4Bet Bluffing?

Directed mainly at the cash game players at FR and 6mx.

When do you do it?

Why do you do it?

How do you do it?

What type of hands do you do it with?

I imagine that mainly applies to 6mx games as I'm not entirely sure this occurs a great deal in FR, I may be wrong there though. Just wondered what your thoughts are on this, and is it profitable? I must admit I very rarely do it and am wondering is this a leak, especially in 6mx.

When: Typically out of position vs. a player who is 3-betting a bit lighter than he perhaps should (>8% is when I start to play with it).

Why: Uh. Money.

How: I 4-bet to about $35 if it's at $100NL. 35BB either way.

What hands: My entire range for 4-betting is QQ+, AK, 76s, 87s, 98s, T9s, JTs.

Not doing it is not a big leak, unless you have two or three players behind you who 3-bet extremely light.

Edit: This is assuming 100BB stacks.

Something I feel I left hanging:

"Out of position" doesn't mean that I never 4-bet bluff on the button in a steal attempt. It's just that my range is often even narrower then because some of the hands I might otherwise 4-bet with I sometimes just call the 3-bet with if I'm in position, but then depending a bit more on stack sizes and the size of the 3-bet. I might flat JTs on the button vs a very aggressive 3-bettor in the small blind if the stacks are 130BB+, and I often flat AA versus the same type of opponent.

Final addendum (yay, 3 posts in a row, spamtastic!): I don't 4-bet bluff vs a stack that's shorter than 80BB.

Are you ever folding any of this range if villain shoves? By that I mean do we have enough equity to call if he shoves with a range of JJ+, AK.

That range is tailored so that I'm indifferent to villain shoving. I'm folding the bluff part of the range (the medium suited connectors). It works out so that the big hands - QQ+,AK - are about 3% of all hands, and those suited connectors are 1% of all total hands. Then if villain shoves every time I 3-bet, I will call three times out of four, and show a huge profit.

Of course, if I knew he'd shove every time, I would remove all bluff portion of the 4-bet and just 4-bet QQ+,AK. But even with the bluff portion in, I'm still profiting from him shoving every hand. And if he folds every hand but his big hands when I 4-bet, I'm still making some money from my bluffs. I'm basically trying to avoid being exploited, as opposed to playing exploitably myself. It does mean that I'm missing out on some profit since a correctly tailored exploitative play is always best, but it also makes me able to make the decisions quickly preflop and I can then focus my thought processes on other situations.

The fact that I chose suited connectors was just a way for me to scrounge up 1% of hands. I could have picked 22-44 as well. The important thing for me was to pick a range of hands that I'd always 4-bet bluff with so that I don't have to try to "feel" how often is often enough, or how often is too often. I think I'd have a hard time gauging that if I chose random hands.

Cool, me & Zach were talking about ways to combat 3-betting light on AIM the other day. Obviously this is one solution, but I wish we had a thread on just combatting light 3-betting in general, since I think 4-bet bluffing is sorta cut & dry. Btw Jagsti, check your PM's.

I generally look for situations like: Blind vs. Blind or Blind vs. Button battles. I look for 3-bet %'s over 7% over a decent sample as well. Obviously a history of 4-betting for value would be nice as well, but that's optional. Additionally, there are some players who will get all in preflop with any pair at 6-max. So I try to just flat their 3-bets instead and mess with them postflop. I also don't include 4-betting JJ in a button battle as 4-bet bluffing, since I do it for value.

This is my biggest problem, because I usually just shove. I never, never 4-bet fold, since at that point you're pretty priced into calling if you have some sort of equity. However, there are some times when I'd like to 4-bet for a smaller amount, I just never do. Prolly a leak.

Suited, connected aces. A5s, AQs. Stuff that's likely to have at least 30% equity, and has a blocker against my opponent having aces.

Cold 4-bet bluffing is also pretty cool, however I rarely get a chance to do it. Usually when I and another reg are at a table, I'm the only lag and the rest are pretty fishy. So I'm getting 3-bet light, and the rest of the players never raise to allow the reg to 3-bet them.

This is an important point that I forgot to address.

It's absolutely imperative if you're going to 4-bet bluff to something other than shoving, that you don't price yourself in and have to call a shove. That's why I pick 35BBs with 100BB stacks, as that lets me profitably fold my bluffs vs. a "real" shoving range (which I define as JJ+,AK). If I 4-bet to, say, 50BB, I'm committed, which I definitely don't want.

FP - thats what I was sorta getting at. Getting the bet size correct so we can fold and not find ourselves pot committed.

Discussed briefly a while ago: http://www.cardschat.com/f11/balance...s-long-108169/

You're on stox Jay, go look at hunter's 4bet bluffing video. He lays it out perfectly.

To answer your questions:

For value: when I feel I'm a favourite over what my opponent will 5bet with/call a 4bet with.
As a bluff: When I feel my opponent is 3betting wide enough that I have fold equity with a 4bet bluff. Mostly against good players as bad ones tend to call/shove too often.

Immediate value, also to balance my 4betting range.
2.5x (see below).

For value: whatever hands I feel I'm a favourite as.

As a bluff: I usually say that hands don't matter, but you often see people calling small 4bets. In such a case, I firstly say that you shouldn't be 4bet bluffing someone bad enough to call a 4bet since they'll often be doing it with TT and similarly donkish hands, but if you must, having hands with some value like T9s etc is a good idea. Against good players though, the hand doesn't matter since they'll rarely call, rather just push/fold. If they push, you fold. If they fold, you profit.

Hands NOT to 4bet are the in-between hands. Generally hands like AJ aren't good 4betting hands since you get lost when your opponent pushes or calls and you flop a jack for ex. Separate your hands that you 4bet for value and you 4bet as a bluff, and stick to that.

Regarding bet size, 2.5x (or roughly 1/3 of stacks) is the standard with 100bbs. Enough to get fold equity, and small enough not to commit oneself. I up the size gradually in proportion to the stack sizes, ie if we're 200 deep I usually just 3x it or maybe a little more.

Shoving for 4bets is fine too, but I much prefer smaller bets. You get away with cheap bluffs and induce action with your big hands. With the bigger bets you're risking lots to win a little (100bb for an 11bb reraise for ex), and you tend to scare people away with your big hands.

But ya, watch Hunter's video. He clears it all up. I'm a little drunk and typed that quickfast, so I apologize for the inevitable mistakes throughout.

I'm new to the ring thing still and to be honest I can count my 4 bets on the fingers on one foot.

Usually it's only versus the fishiest of calling stations and purely based on hand strength (ie QQ+). Very occassionally against a deepstack fish I'll 4 bet the same range as FP. Generally though my bluffs are post-flop.

This may be because I'm still building my game and approaching it one step at a time. That said my MTT game is definately post-flop oriented and I suspect my long term ring inclination will be the same way.

(so 4-bet me light plz, you will make MANY MONIES)

Well keep in mind you're also playing full ring (right?). I'd go so far as to say that you could omit 4bet bluffing completely from your FR strategy.

In 6max with good players 3betting you light fairly often, I think it's essential.

Looking through my HEM database now. An ex:

Party Poker, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

MP: $112.80 (112.8 bb)
CO: $325.35 (325.4 bb)
Hero (BTN): $100 (100 bb)
SB: $155.30 (155.3 bb)
BB: $112.45 (112.5 bb)
UTG: $126.50 (126.5 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is BTN with 8 T
3 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, SB raises to $11, BB folds, Hero raises to $28, SB folds

Villain is a fairly solid 28/24 who loves floating, raising cbets and 3betting light. %10 3bet, so I 4bet him as a bluff. I think the question of whether or not to raise T8o in the first place with someone who plans on 3betting very wide is a good one, but ignoring that I feel that this is a perfect example of when to 4bet bluff.

btw FP wrote a pretty good blog post on this, hope there's no problem cross-posting:

I did sort of promise this post, so here it is. It's inspired by a recent thread on CC, and a lot of what I'm saying here is what I said there, but I feel I can perhaps expand on a few points.

What Jagsti asked is "when, why and how" one 4-bet bluffs, and also with what hands. I think this is a pretty good starting point for the reasoning, so I'll use a similar format, albeit in a different order:

Why:
The obvious answer is that it's extra money in our bankroll. 4-bet bluffing is often profitable in a vacuum against aggressive regulars in the online games; just by occasionally 4-bet bluffing we can show an immediate profit. As an added benefit we also add some deception and make sure that our opponents can't squarely put us on QQ or better when we 4-bet preflop, thus allowing us to get more action on our big hands. Trust me, if your opponent shoves after you 4-bet and you fold, you can be certain that he just made a note on you. You should probably make a note back saying that he has seen you do this and avoid making your next 4-bet against him a bluff.

How:
Here, I'm itching to actually answer the "when" first because a lot of what I want to say about "how" depends on the "when," but I think there's pedagogical value in doing this in reverse so I'll try it. When I 4-bet bluff preflop, I do it with hands that I can't profitably call the 3-bet with, and I do it to an amount that lets me get away from the hand if my opponent shoves.

The second part of that sentence is key. I need to be able to raise a large enough amount that my opponent doesn't just call because he's in position with good pot odds, but a small enough amount that I don't get pot odds myself to call a shove with any-two. A min-4-bet, in other words, is out of the question. A 4-bet that puts considerably more than a third of my stack in is also a bad idea.

After doing some simulations and a tiny bit of math, it seems that 4-betting to about a third of my stack (or rather, the effective stack) does the trick and is about as high as I can go without being committed. Perhaps needless to say, I use the same raise size with my big hands as well. This brings us very quickly into the "when."

When:
Now, since I want to 4-bet with (at most) a third of my stack, I need my opponent's 3-bet to be small enough that my 4-bet allows this without being a pesky min-raise. If my opponent 3-bets to 25BB (with 100BB stacks), for instance, 4-bet bluffing is not an option for me. But the standard open-raise is typically between 3 and 4 big blinds, and the standard 3-bet for most regulars in the games I play seems to be between 12 and 15 big blinds. A 4-bet to 35 big blinds, then, achieves what I want to achieve, and is what I aim for in these cases.

It's imperative, then, that the effective stacks are at least 100BB. Otherwise, I'll have put in more than a third of my stack and will be very close to break-even on calling with any two cards when/if my opponent shoves, which I certainly don't want.

Furthermore, the whole point in 4-bet bluffing is that we think there's a decent chance that our opponents will fold whatever they have, so we want some history between us that shows that he's capable of 3-betting light. If you use stats, the "3bet preflop" number should typically show at least 7% for me to start considering 4-bet bluffing, and it's of course also a given that our opponent must be "smart" enough to fold the worst part of his hands when we bluff. Don't bluff a calling station - and definitely not preflop.

I also said that I want to do it with hands that I can't profitably call the 3-bet with, which adds to the when; I'm more often out of position than in position when I 4-bet bluff. In position I can often take a flop and play a big pot in position with some of my weaker hands, albeit certainly not all of them.

With what hands?
I'll cut to the chase: I (almost always) 4-bet these hands before the flop: QQ, KK, AA, AKo and AKs. Out of position, I also 4-bet all suited connectors from 76s up to JTs. In position, I 4-bet bluff with JTo.

It might seem like I'm being predictable if I always use the same hands, but I don't think that that's true. The way the combinations of these hands work out, I will "have it" about 75% of the time when I 4-bet. That's decidedly enough not to make shoving over the top immediately profitable for my opponents, and it's also enough that I still add a little bit of profit. So why have I picked these precise hands?

Because I want to be able to make the decision to 4-bet bluff automatic. I have two reasons for this:

First, it frees up time in my decision making when I'm multi-tabling (which I typically always am). A few seconds saved on making a decision on one table means a few more seconds to make a better decision on another table. This is pretty important and why I'm a big fan of having default ranges on reflex. That doesn't mean that I can't adjust, but some decisions I really just prefer to have made for me.

Secondly, it takes away the risk that I'm overdoing it. I think a lot of aggressive regulars seriously overdo the LAG style of their play and simply go nuts too often. They might "know" that they should be bluffing with a certain small frequency, but simply guessing how often they've been doing it lately is borderline impossible. By using a set of pre-determined ranges, I know for a fact that I'm bluffing with a frequency that I've decided on. No guessing. No 4-betting because I'm tilting.

So I pick JTo when I'm in position and suited connectors when I'm out of position, and you may already have guessed why, but it's simply because these are hands that I typically can't play profitably when I get 3-bet. In position, I can opt to call with JTs on the button when the small blind 3-bets. But I can't play that hand out of position for 14 big blinds with effective stacks of 100BB. And I typically can't play JTo profitably even in position when I get 3-bet.

An argument could perhaps be made to pick the weakest part of my range instead of these hands that are sort of in the middle. But I don't think it matters that much since these hands were all going in the muck otherwise anyway. There is an upside to choosing hands that are no better than J-high though, and that is that in the rare cases when the other person cold-calls the 4-bet (a move that I seriously question is legitimate for any hand but AA, and probably not even then), I don't have to be in the sticky situation of flopping nothing and wondering if I'm best.

This is not a hugely important point, but it matters at least a little bit, because if I see a flop with the bluffing part of my range and my opponent open-shoves out of position, I don't want to have a difficult decision to make. Of course, sometimes this is going to happen anyway. I might flop top pair with JT, but that's a much better situation to be in than to flop nothing with A7o and be worried that I might be laying down the best hand with ace-high. Since you're bound to ask, yes, I've had opponents stop-and-go a 4-bet on me with KQs unimproved and similar from the SB. Fortunately I wasn't bluffing at the times that this has happened, so I didn't make the mistake of folding, but I mention it as a reason for why I'm unhappy 4-bet bluffing with hands that have some chance of being the best hand. "Typically don't bluff with the best hand" is a valuable lesson I learned while grinding limit hold 'em, and it applies here, too.

So: 4-bet bluff because it adds profit and deception, do it in a way that lets you get away from your hand if your opponent shoves, do it versus opponents that you have reason to believe are 3-betting light often, do it with hands that you can't otherwise profitably continue with and do it with a range of hands that you've decided on before you are even dealt the cards.

And do it because, frankly, big bluffs are fun.

And this was my comment to FPs post. Personally I'd like to see some opinions (Chuck?) about the pot commitment problem, because I've seen several people talk about it, and I really think it's a misconception.

Really interesting concept here, I really like your idea about picking hands to do this with instead of making it situational. Obviously you're probably adjusting and not playing strictly like a bot, but the point is good about people who attempt to guess frequencies. Frankly, it's like when people guess frequencies about hands: "gut shots hit around 60% of the time against me".

Now to the parts here I dislike:

1. Pot commitment

I think you're making way too big a deal of getting committed here. We should be thinking of making a profitable 3-bet. Think of it in terms of ev. Say hypothetically we've figured that 4-betting to 35 BBs pot commits us to call a shove. We act like this is the worst thing in the world when imo it isn't at all. Say we 4-bet to 34. When shoved on, we lose 34 big blinds. Say we 4-bet to 35. When shoved on, we are committed to call, and simply lose an average of 35. So if that extra 1 big blind gives us a tiny bit of fold equity, it is profitable. Note that pot committing ourselves increases variance but in terms of ev is irrelevant imo. Plus it's GREAT for our image. Of course it looks like a bluff when we 4-bet and fold, but imagine the amount of impact shown when we 4-bet JTo and then CALL A SHOVE with it. And all for a decision that is ev-neutral no matter what we do.

2. In your range discussion, you say you like trash instead of good non-value hands, for the simple reason that you can get away from them easier. Sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense. First of all you could just play the marginal hands and fold them all the time and have the same expectation. But every time we hit a flop better, we have a better chance to make a call that is +ev compared to folding. Poker's a game about being right on tough decisions. It's where we profit. In general, we want a hand that plays the best against his 4-bet flatting range (of course I have no idea what the hell that is, since you rarely see someone flat a 4-bet) that we can't call profitably with. I just think it's extremely silly in your example to say you'd rather have trash than A7 wondering if you're A high is good. If you played the A7 just like trash it'd be neutral ev, but if the A high call was profitable and you make it, ev goes up. I think you can be safe folding it when this happens, but just my opinion fwiw.

Which brings up one final point:

This is not my original idea, c9 pointed it out and I think he got it from somewhere. But basically 4-betting more frequently with Ax can be better simply because many of the hands villain will stack preflop decrease in combinations. If you have A4, he is now less likely to have AA and AK. You given thought to that concept?

Zach, no problem with cross posting.

1. I think I may have phrased myself clumsily. I didn't mean that I want to 4-bet to a size that is just below break-even for committment. By "being as high as I can go without being committed" I didn't mean a hair below, I meant that I will most definitely show a loss if I call. If I raise to 35BB and the other guy shoves, I'm getting almost exactly 2:1 to call, but JTo will actually be more like 3:1 to win if our opponent has a real hand. This is not a negligible EV decision; it's a -EV decision along the lines of -15BB. Even if you allow for some shoving bluffs (I stoved QQ+,AKo,AKs and 65s as his range), it's still a -5BB EV. Or, if you will, another 200 hands that we have to play in order to make up for that mistake. In other words, it's not EV neutral, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

Now, on the other hand, I also notice while stoving that there's a not-trivial difference between 87s and JTo and that 87s is actually 30% to win vs. the big hands (JTo is 25%). This makes my 4-betting range actually a bit icky since my EV of calling a shove getting 135:65, while still negative, is not hugely so. I'll need to rework those ranges and pick some slightly worse hands. Specifically, offsuit hands. Maybe I'll just settle for JTo as my 4-betting hand and not worry about it more.

2. This ties in with what C9 said, but I'll take the two points in order, so if we ignore the card removal effects that he suggests:

Poker isn't just a game about getting the tough decisions right more often, it's about getting decisions right more often. Tougher decisions are harder to get right, so if we can put ourselves in a position where we have on average easier decisions to make that's even better. Not getting ourselves in situations that demand tough decisions is as - if not more - important than getting the tough decisions right.

Now, specifically about the A7 vs. JTo example, and it being EV neutral to play the A7 as trash and just fold it. You definitely have a point. It's of course better to have a better hand when we actually see a flop in a 70BB pot. Thanks for calling me on it.

Having said that and returning to C9's card removal point:

Keep in mind that C9's strategy is also to shove when he 4-bets. In that case, A-high hands are in better shape since they make AK and AA less likely and they have some (not great, but much much better than T9s) equity vs. QQ and KK. But if I 4-bet to 35BB with, say, A4o, it's not a matter of whether or not I'll have some extra hot-and-cold equity when all the money goes in preflop, because all the money won't.

And regarding the actual card removal effects, I'd love it if someone showed this one way or the other conclusively but there is a flipside to the coin. Our opponent's 3-betting range normally contains a fair share of aces, a large portion of which constitutes the hands that we are hoping to bluff out when we 4-bet; AJo, ATs, etc. But if we have an ace ourselves that not only reduces the number of monsters he can have (AA, AK) but also reduces the hands that we profit from bluffing. It's a tradeoff, but I'm not sure about the exact implications.

Fredrick, I don't get why you restrict yourself to specific hands for your 4bet bluffs. I get the point that you want to keep a proper balance between the legitimate 4bets and the bluffs, but can't you achieve that by monitoring your own 4bet stats and use that to decide on whether you are bluffing too much or too little, then choose your 4bet bluffing spots based more on the situation instead of based on the hand you will throw away anyway if villain 5bet shoves?

You approach makes a lot of sense if you play live, but online the HUD is as good a tool to reach proper balance, IMO.

In theory, I could be monitoring that, but in practise that's very hard to do. Specifically, it's hard because my stats, depending on where I look, show either how I've been playing at this table or how I've played in my lifetime. I can't (at least I wouldn't know how) check how I've played against this particular 3-bettor, for instance.

It also helps keep it random. If I keep from 4-bet bluffing when I've 4-bet "often" I don't take into account that I might have gotten a lot of big hands lately. This shouldn't deter me from bluffing, because I haven't been bluffing so far. If I look at stats, it's no longer random - it's a decision I make based on something measurable.

Good point, although I'm pretty sure one day we'll have that.

Really?

I would think that's actually an argument for using the HUD stats, not against. Bluffing is way more +EV (immediate and meta) when we have a tigher image than when we have a loose one, regardless of whether we got that image through previous bluffs or legitimate hands.

Well, iIf I 4-bet based on stats, then I'm essentially never going to 4-bet bluff one round after I've 4-bet with, say, aces. My 4-betting stat for the session is going to be through the roof already. But you're right in that if I've gotten crap for cards for the past 50 hands and have been folding everytime I've been 3-bet, then it probably is a good idea to just toss my rule of what cards to 4-bet with out the window and just go ahead and take a stand. I need to stress that having the cards decide when to 4-bet bluff is my default, I reserve the right to deviate from it in more or less extreme cases. Table image being very out of the norm from what I usually play is such a case.

Well then I misunderstood your point. I'm trying to say that in deciding the size of our 3-bet, I don't believe we should be ever considering pot commitment. I hear about this all the time from well respected posters/players but I honestly don't think pot commitment (aside from realizing we can't bluff a pot-committed opponent) should play a part in our decisions. The neutral ev point was mine, as at the exact point of pot commitment it IS neutral ev. As you mentioned, calling would be -ev thus you're not committed. Maybe 40 or 45 is the line for pot commitment, I haven't done that math on it. But my point was that in deciding on a raise size, we shouldn't even be thinking about pot commitment. When faced with a shove, we have to and if we are pot committed we have to stack then, but I am claiming (and I could be right or wrong here) that pot committment should play absolutely NO role in our decision on bet size.


This just makes no sense. If it is negative ev to call a shove unimproved, you should be neutral to any hand. Since 87s plays better (ie will flop a hand you know you can stack, straight or flush mainly), there is absolutely no reason to play JTo or worse just because it makes your decision tougher. I'll get into that when you address that from my last question.
Fair point, but I still disagree with sacrificing ev for the sake of avoiding a tough decision. Also note that most tough decisions are close to neutral ev, thus are actually not all that important to get right (apart from the hands against good players and you are unsure of their range. If they are thinking a level above you they can force you to make huge mistakes in tough decisions). I just think it's plain stupid to play a hand simply because it's easier to get rid of rather than a hand that plays better and would show the EXACT SAME RETURN if you folded it every time. Hell play 78s and only stack when you flop a straight flush, and you will show more of a profit than JTo would, because that slight increase in ev is enough.

This is an interesting point. I know for me though I'm not 3-betting ATs/AJo most of the time. Most 3-bets are monsters (JJ+/AQ+, maybe not AQ and JJ) and bluffs. Most people choose bluffs (and rightly so) to be pocket pairs and suited connectors, because they play best when the opponent flats the 3-bet. Maybe I should try to work out the math, I'm interested to see what kind of impact the decrease in monster combinations has.

Wow, I hadn't realised you guys had put so much discussion and effort into this thread. I really appreciate it, there's some heavy stuff going on here and lively debate, it's really great stuff guys.