This is another hand against Carnite, against whom I had both of my big hands today.

On this one, Dr Cobben raises max UTG with God knows what, Carnite calls, as do I in LP with QcQh9c2s and $150. Against this field, I figure I have very good implied odds if I can set, which is about all this hand is worth, and I have position. Flop comes 3-way, and sure enough, I hit gold--well kind of.

Flop is in any case QsJs2d. Dr Cobben checks, Carnite pots for $12, and I decide to flat call here for several reasons. First, this board is actually very draw-heavy, with any card from 8 up making a straight and then the flush. But more than half the deck should still be safe. OOP he's also going to have trouble betting a draw he doesn't have if I rep a draw. Also the fact that I also have the 2 decreases my filling up chances. So, I decide just to see the turn and then hopefully get it all in on a blank.

Like or dislike here?

Well, the turn comes even better with the other Q, quadding me up and really just making the rest of it a matter of deception (my flat call isn't going to look like I have a lot).

Carnite checks, and I check behind, consistent with my draw representation, I figure.

The river comes even sweeter with the 3s, which hopefully won't scare him. But he checks, and now I half-pot. He check-raises to $75, leaving him only $13. I push and he actually folds here. I find it hard to believe that he had the nut flush and folded it, so he probably just figured that I would have to lay down my flush after that betting sequence.

Well, the last part of it I obviously liked, and I think the turn check worked well for deception purposes. But I also picked up a huge hand on the turn.

My main question is really what others think about the flop flat call in this situation--at which point I obviously can't assume that I'm going to quad up... In fact, if a draw does hit and he reps it, I'm planning on letting it go. But if it's a blank, I'll hammer.

I think he almost certainly had some sort of wrap or straight-draw around the QJ. I suppose he might've just had a weedy flush to go along with that (9 high as you say). A river CR is odd, but so far you're solidly repping the A high flush, and so a play like this on a paired board against someone he (presumably) knows is a good player might be very nice - perhaps he thinks that if he leads out with (say) a busted wrap with KK you'll either call if you can beat (i.e. you had the nut flush draw) or fold if you're behind anyways (say, with another wrappy hand) BUT if he checks, you'll either check and lose with no pair, or make a sketchy value bet with the nut flush (assuming he doesn't have a boat) and he can take it away from you by raising. Of course I'm getting heavily into hypothetical territory here - whilst this would be a decent play, he might just've been tilting or something.

I don't see how he could fold any sort of boat here (though against you it's probably actually marginally correct to fold bottom boat or something - however, against you it's definitely wrong to CR that hand, so either way it's a balls up), and obviously he doesn't have th nut flush so it looks like it's a bluff - not one I'd make but perhaps if his thinking is something like I postulated above, it might not necessarily be that bad.