Two helpful concepts to improve your play on the fourth street. Check hands with outs and bet hands that, if already beaten, have no outs.

Example:

You hold AcAs a third suited card comes on fourth street, and neither of your aces is of that suit. Against a typical opponent, the correct play is to bet and then fold if you are raised. Notice that if your opponent does not have a flush, you are not giving him a free card that might beat you. However, if he has a flush, you probably will be raised, and you usually can safely throw away your hand. The reason you can throw away your hand for a raise is that when you bet, the third suited card on the board will look just as scary to your opponent as it does to you. Consequently, it is unlikely for you to be raised (by a typical player) unless you are now against a completed hand. Notice that this play takes you out of a guessing game. Had you checked, you might have enticed your opponent to bluff, but it would have cost you two bets to keep him honest. For similar reasons, you should bet an overpair against non-tricky opponents when a smaller pair is on board. Again, if you are raised, you can probably discard your hand. An exception to this is when your overpair is either aces or kings and you think you can induce your opponent to bluff. When you hold either of these high pairs, giving a free card is not as dangerous. Now suppose that when the third suited card hits on fourth street, you make two pair. In this case you have outs. The best play is usually to check and call.

Example:

You hold:

Board on turn:

When first to act – check and call.

Exception: Your opponent checks to you, and you think it is unlikely that he would check a flush because he is afraid that you would fail to bet. In this second case, you should bet. So, if you are against three or more opponents and are first to act, a check is probably the correct play. But if the pot is short-handed, and you are not fearful of the flush, you should strongly consider betting unless you have other reasons to check, especially if the action is checked to you. You also need to consider, as usual, who you are against. If you are against someone who plays as instructed in this text, it may be wrong to bet and fold when it appears that you have no outs. They may now be raising with a pair and a four-flush so that now you are throwing the best hand away too often. Plus, two aces will frequently make two pair which can beat two smaller pairs that you may be up against. A related strategy occurs when you have two pair or a set on the turn, a third suited card hits, and your opponent bets into you. The correct play usually is to raise. Unless your opponent has the nut flush, the typical player almost always will just call, even if he has a flush. (If he has the nut flush, your opponent might wait until all the cards are out and then try to check-raise.) Now, on the river, if the board pairs and gives you a full house, you should bet after your opponent checks. However, if you do not improve, you should usually check behind him. Notice that if you hold the worse hand, playing in this fashion will cause you to lose the same amount of money. However, if you improve to a full house, you often gain an extra bet. Another benefit of this play (when you hold two pair) is that your opponent may fold the top pair or an overpair and thus cannot draw out on you. (Also, you should play your hand similarly if you hold two aces and one of your aces is of the appropriate suit.) The second important concept concerning fourth-street play is that you should be betting good hands on the flop, but then frequently check-raising with them on the turn. In fact, this should be a routine strategy since you will be giving up on many hands on the fourth street. That is, you won’t follow through on most of your semi-bluffs and/or the other weak hands that you routinely bet on the flop. Therefore, to avoid giving your hand away, you also must check a lot of good hands. Specifically, when first to act, you probably should check on fourth street as much as 60% of the time with your good and bad hands alike, as long as free cards are not a major problem and your opponents are aggressive. What you are doing is balancing your strategy. Because you are such a threat to check-raise, your more observant opponents will be afraid to bet on the turn after you have checked, thus giving you a free card when you don’t have much. Meanwhile, your less observant opponents will be frequently check-raised when you have checked a good hand. By playing this way, you have the best of both worlds.

Example:

You hold:

Flop:

You have bet on the flop, been called, and have every reason to believe that you have the best hand. If a blank hit on the fourth street you should go for a check-raise if someone else bets.

Another time when you can make this play is when you semi-bluff bet into several players when you flop bottom pair with an overcard kicker and the turn gives you three-of-a-kind. You should usually go for a check-raise. On the other hand, if you hit your kicker, especially if it is an ace, you should be more inclined to bet since the ace may scare an opponent who had you beat on the flop, out of betting. Another advantage to checking a lot of good hands in early position on the fourth street is that when you don’t have a good hand, depending on the board and what hits on the river, you may be able to steal on the end if both you and your opponent check on the turn. (A word of caution though: Many players are more prone to call your bet if you check on the fourth street, as they become suspicious and want to keep you honest.)

Exception: Very loose game. In this situation, you won’t be making many semi-bluff type bets on the flop, so it won’t be as necessary to balance your strategy. But you will still be doing a lot of check-raising anyway, both on the flop and the turn in order to thin out the field.

Example:

You hold QdJs and flop top two pair with a small card. You bet and get two callers, one before you and one after you. A 9 – which could give someone a straight – comes on fourth street and the first person bets into you.

How should you play? Well, you certainly should not fold. Many typical players, if they actually made a straight, would try for a check-raise. Moreover, this person could easily be betting a hand like JJ and 99 or a hand like J10 which has given him an open-end straight draw to go along with his pair. Consequently, your best play is usually to raise. This may cause the player behind you to fold a hand like KQ, which is to your advantage. Notice that a K would give him a better two pair and that a 10 would give him a straight. A play that expert players make against mediocre opposition is to bluff on the fourth street from an early position into several opponents, all of whom have checked on the flop. This play works best when the turn card is not an overcard or a third suited card. With little money in the pot, your opponents will not want to call with less than top pair, as they will fear you may have been “sandbagging” on the flop. Meanwhile, it is unlikely that an opponent will have top pair, since he would have bet it. The expert is getting 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 odds on this play, and it works about half the time as long as the game is not too loose. In some games, this play alone can account for a large portion of your ultimate winnings. Another idea to keep in mind is that some of your opponents are more likely to be weak if they bet the flop, as opposed to check-raising. This is because some players tend to save their better hands for check-raising. So, if you called a bet like this with a weak hand (on the flop), but now pick up something like a flush draw, this may be a good opportunity for a semi-bluff raise as long as you are against someone who you believe is capable of throwing a marginal hand away. By the way, if you make this raise on the fourth street, are called, and do not improve on the fifth street, you should usually bet again. Because of the size of the pot, your opponent will only need to occasionally fold for this bluff to be correct.