You played preflop much better than the guy with AA did.

Yeah, I don't think anyone would put the cutoff on that exact hand.

Interesting that you mention Hellmuth. When I watch clips of him playing, I'm always struck by his perverse sense of entitlement. If he starts with the best hand, he expects to win. If he flops the best hand, he expects it to hold up. If he raises at any point, he expects his opponents to give him credit for a monster and fold. And when these things don't happen, he has a meltdown.

So sick! How is this happening? I've been running so bad lately. Honey, he called me with queen-ten!

Someone with his level of experience should know that that's not how poker works.

You were ahead on the flop. You were ahead on the turn. Someone else took the lead on the river. This is standard. It happens all the time. (In this particular hand, he did you a favor by raising to let you know he'd overtaken you.)

Now that we know what the three of you had, on the turn there are 42 unseen cards. Of these, 35 make you the winner, 7 make the CO the winner, and 0 make the SB the winner. That's a great situation to be in; I'll take it any day. But 7 out of 42 times, you're going to lose.

Don't be Phil, expecting to always win. Foresee and embrace all possible outcomes. Try to make good decisions on every street, especially as new information presents itself.

Good luck!

Don't be like Phil, unless you can gain money and popularity from being known as a brat.

I guess if it weren't for luck, I'd win every time!

If it weren’t for luck I’d lose every time and quit playing.

1. I rejoice when someone slowplays AA, KK, AK or QQ and traps people to win a pot, even when one of them is me. It encourages them to keep doing so which dooms them to winning smaller pots with their premium hands.

2. If calling with T7s was a mistake there, I think it was a small mistake at worst. With that said, I hope I fold there in the future.

We've been talking about 4/8 vs. 10/20 vs. 20/40 in this thread - in a 4/8 game that's so horribly criminally raked is there wisdom in folding hands that only have a very slight overall edge preflop?

T7s is actually a good example of that - it actually doesn't have a very big equity disadvantage against the range I put my limpers on (even with the limping ranges not decapitated), and when it hits the flop it's not hard to play postflop. In a 20/40 game where you're not going to see 15% of the pot dragged into a box I could see a reason to play it.

P.S. the 15% is not much of an exaggeration. A $50 pot in a 4/8 game generates the full $5 of rake plus BBJ plus tip.

If you were playing with the same players at bigger stakes (or lower rake) you could profitably play more hands. But in the real world the other players generally get better as you go up in stakes, so you really shouldn't widen your range.