[ QUOTE ]
I guess since we agree that I should have bet the flop the amount I did and call his push I'll explain my roomate's rationale for checking the flop, when he saw the villain's A 9 diamonds. The board ended up spitting out a 10 spades and a 6 clubs to give him a straight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your roommate is advocating results oriented thinking here. More often than not your opponent will not get runner runner for his straight. You did not want to give the diamond draw a free card. You're ahead all the way, even though he picked up a better redraw on the river than he had on the turn.

[ QUOTE ]
My roomate said that if I check to villain on the flop he'd check his flush draw. Then if I bet the turn he'd call with his gutshot straight draw and his 4 to the flush. Then when the board would have 6 7 8 10 and I would either check/bet villain would push and I'd still have around 2000-2500 chips to play with instead of being out of the tournament in 406th place.

Agree with him?

[/ QUOTE ]

No I don't agree with him. You can't give the flush draw a free card. Betting somewhere around 2/3 of the pot makes it so that calling your bet is a mistake. That's what it all comes down to. You induced the villain to make a mistake on the flop and he bit. After the flop call you then might want to make the draw pay even more, especially when you see that the scary board got a bit scarier and villain may have picked up some more outs. Price him OUT of this hand. If he calls again he's making another mistake. But consider that more often than not you will win this hand. You happened to be in one instance where the underdog hit one of his outs on the river, and he had quite a few of them, but more often than not you want to get all of your chips in the middle here and double up through the donkey.

Bad players do get rewarded by luck. All you can do is make the best play to induce your opponent to make as many mistakes in a hand as possible. If he happens to outdraw you and get lucky - that's poker for ya.