Experimenting with 4-bets
I’ve been experimenting a lot lately with 4-betting preflop at 400NL, both as a bluff and not.
For example, with a hand like 78s, I could raise from the cutoff to $12, get reraised from the button by an aggressive player to $48, and then I could 4-bet them to $150 in an attempt to take the pot down preflop. This play just needs to work two-thirds of the time to show a profit, so it seems like it makes sense to try it once in a while.
The problem is that I haven’t been seeing good results from it. I think that I would have been much better off sticking to my usual style of either pushing as a 4-bet or just folding when out of position. I find myself in so many sticky situations where I hold a hand like JJ against a player who has seen me 4-bet before, and then he pushes all-in on me. Sometimes he’ll be the one making the 4-bet, and I’ll make the push. Either way, it seems like it’s way too often that I’m finding myself completely dominated by AA or KK.
JJ should be good more often than not against a loose aggressive players’ 3-betting range, but I keep finding that their 5-bet shoves almost always have me beaten. I keep falling into the trap of telling myself that there’s just too much money in the pot to fold to a potential hand like AK, since there are so many players who like to get it all in preflop with AK these days.
I’ve decided to follow some advice that a friend has given me many times and stop making so many 3X 4-bets. They just don’t seem to be working for me often enough for them to be my default restealing strategy.
Instead, I am going to go back to making 4-bet all-ins with AA, KK and AK or AQs and see what happens. I’ll also mix in some more flat calling out of position and floating in position with premium hands in order to vary my play and not become too predictable.
I’ve lost some money in the past couple of weeks that I shouldn’t have with these 4-bet bluffs that keep getting caught, but I keep telling myself it’s all part of the learning curve. The game of poker is rapidly changing and you’ve got to experiment with different strategy sometimes in order to keep up.
Dont Agree? Let us Know. We love hearing your thoughts and picks!
Loading ...
