In the conclusion to this five-part post, we will complete the analysis of my $1-$2 no-limit holdem cash hand where I flopped a set of 3s, bet half the pot and got called in two places on the flop. Then I checked the turn, to give an impression of weakness, and one opponent bet a measly quarter of the pot, found a caller in late position and then I smooth called as well since I was not afraid of any of the possible draws created by the turn card. The river then paired the turn card, giving me a boat -- albeit the lowest possible boat -- at the end, and action was to me to start the river betting round. In Part IV of this post I asked what you would recommend doing here.

I was pleased to see that none of the commenters thought I should be fcheck-folding, just because there are some hands out there that would beat me -- specifically, 55, TT, KK, K3, K5 and KT. Drizz said he likes the check-call here, and I think that's a reasonable strategy, although I was feeling a bit more aggressive than this suggestion at the time. In my view my opponents here did not play their hands like they held any of the pocket pairs, since there were calls all around on a cheapish bet on both the flop and the turn, and in most cases I would have expected a raise either before the flop, on the flop or on the turn card if someone had flopped or turned a set. And I just can't see people calling that flop bet if they held just K3 or K5, and the odds of someone holding KT were just astronomically low here. So I had to figure I was ahead. And, I had bet small on the flop, then check-called the turn, so I had done a good job projecting weakness so far and figured I ought to try to make some more use of that if at all possible. The second King coming on the river I took as a very good sign, in that to the extent that someone had bet or called the turn with a King in their hand, that second King was going to make this awfully hard to just check out on the river here.

Taking all this into account, I ended up checking the river here, with the full intention of check-raising when the action got back to me. As I said, the second King on the river had me thinking I was not only ahead, but in good shape to induce a bet from someone else who had hopefully called the turn with something and now was even stronger thanks to the second King falling at the end. With $67 in the pot at this point in the hand, I would have been really bummed to not make any more profit from the hand, but I had a strong feeling that if I bet, someone would have a King and call me, but that if I wait and let them bet instead, then I could get them to call a much larger raise from me since they would already be seriously invested in this pot at the time. So it was a risk that I would miss out on more profit here, but one I was willing to take as I really felt that the King on the river helped make this an easy bet-out for anyone holding any kind of a King in their hand.

And that's when it happened.

The first player responded to my river check by moving allin, although it was only for his or her last $17.50 in chips. so not a lot at all into a pot that was currently $67 before the river card fell. Then the second player topped that by min-raising the first player's bet, as you can see at left. So now it was $35 to me to win a $102 pot. In order to call, I would have to be best at least 2 out of 3 times here. Try as I might, I simply could not shake the feeling that I was ahead. I had gotten exactly what I wanted: some action when the second King fell on the river. I figured at least one of these players, if not both, had to have a King, but the first player's allin move for his last $17 did not do much to convince me he was sitting on a big boat or anything, and the pussy min-raise from the late position player absolutely did not seem boat-ish to me at all. If anything, that one seemed like a King with a low kicker, or maybe a high pocket pair, anything that figured to have a better shot of winning if he could get me to fold whatever I was holding. No way I was going to run from that bet there, from either of them even. I just didn't see anything in either player's actions to indicate a boat.

Since I thought my boat was best, I did what I had to do and put the late-position player allin as well here. He called, and I dragged a $242 pot, one of the largest I have won in online no-limit holdem cash play. In the end, using the handy-dandy "Last Hand" feature in the top left corner of the screen, I was able to check and see what each player held in his hand. The first bettor to my left, who moved in the rest of his chips on the river when the second King fell, actually held QTo, and figured his top pair on the flop with a Queen kicker had probably held up to lead the hand at the end. Meanwhile, the late position min-raiser on the river did in fact have a set of Kings, holding K7s. So here was a case where a slow-play actually managed not to cost me a hand in online holdem play, and in fact was just the perfect thing to allow both of my opponents to catch up enough to believe they were best, and therefore give me (willingly) the rest of their chips on the river.

Thank you as always to everyone for your well thought-out comments as always. I should be back shortly with another Hot Hand post here at Cardsquad. In the meantime, if you're looking for another fun hand to analyze, check out my blog today for a new Hot Hand post there in a fun razz hand I played with a bunch of bloggers last week. That is a fun one where I start out with the best possible starting razz hand, and end up head to head against someone else who shows quite a bit of strength from the beginning all the way to the end of the hand.