[Pokey]

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I am saying that the board is very threatening and I dont think villain c-bets here as often as a villain would if the board was more dry.

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Undeniably true: the chances that villain c-bets this flop have gone down. However, our goal is not to get money into the pot with the highest frequency; our goal is to win the largest AVERAGE pot.

Think of it this way: we've got $2.10 in the pot and four opponents. Let's say that villain c-bets only half the time here. A c-bet is going to be about $1.50. Given how drawy the board is, others are bound to like SOMETHING about the pot, and that means that they're likely to call. If there's a c-bet and one caller, there will be $5 in the pot when it comes back to us, and check-raising all-in isn't even much of an overbet. If they both fold, we win a whopping 50 BBs -- that's half a stack! If someone calls then we're still likely ahead, though our opponent will surely have some outs. We exert maximum pressure on draws, charge them an unfair price to continue, and we get ALL the money in the middle while our hand is best. That's as good as it gets.

If instead we go ahead and bet we're likely to get a caller. When that happens we're probably going to be OOP in a now-huge pot with a hand that suffers greatly from RIO on a drawy board and two streets away from the river. That situation sucks in eight different directions, and we're probably either going to win a 50 BB pot or lose a stack -- not my favorite options.

If BOTH of our opponents check through on the flop, that sucks, and it makes the hand harder. However, I can't see that happening very often -- the pot is a large enough temptation that SOMEONE is bound to take a stab at it after all that checking in front of them. Your preflop action laid a trap -- it's not consistent or profitable to now shout "hey, look at my trap!" If you're going to smooth-call this hand preflop you're doing so for a reason, and THIS is the reason. Follow through with your plan and you will make the most money in the long run.

If you were always intending on donkbetting if you flopped TPTK then go ahead and three-bet preflop and get it over with. This "slowplay preflop, donkbet the flop" stuff is both passive and straightforward, and neither of those is profitable at the tables.

I totally understand the temptation to bet this one, but with two players (INCLUDING the preflop raiser) still to act you've got to give them a chance to either steal or protect their second best hands. It totally sucks when your plan fails, but when it works you'll make SO much more money that I believe it winds up being the most profitable approach in the long run.

This thought process is very similar to the "I've got the nuts on the river; how much do I bet?" question. Most players like to underbet the pot -- say, half-pot or less. They know they have a winner and they want to get paid, damn it. If you have tons of cash behind and if your opponent's hand might be very strong but second-best, that's usually a big mistake. A much bigger bet will get called less frequently but often it will get called frequently enough to make the LONG-RUN expectation bigger. PNL talks about this on pages 121-122 where they mention that if a $50 bet into a $100 pot gets called 80% of the time, then a $500 all-in bet only has to be called 8% of the time to be just as profitable. In their words:

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Many players have trouble with longshot odds because of "negative feedback." If your opponent calls 15 percent of the time when you go all-in for $500, that is more profitable than his calling $50 80 percent of the time. However, the all-in bet may "feel" wrong, because 85% of the time you win nothing.

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The preflop raiser might check behind -- you're right, that's undeniable, and you're taking a risk by going for the check-raise, especially with a vulnerable hand and especially on a drawy board. However, I believe the reward outweighs the risk, and if we weren't willing to take risks we wouldn't be playing poker, right?