What Is a 4-Bet in Poker? When to 4-Bet, Sizing & Bluffs
A 4-bet is the reraise of a 3-bet. Someone opens, someone else reraises (that is the 3-bet), and then a third player or the original raiser raises again over the top. That last raise is the 4-bet. Because the pot is already large and both ranges are tight, it is one of the heaviest weapons in preflop poker, so the hands you pick matter a lot.
This article is the sequel to that 3-bet guide, so we will assume you already know how a reraise works and why position matters. Here we will cover what a 4-bet actually is, the hands you should 4-bet for value, the surprisingly specific hands that make the best 4-bet bluffs (the blocker logic is the part most players get wrong), how to size it in position versus out of position, and what to do when someone fires a 4-bet at you. By the end you will know when to put in that fourth bet and, just as important, when to shut it down and fold.
What Is a 4-Bet in Poker?
A 4-bet is the second reraise before the flop, the raise that comes right after a 3-bet. Just like with the 3-bet, the name confuses people because it sounds like it should be the fourth raise. It isn't. We count bets, not raises, and the count starts with the blinds.
Notice the order of events that has to happen first. A 4-bet can only exist after someone opens and someone else 3-bets. No open, no 3-bet, no 4-bet. The fourth bet is always a response to the third bet, which was a response to the open. It is a chain, and each link has to be there.
- The big blind is the 1-bet (the first forced bet that sets the price).
- The open is the 2-bet (the first voluntary raise).
- The 3-bet is the first reraise (a raise over the open).
- The 4-bet is the reraise of the 3-bet (a raise over the reraise).
- The 5-bet is the next raise on top, and at 100bb it is almost always all-in.
Here is what it looks like at a $1/$2 table. A player in the cutoff opens to $6. The button reraises to $20 (the 3-bet). Action comes back to the cutoff, who makes it $50. That $50 raise is the 4-bet. The pot is already big, both players have shown real strength, and someone is about to make a tough decision for a lot of chips. That pressure is exactly why you have to be careful about which hands you use it with.
When to 4-Bet for Value
A value 4-bet is the easy half to understand. You have a hand that beats the range your opponent will continue with, and you want the money in. The standard value core facing a 3-bet at 100 big blinds is QQ+ and AK (both AKs and AKo). In the tightest spots, against players who only 3-bet you with monsters, that core shrinks to KK+. But QQ+ and AK is the safe, standard answer you can lean on.
Why these hands and not a notch wider? Because when you 4-bet, you fold out almost everything except your opponent's strongest holdings. So you have to ask what calls or jams over a 4-bet. The answer is hands like QQ, KK, AA, and AK. Against that tight continuing range, you want to be holding the top of it yourself. AA and KK are crushing it. QQ and AK are flipping or slightly behind the very top, but they have enough equity to get the stacks in profitably once you factor in the fold equity from all the worse hands you blow off the pot.
Here is the picture in practice. You open AA on the button to $6 in a $1/$2 game. The big blind 3-bets to $24. You 4-bet to about $55. If they fold, you take down a nice pot. If they jam or call, you are thrilled, because the only hands that keep playing are exactly the ones you dominate or flip against. You are not trying to make them fold. You are building the biggest pot you can while you hold the best hand.
QQ and AK are the spots that take judgment. Against a loose, aggressive 3-bettor who jams a wide range, they are clear value 4-bets. Against a nit who only ever 4-bet-jams KK+, your QQ is suddenly in trouble. So the strength of a value 4-bet is always relative to who you are up against. To see how AK fares against a realistic 4-bet calling range, run it through the equity calculator and watch how much the result swings as you tighten or loosen the range you put them on.
When to 4-Bet as a Bluff
This is the part most players get wrong, and it is the most useful idea in the whole article. If you 4-bet only QQ+ and AK, a thinking opponent folds every time and you never win an extra chip. You need some bluffs. But not just any hand works as a 4-bet bluff. The best ones share a specific property.
The best 4-bet bluffs are blocker hands, and the cleanest examples are the suited wheel aces: A5s, A4s, A3s, and A2s (with some suited kings mixed in). On the surface these look like junk to reraise with. So why are they the gold standard for 4-bet bluffing? Two reasons.
Reason one is the blocker effect. Your opponent is folding everything except roughly QQ+ and AK. Count the combos. There are 6 ways to be dealt AA and 16 ways to be dealt AK. Every one of those holdings requires an ace. When you hold the ace of clubs in your A5s, you have physically removed a chunk of those combinations from the deck. Fewer AA and AK combos in their range means more folds against your 4-bet. You are bluffing with the specific hand that makes the bluff more likely to work.
Reason two is the fallback. The wheel aces are not just blockers, they are playable. When your A4s gets called and the flop brings a wheel draw or a flush draw, you can make the nut straight (A-2-3-4-5) or the nut flush. So on the rare occasions your 4-bet bluff gets looked up, you still have a hand that can win a big pot. They block, and they make nut hands.
Here is the trap. Beginners reach for a “decent” hand like KQs, KJs, QJs, or JTs because they are pretty cards. But they are some of the worst 4-bet bluffs. They block almost nothing useful: a king or a queen does not remove many of the hands your opponent continues with, since the bulk of the calling range (AA, AK) holds neither. They are dominated when called: against AK, AA, KK, and QQ, your KJ is crushed and gets you stacked making second-best pairs. And they are worth more doing something else, as flat-calls against a 3-bet or as folds. Burning a hand like KQs as a 4-bet bluff wastes a hand that had a better, cheaper job to do. This is one of the classic preflop mistakes that quietly costs intermediate players money.
- A5s to A2s: best bluffs. The ace blocks AA and AK, and they make the nuts when called.
- Some suited kings (Kxs): okay bluffs. A king blocks KK and AK, but they are weaker than the wheel aces.
- KQs, KJs, QJs, JTs: bad bluffs. They block nothing useful, are dominated when called, and play better as a flat or a fold.
So the rule flips your intuition on its head. The “nice” broadway hands are bad bluffs and good calls. The “ugly” suited wheel aces are bad calls and great bluffs. It feels backwards until you frame everything around blockers, and then it clicks.
One important caveat. This whole bluffing layer only works against opponents who can fold. Against a nit or a fish who only 3-bets premium hands and never lays one down, the blocker math does not save you. Against those players, skip the bluffs entirely, fold your non-premiums, and 4-bet only for value.
If you want to feel how a real 4-bet range fits together, build one in the range visualizer. Drop QQ+ and AK in as your value, add A5s through A2s as your bluffs, and you can see at a glance how the blocker hands sit on the grid next to the value hands. For more on how raw hand strength feeds into all of this, our guide to poker starting hands is a useful companion read, and poker equity explained covers the math behind it.
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Position Changes How You 4-Bet
Where you sit at the table changes your whole 4-betting plan. Position decides how wide you go, how many bluffs you mix in, and how big you size. If you are new to thinking in seats, the breakdown in our poker positions guide will make the rest of this section click faster.
Here is the core idea. When you 4-bet in position, you get to act last on every street after the flop. That edge lets you widen your range, add more bluffs, and keep your sizing smaller. A 4-bet to about 2.2x to 2.5x the 3-bet does the job, and a few extra punishing bluffs like the suited wheel aces fit nicely.
Out of position is a different animal. You will have to act first after the flop, which is a real disadvantage, so you tighten up. Fewer bluffs, more value, and a bigger size, roughly 2.5x to 3x the 3-bet. The larger sizing charges your opponent more to continue and denies the equity of all those hands that would happily peel a smaller raise.
From the blinds, you play the tightest of all. You are guaranteed to be out of position postflop against the original opener, and your range is already capped because you cannot credibly represent every premium. So 4-bet the blinds mostly for value, trim the bluffs hard, and lean on the larger out-of-position sizing.
How Big Should a 4-Bet Be?
The good news is that 4-bet sizing is simpler than open sizing. You are not picking a number out of thin air, you are reacting to the 3-bet that is already in front of you. The rule of thumb is to multiply the size of the 3-bet.
Let's put real chips on it. Say you are playing 100bb and an opponent opens to 3bb. You 3-bet to 10bb, and they come back over the top with a 4-bet. If they are in position, a 2.2x to 2.5x 4-bet lands at roughly 22bb to 25bb. The 4-bet isn't some scary mountain of chips, it is a touch more than double the 3-bet. Out of position, that same spot pushes toward 25bb to 30bb instead.
- In position: about 2.2x to 2.5x the 3-bet.
- Out of position: about 2.5x to 3x the 3-bet, because you want to deny equity and charge more for playing a big pot while you are out of position.
- Short stacks: forget the multiplier. Just shove. If a 2.2x to 3x 4-bet would commit most of your stack anyway, going all-in is cleaner and takes away your opponent's chance to play perfectly against you.
Notice how small the actual multiplier feels once it is in chips. A lot of beginners overcook the 4-bet to 35bb or 40bb out of fear, which only bloats the pot and tells a tighter opponent exactly what you have. Stick to the multiplier. If you want to see why the size matters for the player facing it, run the call price through the pot odds calculator, and for a deeper read on raise sizes in general, our bet sizing guide goes seat by seat.
When to Just Fold Instead
Here is the part most players skip. A 4-bet bluff only works against someone who can fold. If your opponent will not lay down a strong hand, the bluff has nothing to do. You are just lighting money on fire.
Think about the nits and the fish you play against every session. The nit only 3-bets KK and AA. The fish 3-bets a random ace and then refuses to fold it. Neither of those players is folding to a 4-bet, so a 4-bet bluff against them is pointless. They do not have the fold button you are trying to press. This is one of the most common mistakes at low stakes: bluffing into people who literally cannot fold.
So against those players, do the boring thing. Fold your non-premiums and only 4-bet for value. When a known nit 3-bets you and you are holding A5s, that suited wheel ace is a fold, not a 4-bet bluff. Save your 4-bets for QQ+ and AK, the hands that actually want the money in against a tight range.
4-bet bluffing is a tool for one specific situation: a thinking opponent who is 3-betting light and is capable of folding a strong but non-nutted hand to extra pressure. If that describes the player, bluff away. If it doesn't, fold and wait for a better spot. Knowing the difference is worth more than any range chart.
What to Do When You Get 4-Bet
Eventually you will 3-bet, get raised again, and have to act. Facing a 4-bet is one of the tightest spots in poker, and the default answer is short: fold most hands. A 4-bet represents real strength, so you do not need to defend anywhere near as wide as you might think.
Your continuing range is roughly KK+ and AK. Everything else you 3-bet with, including all your bluffs and most of your value, just folds. Yes, that means folding hands like JJ, AQ, and even QQ against a tight 4-bettor. It feels bad in the moment, but those hands are usually behind the range that 4-bets you. The player who calls a 4-bet with QQ or AQ because it is a big pair is the player who bleeds money in this exact spot.
- Deeper stacks (100bb+): you can flat a 4-bet with your strongest hands and play postflop, or 5-bet jam with AA and KK to get it in. AK is often a call or a jam depending on the opponent.
- Shorter stacks: there is no room to play postflop, so the decision is simpler. With KK+ and often AK, your move is to 5-bet shove all in. Everything else folds.
- Whatever the depth, do not stack off light just because you have a big hand.
QQ and AK are the genuine grey-area hands. Against a maniac who 4-bets light, they are an easy continue. Against a rock who has never bluffed a 4-bet in his life, QQ becomes a fold and AK gets a lot less comfortable. Pay attention to who is doing the raising, and use the equity calculator to run AK against a tight 4-bet-calling range so you can see exactly where you stand.
Common Questions About 4-Betting
Is AK a 4-bet? Yes. AK (both AKs and AKo) is part of the standard 4-bet value range alongside QQ+. It has strong equity against the hands that call a 4-bet, and it blocks AA and KK. At shorter stacks, AK is usually a 4-bet shove rather than a flat.
How often should I 4-bet? Not very often. The 4-bet only happens after an open and a 3-bet, and your value core is tight (QQ+ and AK). Add a few blocker bluffs like A5s and A4s against opponents who can fold, and your total 4-betting frequency stays low. If you are 4-betting a lot, you are almost certainly doing it too light.
What is the difference between a 3-bet and a 4-bet? A 3-bet is the first reraise after an opening raise, and a 4-bet is the reraise of that 3-bet. So the order is open (the 2-bet), then 3-bet, then 4-bet. A 4-bet can only happen once someone has opened and someone else has 3-bet.
What hands make the best 4-bet bluffs? Blocker hands, mainly the suited wheel aces A5s, A4s, A3s, and A2s. Holding an ace removes combos of AA and AK from the calling range, so you get more folds, and the suited ace can still make nut straights and nut flushes when called. Hands like KQs and KJs are bad 4-bet bluffs because they block almost nothing and play better as a flat-call or a fold.
What should I do when someone 4-bets me? Fold most of the time. Continue only with a tight range, roughly KK+ and AK, and call or 5-bet jam based on stack depth and how loose the 4-bettor is. Do not stack off light just because you have a big hand.
Putting It Into Practice
The 4-bet is rare, but it is one of the highest-leverage decisions in preflop poker. Get it right and you win big pots with your premiums and steal others outright with the perfect blocker bluff. Get it wrong and you either spew with hands that cannot fold anyone out, or you call off a tight 4-bettor with a hand that is drawing thin.
Start simple. 4-bet QQ+ and AK for value, every time. Once that feels automatic, add A5s through A2s as bluffs against thinking opponents who can fold, and fold those same hands against the players who cannot. Size to about 2.2x to 2.5x the 3-bet in position, a touch more out of position, and shove when you are short. And when someone 4-bets you, trust the read and let most hands go. If you want the theory behind why these ranges are built the way they are, our guide to GTO poker for beginners ties it all together.
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