Appreciate your thoughts on this hand. I checked flop because even though I had top pair, I am not too happy about my kicker. Should have turn also?

www.cardschat.com/replayer/4aHBT0c

Yeah I think betting on the turn here the right play. If there have a draw (straight or flush) when you check the turn you're letting them see another card for free that could potentially kill your hand. You're most likely ahead here with two pair, you block one of the AJ combos here (which would be the only hand that beats you) so you should always be value betting here imo.

Since you were the preflop raiser from UTG I would have led out with a continuation bet after having hit my Ace on the flop to see where I was at relative to the other player in the hand. The villain may have raised your C bet but you likely could have called it easily assuming it wasn't too big. This would have set up your turn play a lot better since you would have now hit your 2 pair and could have easily bet bigger on the turn if the villain had just called the flop or check-raised the turn if the villain had raised your flop C-bet.

All that aside, you played it differently and I think a turn opening bet could have easily been made but you also had good reason to think that the villain was going to bet on the turn again and I presume that you were planning to raise any turn bet that the villain made. I'm actually not sure why the villain didn't barrel again on the turn since the 9 brought both a flush and additional straight draw that he was allowing you to draw to if you happened to be on a draw. The 8 river completed the TQ and T7 straights although those are unlikely holdings for someone who raised UTG such as you did.

Anyway, looks like you at least got a half pot sized bet of river value.
Hope this helps!

hi. I think you should have bet on the flop, due to the presence of "J", the risk of him making "AJ", if he calls me on the turn, to assess my opponent's hand. good luck at the tables.

You definitely have to bet on turn to have a better stack for yourself. Of course, a reasonable idol that a person either calls to win or folds the game. If I were you, I would be an bet on turn.

Not bad, such line with check-call flop you shouldn't bet turn, and bet river like bluff. It worked and you won a pot

Bet the flop for sure, what the point of betting UTG if you hin your Ace?
I don't recommend you to give up betting lead untill you missed completely or you have very strong hand to check-raise on the river or donk bet there

Yes I think betting the turn is the right play here.

Yes, you were lucky here because of the 9. But otherwise, utg is very difficult to play in the A9, it's better to play it in late positions, but the ace with a low kicker can often cause a big loss.