Part: Part Six - Betting After the Flop

Tighten up multiway

Flop
Heads-upPot 2,400 (12 BB)Q♠J♦9♥COA♠Q♦● 25,000 (125 BB)YOUtop pair in a 4-way potMP● 25,000 (125 BB)Bettorbets 1,800 (9 BB)D

Four players saw the flop. You have A♠Q♦ for top pair, but the board is Q♠ J♦ 9♥ - extremely coordinated - and an early player bets into the field.

Top pair, top kicker, but four-way on a wildly connected board, and someone bets into everyone. Best?

WhyA bet into three other players on Q-J-9 is a different animal than a heads-up c-bet. To fire into that many people someone usually holds it - two pair, a set, or a made straight - and two players still get to act behind you. Top pair is a bluff-catcher at best against that range, and there's nothing here to bluff-catch. Release it.
What happensYou fold and the bettor turns over K-T for the flopped straight. That's the texture doing exactly what a crowded, connected board threatens to do - discipline saved you a stack.
Heads-up you stack off with this all day. Four-way, into a bet, on the most coordinated board imaginable, it's a fold - the crowd is what turns top pair, top kicker into trash.

Every extra player in the pot raises the bar for how strong you need to be - a bet into a full field means made strength far more often than the same bet heads-up.