Money out the Yin Yang - part 3 - "I don't fold 2 pair"

So I was killing in my Thursday home game, when I got into a decent hand with Tony. I raised up KQo and he called with position on me. No pair on a JT8 rainbow flop, but a straight draw. I lead out for $5 and he raised me 8 more. I thought about it a bit and called. Tony has been playing more on the straightforward side lately, and I thought this raise was more chance of a strong hand than something else. I didn't think chances were high of him folding to a semibluff, so I chose to see another card.

The luckbox in me this night came through again - a nine came on the turn, giving me the nuts once more. I bet 2/3 pot and Tony called. Interesting. Set? Same hand?

The river didn't pair the board or bring a flush, so I bet solid again. Tony made the call again, saying "I think we have the same hand".... and then flipped over ace-queen. Whoops. We both had a straight but mine was one higher and I took down another nice pot.

In another part of the night, one of our players at the game (named CB) was doing pretty well holding on to his chips. Usually he drops $120 or so with head-shaking bad plays, then laughs it off and goes home. He's a good guy playing for fun and of course we don't mind him shipping his money to us every week. His interesting comment of the night was "Once I see two pair, I don't fold - if you've got me beat, oh well". He was referring to a hand where there was a pair on the board, and he had paired up one of the cards in his hand for two pair. Someone tried to tell him that this wasn't really a strong hand - the pair on the board could give someone trips or a full house of whatever, CB didn't want to hear. He was going to the wall with his two pairs.

Late in the evening, I got into a hand with CB. It was a limped pot and I had A7 (too many players to iso-raise, and they all usually called anyway, so the "isolate" part of the iso-raise didn't really work). I hit my ace but checked my crappy kicker on the flop. The turn didn't help any draws and I made my bet, all but CB called. The river paired the ace, giving me trips with a lousy kicker. CB checked.

I would sometimes check this behind, especially if facing a tricky player, who might checkraise the river on me and cause me to make a tough decision whether I was being bluffed or whether my kicker was no good. Against CB, though, I had to bet, and I had to bet big. With a pair on the board, any other pair in his hand or with other cards gave him "two pair", and he had already let us know earlier in the night that he would go to the wall with any two pair. I settled on a 3/4 pot bet - enough to get plenty of value with trips, but not big enough to lose a stack on a crappy kicker. CB called instantly and showed pocket eights, for two pair.

That was my last larger pot of the night. I played a bit looser but not ridiculously so, and lost a couple of pots by folding the flop or turn. I also won a couple of small pots, and soon after we lost too many players and had to shut the game down for the night. I made my chip tally and found I was up 330 big blinds - my biggest haul in the live cash game to date.