2/4 game
Hero: 450$: CO: YWG, been playing for around 2 hours, fairly tight only hand that got to showdown was a big herocall with QQ on a dubble paired.
Villain 1: 700$ MP, Been raising a lot of hands pre and plays fairly passive post flop
Villain 2: 700$, MP, just joined the table no reads so far. He is an older guy who just sat down and knew to post blinds etc.

OTTH:
V1: opens to 14$, V2 calls, I look down at 45 and decide to raise to 54$. (Think folding here is the best option but I do not mind a raise with these suited connectors IP at times, specially with a tight image) V1 folds and V2 calls
Flop [125$]: 689
V2 checks and I decide to bet 60$, (Think its close between checking and giving up and bluffing here with no equity and no showdown). V2 calls
Turn [245$]: [689]2 V2 checks and I check back (I dont want to get raised with my dubble gutshot and not be able to realise my equity and plan on bluffing J+ no dia rivers)
River [245$]: [6892] 3 V2 bets 130$ in to me here (I have a total of 340$ behind) Do I call or raise here with my straight?, I havent seen any hands of villain go to showdown as stated earlier

Also thoughts on c-betting the flop with my hand? (I do realise that folding or calling pre is a better play but vs an passive villain who is opening a lot I dont mind raising and expenting to take it down most of the time)

Is this hand the hand Villain 2 posted or one shortly after that? Slightly ambiguous from the post for me but maybe I am the only one that thinks that.

I only ask because if it's his first I think it makes him less likely to fold in general making your squeeze less effective especially with the hand you have.

The other problem is your stack size is awkward for multiple barrels as you can effectively only apply 2 streets of betting pressure which I suppose is often enough that maybe it doesn't matter.

The flop seems pretty good in general for villain's flatting range. I would think 66-99 are all posible except for no raise preflop as well as JT, some hearts, etc. All told I would assume your bluffs will get called quite a bit especially for the sizing you chose so not sure if cbetting is good here. The only merit I can see is that 54 is so low in your range it probably benefits quite a bit from ending the hand immediately if possible, but still not sure if that's enough reason to continue betting instead of just giving up on this specific flop.

Turn is a checkback but not because of the equity you have but how little equity you have, how little fold equity you likely have with such a draw heavy board and your exact holding, and because of your awkward stack to pot ratio which doesn't really allow you b/b effectively imho.

River is a snap call for the price, turn check, and the strength of your hand.

I would have played this hand totally differently. First, i am calling from the CO. The hand plays ok from the co - better from the button - and you'll have implied odds to work with if you hit your hand. Ap, you dont have much fold equity when you play aggressively, but if you call pre, you can check raise or bet if checked to and have stack depth remaining to continue the pressure ott.

Folding would be the worst option. Balancing your range is preferred for a GTO approach, but in this spot, at this limit, I like flatting > 3bet > folding (never folding)

I like the cbet, this flop doesn't hit his range very hard. Also, I'm not sure why you don't think you have equity, 7 and you're probably ahead and you have the backdoor runout that you hit. 4 or 5 even has showdown value on a good runout. He has a ton of combinations of QT, QJ, KQ, AT, AJ, AQ, AK in his range

turn is fine and river I think you have to call. We have limited information on this guy and raising here vs an unknown would be very spewy.

Hand looks fine on all streets. River is just a call. Not enough info or worse hands in his range here that he's call with even though stacks are close.

I agree, in regards to the river. It's too thin a spot and there doesn't seem to be any reason that a raise would be seen as a bluff by the villain.

Maybe the live game you're playing is different from what I am imagining based on my experience, but with a random guy at a live table and a loose V1, I don't see much reason to raise here (especially with your stack size).

You're getting two calls way too often in a typical live game. This is before you even consider that you have a loose V1 who is likely to call your 3-bet. With the basic description, I'd venture to guess that V1 calls ~75% of the time. V1 calls, V2 folds rarely - lets say ~20%.

So two calls 60% of the time with those numbers.
Those who said that you should be raising in order to balance your range, I agree: you should be raising either rarely, or very rarely.

There are no HUDs in live games, and humans are biased information processors. In a live game you can more easily manipulate your table image and range in various spots to your liking with some social engineering. If you can do this effectively you can somewhat relax the need to balance your range in particular situations.

Also, if I were to 3-bet, I'd increase the size of the raise about 30%. With the current size, your going to get two calls too often.

I'm c-betting here but I think it's pretty close. If V1's range includes a fair amount of suited connector type hands, I'm checking and just giving up on this hand essentially.

With this board you're going to be getting called down far too often, and if you get a flop call it's far too difficult to figure out whether or not a second barrel is warranted.