1/2: Am I playing too weak by not cbetting in these spots?

4way>??? It probably means your open was way too small.

It's fine as played.

If we cbet small, they're calling with 6x,45, pp + spades and some even call with overcards. Some might even check/raise with whole range if they're aggro enough.

We do have some showdown value with A high. We have 6 outs with only maybe 4 or less clean outs.

I think cbet is more profitable heads/3way and very opponent dependent. Stationy opponents will call with everything. Aggro opponents might call or check/raise.

I think this is all fine. If this squeeze sizing always goes multiway, then yeah bet larger, but idk if that's the case based on this hand. Otherwise, no I don't think you should fight for this pot 4way. You had more than 25% equity in this pot with your hand, so preflop action was +EV even if you never bluff.

Against most players I think you should call this River, though if SB is specifically a nit, yeah then you can save yourself the 50$; it's very likely a pocket pair.

I'm c betting that flop about $50. You have all the high pockets, helps to clean up all the bad turn cards. Especially if you have a tightish image I like it even more.

It's one of the best flops possible to bluff cbet 4 ways. In general I agree don't bluff but this is an exception.

Really? I feel like a Flop like K33 or even K32 would be much better to bluff than 336

If I cbet, the whale in BB xraises me a ton because they know I can’t have 3x.

Grunching , K instead of 6 is also a cbet
I think the paired board makes it more of a cbet , because its less likely that one of villains has hit the board

I think you played this fine. No need to cbet bluff when super multi-way. Just try to navigate your hand to showdown. Waiting until you have a spade would be nice if you wanted to start a bluff.

Just a heads up, you didn’t include a BB caller in your original hand history. Having an aggro whale in the BB would completely change the hand imo.

He's better than most whales then as hes a thinking player. So call or 3 bet him if he's raising you with any two

BTW on River. There is no way that a Nitreg bluffs into 3 people without at least a pair, but he's a nit reg so he does not have a 6,7 or 3 in his range, so he's basically 88-QQ here.

How thinking is he and how scared is he, cos given he's capped at a mid PP, what does he do if we jam? It would be a hecka baller move.

A good non-scared reg would work out our story makes no sense and call, but is he just brutally scared money, and talk himself into believing we have AA/KK or a 7.

Grunch:

PRE - seems pretty standard.

FLOP - I'd probably c-bet this flop close to 100% of the time if it were HU. If we only have 2 opponents, I might c-bet 50%-80% of the time. With three opponents, I probably wouldn't c-bet AK here, unless we're pretty sure our opponents are over-folding, if not right now to our flop c-bet, then definitely if / when we bomb brick turns.

So, checking this back seems fine. We can't win every time we raise pre with AK and whiff.

TURN - I actually think a check back here isn't terrible. If we bet, we're probably not folding out enough better hands, unless we size up, which we could do when action checks to us again.

So, either check back, or bet huge, at least pot, if not more than pot.

RIVER - Ehhhh...I dunno. I might be tempted to hero call here, depending on what we think of SB. What's he repping here, when we check back the flop and then he checks again on the turn? Is he saying he has a 7? A flush? A straight? I don't think I believe him.

We have to call down more when we get to the river this way. Opponents are just going to have too many bluffs in their range. Yes, it's the SB betting into 3 opponents, but all 3 opponents checked the prior two streets, opening the door pretty wide for him to stab at this.

Think about the strong hands in his range on the river. Any 7x is likely to come out and bet on the turn, or size up on the river. Any flush is likely to start bluffing the turn. His straights are going to bet the turn.

If we get value-owned, so be it. The information we gain at showdown will have future value. Consider the hero call an investment in advertising. We're telling the table we're capable of hero-calling with ace-high, making it less likely they'll attempt to bluff us in the future, which will allow us to over-fold when they bet into us after we check back.

ETA - I just got as far as the first two replies, and see that there's some suggestion our raise pre is too small. I don't think we need to necessarily start raising to $40 or $45 here, at 1/2 with a $5 straddle, even if the game is playing somewhat splashy. Odds are our opponents aren't going to be able to adjust if we make it $40 or $45 with our big PP's and $35 with AK and 99-JJ. We're in LP and will likely have position on all our opponents post-flop. It's kind of spewy to start bloating the pot and playing low SPR's when we should have a skill edge post-flop.

If he's x/r'ing you a ton here, he's not a whale, he's a maniac.

If he's a maniac who's x/r'ing a ton, simply because he knows YOU don't have 3x in your range, the adjustment is to 3B him, because we know HE doesn't have 3x either.

If he wants to FA, put him on notice that he'll FO.

Alright, I admit I forgot SB was a nitreg when I was posting. He could very well be value-betting 88+ here, so if we're confident in our read, we can probably fold.

That said, I do think we need to be pretty sure about our reads on this one. Specifically, I'd like to know if he's capable of having any bluffs at all, and if this sizing is indicative of anything.

A raise would be baller, but also seems kind of suicidal if we think SB is capable of figuring out how FOS we are.

All the above goes to OP's central question - should he c-bet the flop? If SB is a nitreg who shows up with 88+, I'd say probably not, because OP is just going to c-bet the flop, check back the turn when the c-bet gets called, and then either face a bet on the river (to which he folds), or a check on the river (inducing him to bet and lose more when V calls).

The only way to make the nitreg fold 88+ here would be to go bet-bet-bet, and even then, maybe he folds 88 and 99, but how often is he folding TT-QQ, if he isn't 3B'ing those pre from the SB?

That's why I'm saying we need to be pretty sure about our reads. The nitreg isn't flatting a big PP just to call two more bets and then fold the river on this bricktastic run-out. He's calling to check-call the whole way and make us feel stupid for barreling off with AK.

I dunno if I'm giving a nitreg credit for checking turn with 88+ when the flop checks through, though. Think about it - he didn't 3B pre, out of the SB. There's a FDFD on the flop, and a lot of worse 2P hands he can get value from on the turn.

He's just going to check it, again, and then come out and bet 1/3 pot on the river, when it looks like nobody has anything, and someone might stab at it? Someone could snap this off with a flush, or occasionally even a boat. His bet is stopping opponents from bluffing, but what's supposed to call that's worse than his over-pair?

(Yes, I realize I just advised we could call with AK here, but most low-stakes players aren't going to find that call, and so most low stakes nitregs aren't going to find a thin value bet with just an over-pair here.)

Yes, you need to bet that board as it looks like you just made two pair with your big pair (they don’t know you missed with AK). It’s a really good hand to drive as a semi-bluff.

A $50 flop bet into several players looks strong enough to fold a couple of them. It doesn’t look like a bluff. Bet until you meet resistance they say. Another saying is when they check, you bet.

AK is a redline hand. You make them fold more often than you flop a king and get value. As played, you should call the river for the odds, and because villain may simply have an ace.