Caught a Bluff But Could Not Beat It 🤦🏼‍♀️

Did you ever hero-call with one of the best bluff catchers you can have, just to find out that it is only slightly worse than the hand, that your opponent for some reason has turned into a bluff? When you play versus lunatics, this is normal 👻

The Main Villain, Alan, has developed a bipolar poker disorder: he either plays the hand standard-well, or in a completely wild way. The key is to identify, which side of him has taken over.
The classic example of a moronic Alan is him squeezing over four people out the big blind preflop and getting three callers. He c-bets a king-high flop, a shortstack jams, a bigger stack overjams, Alan rolls his eyes, says “Okay, okay, guys, I get it” and folds 7-2 face-up.
Island game, 140BB effective
We played a normal hand, where Alan made a questionable call on the river and lost a healthy pot. That matters, because I will have every reason to think he wants revenge. Half an hour later we are 5-handed, I open 3x with 9♦️7♦️ from the cutoff, Alan calls from the button, small blind calls.
Flop comes 9 ♣️5♥️2 ♠️
I bet 7 bb, Alan says “I instacall you, Liz” and does it with a smile. Whenever Alan flops a monster, he suddenly gets still, silent, he’s barely breathing. Alan does not talk much during a hand to begin with. I take his loose behavior as weakness, and that’s where I make a bit of a misread. This is not a monster for sure, but there are no decent draws possible; a gustshot like A♥️4♥️or 8♣️7♣️ would at least consider raising and taking the pot right away.
On this board an instacall is more likely to be a weak made hand, that has no other reasonable choice. He probably flopped any pair, has 66, 77, or 88, which means he’s gotta stick around for at least one more street in position.
Turn is a Q♣️
Based on my read, my hand is still supposed to be the best most of the time (but not as much as I thought) unless he turned some miracle two pair. I decide to bet small, make it 7bb again, which induces an immediate raise to 18 bb, not even 3x the pot.
Both the speed, the size of the raise and Alan’s loose behavior on the flop make me think that he is doing something funny here. He would not be so loose on the flop with a set or two pair, so he’s gotta have turned two pair to be raising for value, but again, he bet too fast.
Looks like he called my flop bet with 5-6 or 7-2 and a plan, steaming after the last big hand we played. I call a raise with the intention to call down the river unless something in his behavior tells me he improved. 

River comes a K♦️, Alan quickly bets 30bb. The moment he puts the chips out his hand makes a genuine microtwitch.

“I don’t believe you at all. What are you even trying to represent? I will have to look you up,” I tell Alan.
“Damn, I should have bet more. I was gonna bet 50, but miscounted chips,” Alan genuinely facepalms.
“You even had your hand shake when you put out the chips”
Alan jokingly makes both of his hands shake in an exagerated way. He smiles without showing teeth. I have never seen him being that loose and friendly with a big hand. I end up calling, he looks at my 9♦️7♦️ and says: “Wait, did I win?”
He tables 9❤️8❤️, outkicking me by one point and I can’t believe this shit.

“What the hell did you do? Why would turn a nine into a bluff?”
“I just wanted to have fun and play bigger pot!”, was the response.

As much as I should not be analyzing this play from a common sense point of view, let’s imagine that Alan was in a sound mind. The flop is dry and I bet twice, my turn bet is too small to be a bluff. My hand really looks like a nine and all of them I’d open with, except for the one actually opened with and maybe 96s, have him outkicked. I might have 88/77/66 and play the same way, in this case he is good.
So what does he do? Can he get me off a better nine? Maybe, but not too often on this turn. Straight is not possible. He’s not representing lots of two pairs, except for Q 9. A slowplayed set makes sense, but in that case he should not give himself away with table talk. There are so many better cards to bluff, like 5, 2, 3, 4 or an A, so if he wants to to steal the pot, he can call a small bet and see if he can catch a good river. He could raise or overbet (if I check) on any card, which is close to 2, 5 and nine to tell a credible story, that he hit two pair.
By the way, if he raises the turn, he should at least make it bigger.
Let’s look at the hand from my prospective.
Betting the flop is standard, following up with a small bet on the turn is fine, as long as I play other turns or the better hands on the same turn the same way. I know that a small-sized second barrel is mainly interpreted as weakness and think it’s a great idea to play some strong hands the same way, especially to induce the crazy people or smart people thinking on the next level. I managed to induce, but who thought he is turning a better nine into a bluff?
King is not a bad river to call him down (I already mentioned the bad ones), especially because my read confirmed this card should not have helped him. It has nothing to do with “If I call the turn I must call the river” bullshit. I re-evaluated, got another read and called, being sure he is turning a 5, 2 or something like A♣️4♣️ into a bluff. Had Alan’s behavior been different, I might have folded the turn, putting him on a set. 

ONE LAST NOTE
In this hand I was sure that I beat a bluff.
If you don’t beat all the bluffs, you should raise instead of trying to make a fly hero call with A-high or bottom pair.