[Buzz]

odomination - You played perfectly on the second betting round! If you check, you don't have to make a decision until the betting gets back around to you.

Then as it turns out, everybody else ahead of Button checks and Button bets, creating an ideal opportunity to get one-on-one with an opponent who may have made a positional bet, hoping to steal the pot with everybody folding, maybe having some oblique semi-bluffing fit with the flop, perhaps merely a pair plus a back door low or back-door flush. (And as it turns out, a positional bet by Button after this flop seems to have been the case).

At any rate, you opportunistically raise and succeed in getting one-on-one with Button, who very possibly does not have much of a fit with this flop. Beautiful.

If the betting had gone otherwise after you checked the second betting round, you presumably might have check/folded on the second betting round. (You don't have to make the decision whether to check/raise or check/fold until everybody else has acted). Anyway, it worked out well this time. Unless Button actually has a good flop fit, you're surely ahead. Let's run some sims.

I have AA34n ahead against a random hand 54.5 to 45.5 after this 79Jn flop.

If Button has flopped the straight (8TXY) Hero is way behind, 13.7 to 86.3.

Or if Button has a set, say JJXY, Hero is also way behind, 20.1 to 79.9.

But there's no guarantee Button has either one of these hands. When you don't immediately get re-raised, things are looking up.

Then you bet the queen on the turn and if Button didn't flop the straight or a set, then Button has to be concerned that you did. And when Button doesn't raise on the turn, you're looking very strong because Button almost surely does not have the straight (but still might have flopped a set, perhaps middle or bottom set).

I think the river bet is more to keep your actual holding secret than a value bet. When the board pairs on the river, if Button flopped the straight, would Button pay off? hard to say, but I don't think Button flopped a straight because of the lack of a re-raise on the flop plus the lack of a raise on the turn.

However, you're cooked, if Button did flop a set - and if Button has some other hand that won't beat your two pair, you don't collect because Button doesn't pay off. But you bet so that you don't have to show if Button doesn't have you beat. Fine, but if you really thought you had the winning hand, you might have done better by checking the river. That way Button might have bet into you and you could call and pick off the bluff.

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so i played this hand a little unorthodox but do you think that it was unorthodox brilliant or donkey?

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I don't think it was unorthodox play. Instead I think it was opportunistic play, and well done on the second and third betting rounds!

I think you can raise or not with this hand on the first betting round, depending a lot on how you play other hands (and on how your opponents play).

Just my opinion.

Buzz