Friday afternoon in a 1/2 game.

Villain 1: Old white guy. Somewhat low VPIP, very low aggression factor. Folding to c-bets pretty often. $150.

Villain 2: Old white guy. High VPIP, very low aggression factor. Also fit or fold and folding to c-bets often. $200.

Villain 3: Middle aged black guy. High VPIP, PFR a bit more than the average, fish, have only seen him 3b KK+. Seems to bet when checked to very often postflop. He just sat down, but I've played with him a couple times before. $215.

Hero is a white guy in his late 20s. VPIP is lower than the rest of the table, but PFR is higher. They probably see me as tight aggressive. I've been picking up hands and winning showdowns. I have c-bet in 3/5 of my PFRs that went to the flop. An orbit ago I stacked a tight player with set vs overpair by check raising the flop and shipping the turn. V3 took that player's seat 3 hands ago. I have $550.

OTTH

V1 limps UTG, folds to V2 who limps in MP, hero finds AT and raises to $12 from HJ, CO folds and V3 calls on button. Blinds fold, limpers call.

Pot is $43 after drop.

Flop A 4 6.

V1 checks, V2 checks. Hero ???

Because my read on V3 is that he will bet a wide range when checked to, I thought it might be better to x/c rather than bet on this dry flop. While there's some chance that it checks through and I give a free card to the 75 OESD and various gutshots, I also felt that V1 and V2 might call a bet from V3 with 99/88 while folding those hands against my c-bet since me betting into three players looks stronger than V3 betting immediately after the PFR checks.

So a couple questions:

a) How many like to x/c rather than c-bet with this sort of hand on this texture given the stated villain dynamics? Are there better circumstances for this play that I should think about?

b) If you do choose the x/c route, how willing should you be to call down bets from V3 on later streets? Since our hand may look like JJ-KK in his eyes, do we think a bet/bet/bet line from him can include hands like A3 going for max value, or do we see him as polarized between sets and whiffed draws when he does that?

B/f flop for pot.

B/f turn for 0.75pot.

Decide otr.

My game people are pretty loathe to barel big over three streets with weak top pair or a bluff so I'd be happy to go down the x/c route in this spot. I think I'm rarely going to pay off any big turn and river bets. Mostly I'm going to x/c small bets on flop and turn and bet 1/3rd pot on river to milk value from his weaker AX and 2nd pairs which I guess he checks back on the river.

I'm quite happy I can read V3 when he has a stronger hand and ditch this.

I like taking the x/c line vs this villain early as possible because he's two seats to our left and is going to steal a lot of pots from us when we check if our cbet% is high and we are almost always checking to fold. We show this hand down and V will think twice about betting wide vs our checks in future.

If he doesn't adjust I keep taking the x/c line with these type of hand because I think we also pick up a nice pot quite frequently with the x/c line as well as defending our checking range against an aggressive IP player.

Grunch:

Normally I play this straight forward and c-bet to balance my air c-bets, and because a lot of small aces will limp/call and pay of two streets in my games. Given the dynamic you describe, I don't mind checking this to trap V3 (and maybe one bet from V1 or 2) and making the two streets turn and river if it checks through.

As for multi streets of c/c, IDK enough about V, but assuming that he bets, Vs 1 and 2 folded and you called, I'd likely call again OTT. River is much more iffy, and would depend on runout and betsizing.