When you are 3-bet or 4-bet

In this lesson

• Defend against a 3-bet with a range that depends on your position.
• Decide when to 4-bet for value and when to 4-bet as a bluff.
• Choose which hands call a 4-bet and which fold or go all-in.
• Fold more to the value-heavy 4-bets common at low stakes and in live games.

Read first: Building a 3-betting range · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: 3-bets and 4-bets, SPR and commitment, Blockers and unblockers

The price of continuing

You open the cutoff to 2.5 bb and the button 3-bets to 7.5 bb. The pot, including the 3-bet, is 2.5 + 7.5 + 1.5 = 11.5 bb, and calling costs 5 bb more.

Now turn it around: you open the button to 2.5 bb and the big blind 3-bets to 10 bb. The pot is 2.5 + 10 + 0.5 = 13 bb and the call is 7.5 bb, so you need 7.5 / 20.5 ≈ 36.6%. A worse price, but you have position. The out-of-position 3-bet is bigger precisely to make that trade fair.

Position decides how wide you go on

In position you can call 3-bets with more hands, because you will realise their equity. Out of position, calling with medium hands is expensive: you face bets on every street without seeing your opponent act first. There the answer leans towards 4-bet or fold.

Your own opening range matters too. An early-seat open is strong, so it continues with a larger share of its hands. A button open is wide, so most of it has to fold to a 3-bet, and that is fine: the hands you fold were opened to win the blinds, not to play a big pot.

The hands that suffer most are offsuit hands that are dominated by the 3-betting range, such as KJ or AT, called out of position.

4-bets, 5-bets and a short SPR

Rail's charts 4-bet to 2.2 times the 3-bet in position of the 3-bettor and 2.5 times out of position, and at 100 bb the 5-bet is all in. Against that 10 bb big-blind 3-bet, a button 4-bet goes to 10 × 2.2 = 22 bb, leaving 100 − 22 = 78 bb behind.

If the big blind calls, the pot is 22 + 22 + 0.5 = 44.5 bb with 78 bb behind: an SPR of about 1.8. Almost any pair or good draw on the flop is then played for stacks. That is why the real decision facing a 4-bet is usually fold or all in, and calls are kept for hands that play well in position.

What the 4-bettor can hold

The illustrative 4-bet range here is KK+, AK, A5s and A4s: 6 + 6 + 16 = 28 value combos and 8 bluff combos. Holding AK changes that a lot: AA and KK drop to 3 combos each and AK to 3 × 3 = 9, so the value part shrinks from 28 to 15 combos.

That is why AK and suited aces are popular 5-bet hands: they remove the hands that are strongest against them. QQ blocks none of AA, KK or AK.

"Am I a nit?" — folding to live 4-bets

In many live games a 4-bet means AA or KK and very little else. Against that range, QQ only wins when it improves, and AK is behind both pairs. Folding them is not weakness; it is reading the range.

Rail's drill grades against Rail's charts, which assume an opponent who 4-bets with bluffs too. Folding QQ there can be graded as a mistake. The live fold is an exploit you make on a read, and the drill shows you what you are deviating from.

Rules of thumb

• Facing a 3-bet in position, call more; out of position, lean towards 4-bet or fold.
• Wide openers fold most of their range to 3-bets; that is how it should be.
• 4-bet pots have an SPR of about two at 100 bb: decide before the flop whether you are willing to get it in.
• Hands that block AA, KK and AK make the best 5-bets and 4-bet bluffs.

When they break

• Against players who 4-bet only the nuts, fold more of your strong hands than the chart does.
• Deep-stacked, calls gain and 4-bet bluffs become riskier, because the 5-bet is no longer a shove.

Example hands

Practice

The lesson is mastered when every exercise below that Rail can grade is passed. Missed items come back later as review cards.