Just a sanity check for how I played this hand.

$100 live deepstack tourney, 3rd level
Blinds: 200/400

Hero: ~32K (80BB)
Villain: 15K (37.5BB)

Villain limps UTG. +1, and +2 fold. Hero raises to 1200 with A9. Button calls, Villain calls.

Pot: 3,800

Flop: A65

Villain donk-overleads for 4,000.

I min-raise, as I'm happy to get all the chips in against Villain, who only has about 1/2 my stack. BU folds, Villain shoves, I call. He has 65 and his hand holds. Turns out I am a slight favorite in this spot with his exact hand.

Obviously I can never fold in this situation. But given Villain's overbet lead and the desire to preserve my relatively large stack this early in the tournament, is there any argument to just calling and seeing a turn, then check-folding a non diamond or 9? It seems very likely that he is leading into this pot with 2 pair or better (but I'm pretty convinced I played the hand just fine, especially since I want to see both the turn and river with my nut flush draw and better 2 pair outs).

I see players going nuts with top pair + flush draw all the time. From an equity point of view, yes, you have loads. It might seem that there is little alternative because, no matter what, you're doing ok when you raise the flop and get it in. However, I think these hands play extremely well when played passively. You have hands that definitely want to check this flop, all those pocket pairs that are probably hands you'd want to check will benefit immensely if you are willing to check back A9dd too.

This might sound like I've mis-read the OP, because we were not lead into and didn't have the option to check back. But I'd echo the sentiment of playing this spot passively by just calling down.

So given that we were lead into in this situation, do you think this line is better: call flop, call turn, fold river if no A, 9 or comes out? Surely it can't be bad to get it all in on the flop. But I see the value in this line too because it is definitely lower variance. The important thing is that we need to see both the turn and river to realize the full equity of our hand on the flop.

Yes, it can't be "bad" to get it in with this exact hand, but that's missing the bigger picture. And in the bigger picture, you need to realise this hand is art of your range and it's up to you to place this hand logically so that it lets your entire range perform to the best it can do vs scenarios to come on later streets.

So yeah, I like the plan you've laid out of call flop and turn and then evaluate on the river. Part of our thought process on the river should be to realise where A9dd is going to be in terms of strength.

I like your overall message, as it points out a fundamental flaw in the way I played the hand - by min-raising the donk lead, I've narrowed my range to exactly the kind of hand I actually had.

And also narrowed his range to the strongest part of it by raising him and stopping him from betting worse hands.

I agree with the idea that these hands don't necessarily need to get played aggressively! But the scenario where we call flop, call turn and evaluate river seems off in this particular hand! Villain will be left with 11k on the turn, a pot of 12k and a very strong sign that he wants to bet big. I think the turn is an auto-allin for villain on almost any card, except an ace (but we don't know that). This makes the decision whether to get it in or not more difficult on the flop.

We'll need 32% equity against villains range to make a breakeven call. We have 29% against villains exact hand I think, but it's not impossible for villain to be playing a draw in a similar way.

Which is an argument for a raise on the flop instead of just calling.
I didn't mean to imply that we should fold on the flop or on the turn, but that in the way the hand plays out, there might actually not be much advantage of playing it slow versus gii

I think some Villain info might have been helpful. Villain had been moved to my table about 30 minutes before this hand, and he was involved several pots where he played passively (e.g. limping in MP then folding to a 3x raise). He was ~45 years old and had slicked back hair and reeked of cologne. Not saying this is super helpful or reliable info, but based on his overall demeanor I'd say he was more inclined to be a gambly-fishy type player, which could weight worse flush/flush-straight combo draws slightly higher in his range. I also thought it was less likely a player like this would lead out with a hand as strong as a set.

scheier brings up a good point that I definitely thought about before raising on the flop. Villain's stack size made it extremely likely he would bomb any non-diamond, non-Ace turn. Because I would still have a 40BB stack even if I lost, I thought it was a good spot to GII on the flop and realize all of my equity by seeing two cards, when sometimes I'm a big favorite (vs. K high flush draw, lower flush/straight draw combos) and sometimes I'm a slight favorite or even (vs. two pair or A 10). As I said, I can't see this exact player bombing the flop with a hand as strong as a set, but sure, that's also a small part of his range, in which case I'm still only a 70-30 dog. If I win, I've got over 50K (>100BB stack) and am table boss. If I lose, I'm still in decent shape with a 40BB stack. So I thought this was a spot where it was worth getting it in.

BTW, here's a link to how I'm doing against this kind of range (51%-49%), where all his possible hands are equally weighted:

http://propokertools.com/simulations...2C55&s=generic