[Ginogino]

Mason:
Preflop, if you can be fairly sure that the limpers will call the raise (and that seems very likely), you are getting 7-to-1 to put in your extra small bet. This seems like a reasonable gamble given that no one else is likely to hold either two diamonds or a 5 or a 4. I'm not so sure that I'd want to make this play as a routine matter, however. You might have to show a couple of this kind of hands down, and if it was a routine thing, you couldn't succeed with any frequency.

When the limpers fold your flop bet, you must have been a bit relieved. They represent your chief competition given the texture of the flop, assuming that your conservative pre-flop raiser doesn't hold a Queen or a high pocket pair or a spade draw. When the pre-flop raiser raises your flop bet it's possible he holds one of those three hands, but given the money in the pot you are getting 11-to-1 to try for your open-ended straight draw, which would beat most of his hands (unless he has a flush draw and also hits).

The spade 4 on the turn is a good news, bad news card. If he doesn't hold a spade flush at this point, the 4 can't have helped him, and it gives you quite a number of outs if what he holds at this point is a high pair or less. I like the check-raise. If you lead bet the turn and he raised, you wouldn't be able to put him on a flush, since he could be raising with a high pair and a singleton (high) spade. The check-raise represents something like a spade flush, or just possibly a set or two pairs, and you get a denial of a flush by way of his calling your check-raise.

The diamond K on the river is a scary card. If the Queen didn't pair him, it would seem that the King probably must. If on the other hand the King didn't pair him, then unless he holds AA, the K is a threat card to him. I can see how it would be worth one more bet to see if he's scared, and I'd defer to your judgment whether he'd lay down a pair of Queens for one big bet given your representation of a flush (or maybe lay down a pocket pair lower than Q's on the theory that the board K or Q must have hit you if you don't have the flush).

On the turn and river I'd expect you were prepared to lay down your hand had you encountered resistance. His passive play gives you the option of taking control. But your control is fragile. It's another reason for not playing the 45s as a routine thing in the big blind -- there are too many places where a card could hit him and you wouldn't know until you got raised on the turn or river. Each step gives you reason to take one more, but only against a conservative non-tricky player who can lay down something like non-top pair. This, in my opinion, is the key to the hand -- knowing your opponent. I also think that if at some point you decide to abandon the hand, you'd want to get it into the muck unseen (if called on the river, I'd toss my hand at the same time I was saying "Good call -- I was bluffing all the way!")

Gino