In the previous article, ‘Four-betting in six-max cash’, we looked at the reasons for four-betting pre-flop and possible ranges for doing so. Now we will look specifically at situations where you are four-betting for value, rather than as a bluff, or to balance your hand range.
Four-betting for value means creating a big pot that will frequently end up all-in, so you need a good reason for doing so. You should either have enough history with your opponent that they'll be willing to stack off against you with a wide range, have a very strong hand and suspect they have a big hand that they are incapable of folding, or have a marginal/flipping hand, but with a tonne of dead money in the pot. To illustrate the latter point, let’s say you have 9-9 and open under the gun. A maniac on your left three-bets, three loose-passive fish then call and the action is back on you. Four-betting and getting it all-in here is fine against most reasonable ranges.
There are several factors you must consider when four-betting for value. Firstly, you need to know that four-betting is the best course of action given your opponent’s tendencies. If a player three-bets loosely and plays very aggressively post-flop, but often folds to four-bets, just flat-calling his three-bet with A-A/K-K is probably a better play. You need to be certain your opponent is capable of calling four-bets with worse hands or five-bet bluffing all-in.
Considering position
You should be far more inclined to four-bet strong but non-monster hands (Q-Q, J-J, T-T and A-K) pre-flop when you are out of position. Because position is so important, you want to offset your post-flop disadvantage by getting as much money in pre-flop as possible when you feel comfortably ahead of your opponent's range. When you do have position you can call more often with these hands.
Get yourself an equity calculator and spend some time fiddling around with the maths of four/five-bets, ranges against a variety of opponents and equity. Understand that when you four-bet a maniac for value with A-J or 8-8 you are doing it for a good reason: to get all the money in! Too often players will four-bet with T-T against a nut job, and then when the guy shoves they don’t know what to do. Plan ahead. If you are not willing to get your stack in with pocket Tens pre-flop, don't four-bet! You're simply burning money otherwise.
If you know your opponent’s tendencies well, use all the pieces of the puzzle to get the right decision. Say you open the cut-off with J-J and the TAG on the button three-bets. Your thought process might go something like this:
1) My opponent is tight-aggressive but he does three-bets around 10% of hands on the button and I’m crushing a lot of those hands.
2) Given that J-J is in the top 5% of hands, I am comfortably ahead of the TAG’s range so a four-bet is viable. However, J-J will flop as an overpair less than 50% of the time. The rest of the time there will be at least one overcard on the flop, which will make life difficult for me out of position against a good opponent.
3) My range in my opponent’s eyes is fairly wide, so he knows he can three-bet profitably with a fairly wide range himself.
4) In terms of image, have I been three-bet by this guy a lot, or has he been dodging me? Has he been active and involved, or has he been playing generally snug this session? How active have I been?
You might decide that despite the guy being tight, your position plus image and hand mean a four-bet is optimal. I think this situation is a clear four-bet and would snap-call a shove with the expectation of facing a range of T-T+/A-Q+ 90% of the time, with some junk on rare occasions. Calling would also be okay if you had position but that’s another story.
Read Part 1...
Read Part 3...