Ok, so I know that we like to think that we don't make donkey moves and that we play +EV 100% of the time, but there is at least one time that I can think of where I chased a draw out of position and got there on the river and didn't really know how to extract value. This was in a live MTT recently and I was kind of card-dead/bored and we were pretty deep so that is my excuse.

I can say that we were all over 100bb (extremely odd local tournament structure). I had QJ on the bb and someone raised, got a few callers, and I call. 4 to the flop.

Flop is 10-10-K. I check, check, check, standard c-bet from the pre-flop raiser. I call, another caller, a fold.

Turn is a blank. I check, check and the pf raiser makes about a pot-sized bet. For whatever reason, I call, and so does the other player.

River is an Ace from space and I am pretty sure that I am good. I have already put in a lot of money when I was behind so I want to get value in this type of spot. Thoughts on leading out vs. checking? Villains are standard recreational type players so their ranges are fairly wide. Ace may or may not have been a scare card.

The point isn't the hand itself, its more about river action when we are out of position and we have check-called down the hand and our gin card comes on the river. People's general thought processes please.

Again, I know that we should not be playing hands like this but assuming that many of us might go a little stupid every once in a while . . .

I'm staying away from play on previous streets (not saying I'd do anything differently, just saying I'm not commenting on it because you're not asking about it).

So, focusing on the question itself, I'd say you pretty much bet for value. You're "pretty sure you're good", what reasons do you have not to bet? Especially against "standard recreational type players", they are more likely to make calling mistakes than bluffing/barreling mistakes I think. In a hand like this, you get called by AJ/AQ/AK/Tx....a ton of hands. And in a hand like this especially, they're not bluffing very often. So....value bet.

Right on. check/call, check/call, donk is a strange line to take I think and I don't know if that is going to get us less value long run. I also think most players with marginal holdings don't barrel a third time after they've been called. Not sure if I am getting value from this anyway. Just generally curious about whether people prefer the check/call, check/call, lead line as opposed to the check/call, check/call and try to check raise on the river. Maybe its not that interesting of a situation but I just always think its a weird spot.

Strange way to play against "standard recreational type players".

That aside, it's marginal and I would just post it as a question on 2+2.

Wrong forum IMO. Post in the forum of your game and stakes.

As for the question, there's nothing 'strange' in a "check/call, check/call, donk" line in the hand you described. It represents a range, a big part of which is exactly QJ. It's not like there's any way to distract villain by some wizardry and not get him to see that a straight draw just came in, unless villain is totally oblivious. The river here is a very natural place to donk bet, at least against non-oblivious villains who understand what's going on. When you bet the river, you rep a straight, or a slowplayed Tx, or a probe/blocker/thinvalue type bet with Ax, or a weird bluff. Against a good villain, if your range is balanced, then it will contain enough floats, other draws, hands you want to turn into a bluff, etc, that you can bluff appropriately here, and so you can also bet the river for value. However, if in your game you never bluff this river and never bet thinly with Ax on this river, then you should probably not bet QJ either (or, better yet, change your game). In any case, the choice of the best line here is very villain-dependent, there's no cookie-cutter solution. In most cases, against most bad villains, I either c/c or c/r this river, since if they don't have Ax they'll often fold to a donk bet, but if they have Ax (or better) they'll be too tempted to bet it and won't check behind with it. Against loose stationy villains, I donk this river. But it really is very villain-dependent and range-dependent.

Oh, also, I don't think there's anything 'standard' about a c-bet into 3 players. That's a pretty strong c-bet, and not 'standard'.