How to play this??

Had a fairly bad day today, got sucked out twice on good hands and then this happened. It was my second hand for the table, so I threw out a $1 bet to feel it out a little and get some info. When the flop came out, I threw another bet out to see if he caught the flush and the answer came back 'no' (at least in my mind). When I threw out my river bet he took nearly all his time before calling, so I was sure he didnt have the flush.

Should I have continuation bet on the turn? How do I play these situations?

***** Hand History for Game 2709239375 *****
$25 NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, September 14, 07:21:53 EDT 2005
Table Table 37453 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Pavel666 ( $35.64 )
Seat 2: MrFawlty ( $25.50 )
Seat 3: varosmajor ( $9.05 )
Seat 5: FurstMysjkin ( $25.20 )
Seat 6: chzy6868 ( $61.65 )
Seat 7: Chicago_Joe_ ( $19.40 )
Seat 8: apr010 ( $6.75 )
Seat 9: lex4747 ( $66.48 )
Seat 10: sunyoster ( $11.70 )
Seat 4: renegaderob1 ( $24.75 )
apr010 posts small blind [$0.10].
lex4747 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to renegaderob1 [ 8d Ts ]
sunyoster folds.
Pavel666 folds.
MrFawlty folds.
varosmajor folds.
renegaderob1 raises [$1].
FurstMysjkin folds.
chzy6868 calls [$1].
Chicago_Joe_ folds.
apr010 folds.
lex4747 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2d, 7d, 9d ]
renegaderob1 bets [$2].
chzy6868 calls [$2].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Th ]
renegaderob1 checks.
chzy6868 checks.
** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]
renegaderob1 bets [$8].
>You have options at Beginners #1054704 Table!.
chzy6868 calls [$8].
renegaderob1 shows [ 8d, Ts ] a pair of tens.
chzy6868 shows [ 9c, 9s ] three of a kind, nines.
chzy6868 wins $21.25 from the main pot with three of a kind, nines.

Fold preflop.

Bet turn for info.

Too large a bet on the river.

Don't start raising garbage unless you're purposely Lagging. In which case most people have no idea how to take advantage of it later. Fold this preflop unless you have a purpose with T8 besides winning the hand.

On the river this is what should be going through your mind...

What hand that I have beat will call $8? The hands you have beat are 9x-7x-5x-2x. Only 9x and 7x would realistically call the $2 on the flop. Neither of these will call your huge river bet. That means your $8 bet becomes an attempted representation of a better hand. I'm not sure if you were consciously making this attempt. Were you repping the flush or wacky straight?

Either way, you can never expect your $8 to come back to you as $16 here. Never gonna happen. You tried to push him out with some kind of representation to take what was already in the middle ($6), but trip 9's wasn't going anywhere. You're lucky he even allowed you to showdown.

I probably would've bet on the flop, bet on the turn, then check-called a reasonable bet on the river if I'd raised this preflop. This line doesn't really make much sense.

At these tables I'd probably refrain from bluffing very much.

There is a beautiful simplicity when you're playing a bluff. Essentially, this is that THE CARDS IN YOUR HAND ARE ALWAYS THE NUTS. You can represent anything, so you'll be wanting, at one point or other, to represent the best hand possible so others will fold.

So, pre-flop, you have The Nuts; on the flop, you have The Nuts; on the turn and the river, you have The Nuts. Feels good, huh? So bet accordingly.

Second tip - any low-level player with a made hand will call your bluff bet on the river nine times out of ten, often including all ins. So don't leave your bluff till the river unless you have a damn good reason for doing so.

I want him to think that I am pondering a call, but all I'm really thinkin about it Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage.

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Funny you knew he didn't have a flush...I had a similar hand yesterday where my opponnent didn't think I had a flush after a flop of all hearts. In fact I Rope-A-Doped (Harrington Style) this sucker for about $80 because he was sure I didn't have it...In fact I flopped the nut high. The betting didn't really start to until the river...I put a value bet of $5 out on a $20 pot. He thought I was crazy and raised me $25...I put him all in and he goes home broke with a Q high flush.

Thanks guys.

I sat down and had a look at that day a bit later on, had a look through my hand histories etc and realised I was on a mini-tilt. When I first hit a table, I do like to throw out a raise (usually $1-$2) on mediocre (but not completely shit) hands so I can get a feel for the table; if I continuation bet and everybody folds, I'll show my hand to try to get my image as being loose/stupid- usually though I wouldn't play the hand like that (I realised how stupid my $8 raise was, I didn't stop to think after he checked on the turn).

I dropped 3 buy ins that day ($75), but now I have a massive note sticking to my computer that reads "THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Since then I regained my $75 and am now $30 ahead (all in all I've gotten $105 in my first week playing online which includes the $75 I got as a bonus; not bad for my first week I don't think - and I'm still making money from live games). I think I'm fairly happy with the standard of play at $25NL, so I may hang around there for a while (my BR is now up to 14BB) but I sometimes multi-table with $10NL because the level of play there is so amazingly bad I've found that pushing with the nuts will usually get at least 1 caller (camping and doubling up now and then while concentrating on the $25NL table is fine with me!)