How to Play 4-Bet Pots as a Caller?

4-bet pots are mostly quite big, 40bb+ or even 60bb+ after C-bets, and they can happen very often, so if you are wondering what to do in those situations, then this article is for you.
 
On the micro stakes the ranges that 4-bet us will not be GTO ranges and will be entirely exposed to “face up” value heavy.
 
Moving up the limits, calling 4bet will become more important because our opponents will have a more balanced range that does not contain an exclusive value. We will be in 4bet situations more often.

Characteristics of the 4bet pot:

Low SPR

• The relative strength of our hand becomes less obvious
• We stack off much more often (we have to go All-in with hands that will often lose)
• We are not written to go All-in (often when SPR is on turn 1, the optimal strategy will be a smaller sizing/check)

The ranks are “tilted” toward certain cards.

• Seemingly harmless cards will hit one range or another and bring a significant advantage.

Strategy example of 3 different boards BUT vs. SB 4bet pot as caller
 
A87tt, 976m, 632tt (tt=two-tone, m=monotone)

SB has many more sets on this board, which BUT does not have in the 4-bet range, so the donk betting strategy is familiar.

We don’t have that many donk bets on this board because the board is monotonous. Also, the number of donk bets decreases if SB 3-bets earlier positions because he won’t have middle pairs in his range.

Boards like 632 are mostly “brick” and don’t hit anyone.

• Cards like A and Q are surprisingly good for the caller
• Cards from 9 to 6 give the caller a massive advantage in the number of sets
• Even with a slight Raiser advantage, the caller is very polarized on certain flops

Potential exploits

1. Players will not be aggressive enough on the flop

• More donk betting
• Beware of raises

2. Players will c-bet too much and never donk-bet

• Consider your c-bet strategies; players will not play as a solver
• Donk with weaker hands to avoid c-bet, and check with strong hands to play against c-bet

3. Exploit with turn bets if we expect that our opponent will not be aggressive enough