I love your check and call preflop. LOVE IT. I don't think pot committment has anything tho do with my reasoning, though. Your cowboys are almost without a doubt the best hand going in, but with that many players in there against you, they lose some value. I would have played it exactly the same way. If you don't catch enough of the flop and are facing tons of action, you're gone with minimal harm done. OR you could catch a monster and have all the other players in there doing your work for you. It was perfect. If you jumped in on the earlier (and cheaper) rounds of betting, you may have slowed the action down, assuming they weren't total idiots. That some called all the way to the river with a straight draw indicates that they were. I think that in late position with that many callers, smooth calling is the right play. I can lay down Kings and Aces in the face of lots of betting into a scary board. Face down, of course. I think the hand played itself with a huge assist from the other players. The money's going into the pot anyway, so why let the others in on the fact that you have a big hand? If you're in early position here, then of course raise and reraise, but I think you get way less action later. I sat in a 3-6 game once and watched a good friend, who had no clue, play every hand to the river, then fold. On his all in hand he said, barely audibly, "I'm in this far, so what the hell." He'd been pinged and ponged along the whole way, then flushed his last few bucks down the hold'em toilet bowl. Is that being pot committed? Or is it just blatant stupidity? I vote for the latter. In his 15 minute, $80 loss, I didn't manage to take a single buck off of him. Goddamitt. He left the table muttering under his breath and people started giggling and asking me if I knew him. I thought I'd done a better job of pretending I didn't.