Live 6/12: A9s-what stage of Zee development am I at?

[mrcunningham]

My rationale was to raise because:
1. I was hoping this would get me to showdown without further bets going in if I didn't improve. If I would call down a river bet, I figured I might get to show down with the same # of bets put in by raising.
2. On these live tables, it is common that AQ and even AK might not raise preflop in one of the blinds.
3. I figured I had a reasonable number of outs, and if I hit them I might get called on the river.
Do these arguments make any sense?

[Frond]

I like your free look try for showdwon. I think if the BB had only called your flop raise initailly you could have tried this better on the turn. At first I thought your turn raise was okay until read back & saw that the BB had 3 bet the flop. After that I think I might be more inclined to call the turn. If another Ace comes off it probably won't help you with that flop action, so looks like your drawing to the nut flush with the Ace as a slight backup at this point.