4-Betting in Poker - What, When & Why

What is 4-Betting?

Why Should we 4 Bet?

For value.

If we have a big hand such as Aces then we want to get more money in the pot, by doing this we can 4bet once we have been 3bet. The intention being we want our opponent to 5b, call or go all in. We can do this with a wider range of hands than just Aces, generally going off our opponents previous play and the range of hands they go all in with preflop. So if we have seen them go all in with 77, 88, 99 alot then 1010, JJ, QQ, KK and AA should be in our 4bet value range.

As a Bluff.

Against a player who 3bets a lot (stats wise 10%+) we can 4bet bluff with the intention of taking down the pot preflop. We can put in a very small 4bet to achieve this! Being selective with hands to 4bet bluff with is vital. For example if we have 22 we can probably set mine or fold preflop. Good hands to 4bet bluff are suited connectors, suited gappers and suited broadways. These hands are good to 4bet bluff with incase we are called preflop - We want to have a hand that connects well with boards and has some potential so that we are not always in a dificult spot postflop. 

Having a solid reason as to why we are 4betting is vital. Don’t be the player who is just clicking buttons because they saw it in a training video.