An 8 2 suited before the flop is garbage. Even at the turn card, he was only a little worse than 3 to 1 to win with a flush. Well, I don't believe in psychic abilities. I usually play the odds and my opponents, if they allow me to.

Your pair of pocket 2s was actually a slight favorite to win over 2 face cards that aren't paired. Then you flopped a set. That turned your good hand into a monster hand. After that, you got an automatic winner on the river: the four of a kind. So, you weren't really doing much gambling, since you were the favorite to win the entire time and the chips were likely to come back to you. Honestly, I would have checked a hand like that until the river card and then raised on the river. None of them would have ever seen it comming. It's a good way to sucker your opponents in when you have a killer hand like that.