 9T.

The lesson learned is that thinking players will consciously or subconsciously put you on a hand based on the odds presented by a particular bet. 2/3s to pot sized bet is the type of bet that will ruin flush draws over time, but make $ for trips. I blindly made a bet that said a lot about the hand that I held.

Really, I was just trying to find out where I was, but my bet 'said' trips. It's another piece of the 'storytelling' about my hand, that I need to incorporate into my game, and know that I can use it with thinking players, not fish or donks.