A 4-bet is a powerful weapon in any winning poker player’s arsenal, and when used correctly against the right opponent it can be a major boost to your hourly win rate. However, a lot of players misunderstand the concept of the 4-bet and often make costly mistakes that can lead to big losses. This article will cover everything you need to know about when, where, and why to 4-bet in poker – including the best sizing to use and the best situations for making it.

The term “4-bet” refers to the fourth re-raise in the betting round. It is much more common to see a preflop 4-bet than an open raise or a 3-bet, but they can also happen after the flop. The most important thing to remember when 4-betting is that you should always be raising for value and not bluffing. The goal is to create a large pot and scare off your opponents, but you should only be doing this with a premium hand that is likely to win the pot.

When deciding when to 4-bet, it’s important to consider the player’s tendencies at the table and their overall image at the table. A tight, aggressive player who is well-aware of your 3-bets and re-raises will often be prepared to fight back with a large range of hands, so it’s important to adjust your 4-bet size depending on their position and the effective stack sizes involved in the pot.

A good strategy for 4-betting against an aggressive player is to include a small number of bluffs in your range. This will often cause your opponent to over-defend or fold in a bad spot, and can help you extract more value from the pot. It’s also a good idea to make your 4-bet size slightly larger than your opponent’s 3-bet in order to get them to commit more of their own stack to the pot.

There are many different reasons why you might want to 4-bet a player, but the most common reason is to extract value from their poor holdings. This is especially true of weak players who have very exploitable tendencies, as they will usually be more inclined to snap call your 4-bets with poor hands like suited aces.

Another reason to 4-bet is to disrupt the opponent’s flow and force them to think about what they’re doing in the hand. For example, if you 4bet an opponent’s flop-short-stacked shove with a suited ace, they may suddenly realize that they have a better hand than they thought, and they may start to double-pump in the future. This is something that you should try to avoid as it can be very difficult to win a hand when an opponent does this, and it’s also not particularly profitable in the long run.