Fold? $20 into an $8 pot SCREAMS top pair but I just want to protect my hand. What else on earth could it possibly mean? No one opens for 2.5x the pot with a set.

Why play an A10 if you are going to flop top 2 then fold to a bet that literally slaps you and tells you "I am weak"

I agree with raising big on the flop, people who are so scared and try to protect their hands by overbetting so much, don't fold top pair decent kicker that well. You've already seen his natural instinct is to call any piece of the flop with bottom pair. We can only assume he has an equally difficult time folding AQ-AJ type hands here.(I'd put him on AJ)

It was a bad fold obviously.

Uh, what about J9? Not to say that a bad player would make that move on that hand. I don't expect it at all, particularly not from this kind of player. But AQ and AJ do have outs and are likely to call a serious raise after the overbet. Ok, so what's the guy scared of? Well, really an 8. Surely to god he's not so scared of J9 that he's lay down 2 pair on the turn after an overbet (although I've seen stranger plays than that). I honestly don't care all that much whether he calls or not. As you say, you stacked him later. If he calls, you stack him now. If he doesn't, he's in even better shape to get stacked later.

I do think it's a fairly important statement, given the opportunity, to say that if someone gets involved in a pot with you, they are at serious risk of playing for their stack. And folding without seeing your cards just makes them that much more curious as to what you're doing this with.

And, ice, I don't like the minimum raise at all in your example. Again, let's put these guys on a hand. One of the probably has a 9. Perfect would be if both of them do. But probably one has the heart draw, hopefully the nut heart draw, but to a lot of people that's irrelevant anyway.

I just flat call here. I really think one can make more money here just letting these other two duke it out, then coming out of the blue big on the river rather than giving them any reason to doubt their hands with the mini-raise. There's really only one scare-card in the deck for your hand, and that's another 9. Depending on positions and such, I might try a mini-raise on the turn if a heart hit. But my real goal would be to keep them in until the river (WITHOUT tipping my hand), then pop them as big as they can stand. And if the turn betting is just horribly passive, I might pop it there if I think one or both have a 9. I really feel like the mini-raise interferes with the action of the other players too much to be worth the trouble.

I really think the moral here again is to put them on hands. A9, and for that matter any 9, is going to have a lot of trouble laying down if you look weak-ish, and a lot of people get very excited about flushes on paired boards. If they're all on flush draws and fail to make them, then, ok, the mini-bet wins a little more. But I like classic slowplay better in that scenario. If the heart fails to hit, you look very drawish with a flat call, and a lot of people will take the bait of calling a huge river bet (that looks like a bluff on a busted draw) with any 9. But if you mini-raise the flop, they're much less likely to make that kind of call.

When using bettern pattern logic.... there is ALWAYS going to be deviations. There has to be because not everyone plays poker the same. That can't deter you from using the information of the common betting pattern to your advantage. If you have no real other extensive betting pattern knowledge of this player (like seeing what he showed down on an overbet before) you have to go with the common pattern.

For example, I play shorthanded limit. And if I am in position, and bet the flop, and some one out of position calls me and then leads out on the turn, it almost ALWAYS means that the player caught a flush or open ended straight draw on the turn. I'll raise him with 2nd pair, and even raise on a bluff, because I know if he misses his draw, I can win the hand with 4 high. I have used this to my advantage time and time again, but just the other day, someone played a set like that when I had top pair, so I gladly capped the turn and called his bet on the river, and lost a big pot.

Rarely do I ever see someone play a set that way, more likely they are looking to check-raise the turn. But that instance won't deter me from playing my hand in the exact same way in the future, because the betting pattern is established.

Overbetting that strongly in NL, IMO, is one of the more reliable betting patterns there is. Now overbetting all in is different.... that can more easily mean a wide variety of things, or overbetting on the river, etc. But an overbet on the flop of a non all-in amount almost always means top pair, medium kicker.