I like to defend my big blind a lot, maybe too much. I have called one bet with (a lot) worse hands so Ax seems reasonable. Of course there is risk of domination but if an ace flops without my kicker and there is action on flop I am capable of throwing the hand away and losing only one or two small bets in addition to my big blind. I have lost from the blind positions in the long run but I think it is normal and I have continued to defend my big blind to show that I cannot easily be stolen from.

I still think that folding that above mentioned hand on the flop is too passive poker if I sense that I am against ace high hand. I would be throwing away the best hand and the pot is reasonably big, a major mistake. Of course there are two guys who could be trying check-raise but what the heck, you just can't fear check raises too much. Pre flop raiser raised after two limpers and normal players don't do that with only AT, they only call with that and therefore I thought he had bigger Ax so the flop was good for me since I hit a pair and hitting any pair is difficult in holdem. I have won many big pots by check raising the flop against pf raiser with BPTK or MPTK, because many people then call with unimproved Ax and then when they improve on turn or river after an ace hits the board, they make a pair of aces with big kicker, maybe TPTK, and they raise me with the 2nd best hand and at the same time I make two pair and can raise them more (=good implied odds when we both hit ace).

3 betting the river was an obvious play. After that action it was clear to me that my read was correct, he hit his ace on the river and thought he had the best hand. Of course I then re-raise for value with the best hand. All in all, after flop I think I played perfect poker.