Here's a hand my friend played and I've been over-analyzing it and not forming any decent conclusions...

Villain #1 is one of the more decent 30 prop who plays tag'ish. Villain #2 is a vietnamnese restaurant owner.

10 handed 30-60

Villain #1 open limps from early. It's probably not bad in this game, but it does turn his range face up. Hero raises the button or co with AA. Villain #2 3b his BB. Villain #1 calls. Hero caps (a little unbalanced here relative to his play style), and both villains call.

Flop 9TJ, 2 hearts (J being one of them) (12 SB),
probably one of the worst flop for AA
Villain #1 leads, Villain #2 calls?!, Hero raises?!, Villain #1 3b, Villain #2 calls, Hero calls.

Turn Ah (10.5 BB)
Villain #1 leads, Villain #2 calls!?, Hero raises, Villain #1 folds, Villain #2 3b!! Hero calls.

River x (17.5 BB)
Villain #2 bets, Hero calls.

Villain #2 shows Kh Qd.

Aside from preflop, did Villain #2 gain maximum value and expertly played every street or should he have raised on either the flop or turn? I don't think hero made any huge mistakes either, so did he just get extremely unlucky losing the maximum here?

Your friend played the hand fine. The other guy took a spastic line that fortuitously happened to make the maximum. Totally standard, just another day at the Oaks.

oops I messed up on the villains and the order of the action... The guy was the villain in the big blind.

If we want to analyze the villain's play in a non-results-oriented way it might be better to post the hand from the villain's point of view, maybe even as a play-along.

Can the hero find a fold on the river with turned top set on a board of JT9hh Ah Xr after the villain's passive line turns dramatically aggressive? Probably not in a pot that big. But I don't like screwplaying like that, but it's tough to get value from both players on that turn having taken the passive line on the flop.

Would the hero peel the flop faced with BB's bet and villain's raise? That's tougher. I think in villain's spot I just jam the flop. The BB is spewy enough to give us a lot of action.

NB: I think it's bad for the game ecology to post villain's names, even nicknames or board names.

I also advocate a mod removing identifying information.

The big unknown here is Hero's image.

If his preflop cap is unbalanced, then the flop donk/3 from BB is really strong. What was Hero's plan on non-ace turns?

Also, NFW Hero folds an overpair on the flop.

My thoughts are similar. I'd have called the flop 3 raising some turns, including this one, so I'd have lost one sb less postflop.

This board is pretty bad and the BB is leading into what should be perceived as a tight capping range. I would just call the flop and proceed with caution. I might raise a blank turn if the BB prefop 3b range is super wide or super narrow. If his range is narrow, then raising the flop might be the better play.

His play is quite bad. He has an uncapped range preflop and flopped the nuts. There are many strong non-nut hands he can rep and get huge value. Instead, he takes a line that has people suggesting you fold the river with top set and would have cost him significantly when you have other parts of your range.

Fine as played from hero's perspective. Sometimes you lose the max...

I don't really love or hate villain #1 (as revised). Waiting for the turn is OK. The turn is interesting - it works for AA, and maybe JJ/TT? Doesn't suck for KK, QQ - they're probably folding to one bet. I think he can rule out AK.

I'm going to say I kinda like Villain #1's turn, although I'd probably never do it personally.

+1, though I think the edit capped his PF range as he's the limper.

Let's start with open limping KQo in EP and work our way through expert slowplaying it to the turn. As much as I hate to think about folding the river, it does make you wonder if the villain plays sets this way on a str8 and flush board. He'd have planned it, but does he freeze up? If he never has a set or two pair, how good is top set. Like you say, if we consider not showing down a set we binked on the turn, how is the line not awful? Against our capping range, he can get multiple bets on multiple streets.
Put me in for terrible, but just what I'd expect from bad opponents.

Good post mongidig.

I'll expand further on why you're right about not raising the flop.

Here's how our equity is doing against V2 on this board, after he bets the flop:

Here's how our equity is doing if we give V2 a wider range:

Yep, that's right, we're an underdog against a standardish live 3betting range that likes this flop enough to donk into a preflop capper. And I haven't even taken account of the fact that this board smacks the tagish prop's limping range pretty hard. And in case it didn't, well the prop just called this flop knowing there's a good chance hero will raise behind. I.E. he doesn't have pocket 5's here. This board hit him. So yeah, raising the flop in this spot is actually pretty terrible. It's tunnel vision level 1 poker at its finest.

Another way to put this: On the flop hero is in a spot where it's questionable he has any edge at all to push, on a highly dynamic board where lots of turn cards are gonna dramatically impact hero's equity. If anyone cares to write another limit holdem book, this is practically a nut book example of when NOT to raise the flop in a 3 handed pot with AA.

So yeah, I disagree with this:

The flop raise is THAT bad to me.