In today’s overly-aggressive poker world, four betting is pretty common. And in most cases, the person who four bets has a pretty good hand. However, hand strength is only one factor that goes into making the decision to four bet. So in the spirit of four betting, here are 4 tips that will help you decide whether or not to make that fourth bet.

Your Cards

As mentioned before, this is the easiest way to decide if you four bet or not. When an opponent three bets you, then you have to consider the possibility that they’re willing to go all-in with a fifth bet if you four bet. Obviously, you need to keep the board texture in mind too in addition to your cards, which is where the next tip comes into play.

Opponent’s Range

A fourth bet doesn’t always indicate a strong hand. In fact, many overly-aggressive players use the fourth bet to intimidate their opponent into folding. This is why it’s important to put your opponent on a range throughout the hand. Also consider what they’re thinking when they make the third bet. Do they think you’re a tight player who would probably fold if you don’t have the nuts? If so, their range is going to be wider.

Likelihood that your Opponent will fold

Another thing you need to think about is if your opponent will fold to a fourth bet. Assuming you don’t have the nuts, you’re probably hoping they fold. Their table image will play a large part in this, but so will the pot odds you’re giving them, which leads us to the last tip on four betting.

Price to Call

If you only make a $15 four bet in a $200 pot, you’re not going to push an opponent out of the hand. After all, they’ve already invested plenty into the hand, and their pot odds are almost forcing them to call. However, if you make a $100 raise into a $200 pot, you’ve given the opponent something to think about. So always keep in mind the price you’re giving an opponent to call when you four bet.

We’ve covered putting an opponent on a range before, but you can never spend too much time learning to profile your opponents’ hands. With that in mind, here are a few specific things you should look at when putting your opponent on a range.

Opponent’s Table Image

You should always consider what type of opponent you’re up against when defining a range; a simplified way to do this is by profiling players as tight, loose or somewhere in between. Tight opponents are the best to pin to a range because they don’t play as many cards. Loose players, on the other hand, play a wider range of cards so you’ll have to work harder when putting them on a range.

Opponent’s Table Position

Once you’ve profiled how an opponent plays, you can use their table position to further narrow hand ranges down. Looking at table position is especially important pre-flop because this is when you can really get a read on what range other players have. For instance, if a tight player raises from early position, you can assume they have a premium hand such as AA through JJ, AK. If a loose player raises from early position, you could assume that their range is extended to AA through TT, AK (possibly even 99 and AQ).

Board Texture

As the hand moves to the flop and beyond, the board is going to play a big part in narrowing an opponent’s range. For example, if a straight draw was in your opponent’s range and three cards to a straight are on the board, you have to consider that they hit a straight. Now in some cases, you might think an opponent is bluffing; however, if you’ve put them on a range all along, you’ll have a better idea as to whether or not they’ve actually hit the hand.

Betting Patterns

One more good thing to look at when putting opponents on a range is betting patterns. By factoring in position, table image and board texture, looking at betting patterns completes the puzzle. For example, if an opponent calls your raises throughout a hand, then suddenly re-raises after the board shows a flush, you can assume they’ve hit a flush.

As with anything in poker, you can never be 100% sure about what your opponent’s range is; instead, you’re just making an educated guess. But keep in mind that these educated guesses are a lot more helpful than taking random chances when it comes to knowing what an opponent has.

Pocket queens is definitely one poker hand that makes players smile inside when they look down at their hole cards. But as with any pocket pair, pocket queens are fairly vulnerable after the flop, which means you need a plan when playing them.

The first thing you need to realize with pocket queens is that there is only a 1 in 110 chance that somebody else has a better hand pre-flop. So you should raise and/or re-raise to narrow the amount of opponents to just one; the purpose of this is to avoid letting multiple drawing hands into the pot that could hit a straight or flush.

Once the flop is dealt, you need to look at what cards are on the board as well as your table position. In most cases, you aren’t going to flop a set; but if you do, you can value bet an opponent to begin taking their stack. When you don’t flop a set, which is the large majority of the time, you need to put your opponent on a range. There won’t be much information for you on the flop, but you’ll gather enough info on the turn and river to make an informed decision.

Also keep in mind that the size of your chip stack and table image will determine your success with pocket queens. With a tight table image and huge chip stack, you may not get any action on a big pre-flop raise; however, you might be able to make an opponent fold on the flop with a big raise even if the board completely misses you.

In the end, you need to realize that playing pocket queens is more than just playing the hand street by street. Your entire play up to this point could be the difference between taking someone’s stack or just having them fold.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy for re-buy poker tournaments because there is no one-size-fits-all re-buy tournament. There’s tournaments with re-buys in the first hour, tourneys with unlimited re-buys and re-buy freerolls; you need a different strategy for each one of these tourneys too.

For re-buy tournaments that only offer re-buys in the first hour, the strategy is pretty simple. These tourneys allow you to add on after your chip stack falls below the starting amount, so you want to play unraised hands in the beginning and add on after your stack is below the starting amount. Just make sure that you don’t risk too much in big hands during the first hour so you can keep adding on and remain one of the chip leaders.

In unlimited re-buy tournaments, you need to play a wide range of hands and raise whenever you’re given a reason to. Small pairs (or better), overcards and suited cards with a J or better are all good pre-flop hands to play. Be sure to raise often and sniff out those who are being reckless just because the tourney offers unlimited re-buys. Also, keep your amount of re-buys to five or six; at some point, you need to cut your losses and quit playing so you don’t have to make the final table just to break-even.

Freeroll re-buy tournaments are nice because players don’t always re-buy seeing as how it’s a freeroll. This means you can gain a huge advantage just be re-buying in the freeroll. Assuming the freeroll has something like a $1,000 prize pool and first place gets $200 of this money, it’s certainly worth re-buying even if it takes $20. And if you don’t make your money back, just consider it a regular tournament buy-in where you didn’t cash.

If there’s one played-out piece of poker strategy out there, it’s that you need to attack weak players. After all, fish are where everybody makes their money, so it only makes sense to go after them and get your piece of the pie. But here’s the thing about constantly attacking fish: these players are already going to make mistakes and donate money to you (and the rest of the table), which is why you can just wait for their mistakes. So instead of attacking the fish, here’s an idea – go after the good players.

Sound crazy? Sure it does because most of us have been taught to avoid good players and just keep picking on the bad ones. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this strategy since you can profit from it. However, you can also make quite a bit of money by going after good players who don’t know you.

The reason why is because good players gain a lot of their skill by reading players through betting patterns and watching them play hands. The last thing they expect is for somebody to attack them with a marginal hand while trying to get them to lay cards down.

Oftentimes, the opposite happens when you try and push around a really bad player when they’re on a good hand; in these instances, fish don’t want to relinquish their good hand and so they keep calling raises. Contrast this to a good player who is willing to lay down a strong hand if it’s not the nuts so they can protect their stack. And it’s not because they’re scared of losing chips, but rather that they aren’t scared to let a good hand go.

So how can you spot a good player and begin attacking them? Well, it’s not always an exact science, but some small things you can do include looking at betting patterns, value betting ability, and the size of their stack. As soon as you get onto a new table, you should be looking at these factors.

Critical thinking in poker has often been described in levels, with the first level being when you consider your own hand. Once you’ve mastered the skill of deciding what hands are good to play and your odds in different situations, it’s time to graduate to the second level of thinking, which is considering what opponents have. Fortunately, reaching the second level of critical poker thinking isn’t too difficult. But it’s the third level – where you think about what an opponent thinks you have – that gets tricky.

The first thing you need to think about in regards to the third level is deciding what other players at the table think of your table image. Have you only played good hands with position? Have you shown the willingness to play second rate hands at showdown? Questions like these go into deciding how other players are viewing you at the table. For instance, if you haven’t played anything except for good hands with position, you may have to make lower value bets with great hands.

Also consider the stakes you’re playing at when deciding what an opponent thinks you have. At the lower stakes, simply making a large raise when an opponent’s flush draw misses could be enough to convince them that you’ve got better cards (even if you don’t).

One more thing to keep in mind as far as what other players think you have is your stack size. Based on how many chips you hold, certain moves can make you look strong, desperate, or like a bully. For example, if your stack is dwindling and you lead out with a large raise on a bad board, some players might think you’ve got nothing and that you’re just trying to steal.

So be sure to use your perceived image, stack size and the stakes you’re playing to guess what other players think you have.