3/5 at MD live.

Sitting at a table of mostly new faces that just arrived. Player on my immediate right has shown many bluffs over a couple hours, that's my only read.

Hero utg+1. Utg limp, I have 98cc and make it 20, get 3 callers in the 3 consecutive seats behind me, and utg calls (previously i had made it 20 from ep and it folded around). All players are 1k eff with me except utg +3 is short stacking 400.

Flop 997hhc. Utg checks. What to do here? 100 in the pot. Should I check to protect my overpairs, and wait for them to bluff as there are many bluffs possible such as fd, open ended and gutters, or two random cards from lp, or should I just start betting to try and get a couple streets from pocket pairs? If I check, I presume it's to x/c. If I bet, what size?

Depends on the tendencies of the players behind me, but w/o more specific reads, I bet about $60. Start building a pot and hope they don't believe you. You need to be willing to go for it, though, if they start raising, unless you have a specific read.

$75. Never checking this board 5-way.

This is a great hand to balance with if we were HU so I like the idea. But we need to give ourselves a chance to win a big pot here with all of these weak players in.

Another issue w/ a check is that if we check and some field player bets and we raise, that's almost TOO strong for our hand. Like we have a great hand but we don't have the nuts; we lose to any 9 with a 7 or greater kicker and 77, and bad players are capable of having every combo of these in their range.

Preflop is also debatable. I tend to raise bigger when isolating (like 5x for 1 limper, 6x for 2, etc); I don't think 4x is going to generate you enough folds given that two people have already shown interest in playing their holding. Now you're kind of just bloating the pot w/ a hand that likes high SPR situations. So I think in a loose passive game like this, it's fine to just overlimp this hand and go with it when you hit the flop and give up when you don't. FWIW this raise is much more defensible if your opponents rarely 3 bet/

But once you do raise and hit this pure, it's time to start piling. 3/4ths pot the whole way (75/190/475) sounds like a great plan to me.

I like C-betting whatever you would C-bet with an over pair. $60-70? JT is still calling, Ah is still calling, any 7 or pocket pair is at least calling and you might even get raised by a flush draw.

My style is to bluff at many paired boards so I would be aggressive 5 ways here.

Table full of mostly new faces at 3/5. I don't think we need to protect our overpairs here. Just bet for value and hope to get raised. I like $65 as I think it may induce more than sizing up to 75 or more. x/r is likely only getting called by better and x/c is potentially giving Vs free or "name your price" draws to flushes and other nonsense. I would save the x for a 993r board where we are confident there will be some action behind and we are only getting value from a super thin range of pps.

If someone had TT+ you probably would have heard about it pre.

You have the initiative. Keep it. $65-75 feels right here.

^ This.

I've seen many board like this at MD Live get checked through. That would be a disaster in this case.

"Over Pairs" - Did I misread or miss something?
Hero 98
Board 997

Hero has a set correct?

Generally I find betting out my sets has more +ev.
With 5 people in Pot it would be a crime if this got checked around.

I would recommend leading out 40-50 into 100 pot.
Clear field of the Riff Raff.
Hard to range opponents here since third and fourth caller might have called ATC being priced in.
Leading out will get you some valuable intel on any remaining villains holdings.

A villain flop 3Bet or jamb would make me pause but I would still call it.
Depending on Turn I would look to set-up the villains to play for their stacks.