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Take quizOut of all the countless ways to punish people for playing too loose, squeeze play is probably one of the most underutilized moves. Squeezing in poker is a play that’s often applied by the more aggressive players in games where players love to call raises, and it can be an extremely effective strategy.
However, like most plays in poker, squeeze play only works if you know how and when to apply it, which is why we want to teach you just that.
This guide will teach you what it is, when to apply it, and how to size up your squeezes to get the desired results. We will go over the types of situations that squeeze play works best and the types of hands you want to be doing it with.
But before we do any of that, let’s talk about the very basics and explain what a squeeze play is in the first place.
A squeeze play is a type of preflop raise that you can apply in No Limit Hold’em and other no-limit and pot-limit games.
The play becomes available when a player opens the pot for a raise, and one or more players decide to call that raise before the action gets to you.
This kind of situation does not arise much in the online game these days, as the online 6-max tables tend to be pretty solid, and flat calls are not common. In live games, on the other hand, you will come across a raise and several calls very often, and squeeze play will come in very handy.
Whether you are playing online or live when this situation does come along, you can put in a big re-raise with various hands.
The squeeze play is especially effective if you are out of position, as it allows you to win the pot without going to the flop or go to the flop with a significant range advantage.
Many novice players make the mistake of often overcalling in the small blind with hands like AQ or KTs, but these hands often work much better as squeeze plays.
To show you an example, imagine a hand where you are holding QJs in the small blind in a $1/2 live cash game.
A player in the middle position raises to $8, and both the cutoff and the button call. You could call with your QJs here, but you will be out of position for the rest of the hand. Re-raising to $40, on the other hand, would be a squeeze play.
By making this play against three players, you are representing a monster hand like AK, AA, KK, or QQ, and there is no telling if you actually have it or not.
In most cases, only the original raiser will have a hand that can legitimately continue against your squeeze, while the other two players will have speculative hands that are likely to fold to your big re-raise.
If you end up getting called in one spot, you will often win an even bigger pot on the flop or later by simply firing a c-bet, while you will still have a chance to connect with the board.
Overall speaking, the squeeze play will be an extremely effective strategy to apply in games where players are capable of folding, which should be one of the main factors you take into consideration when deciding whether or not to squeeze.
So what exactly does a squeeze play achieve, and why should you do it in the first place? Well, there are many answers to this question, as there are many ways a squeeze can go.
Here are the potential scenarios that can go down after you apply a squeeze play:
Whenever you make a squeeze play with a bluff, everyone folding is the optimal outcome, but it is not the one you will get every single time.
However, squeezing will give you a significant advantage for postflop play and allow you to win many pots, especially against passive players who play fit-or-fold poker after the flop.
The worst case scenario is when the original raiser decides to come over the top, as this will usually indicate a very strong hand and a willingness to commit the entire stack on their part.
Once in a while, one of the callers will go for a 4-bet, too, in which case you will need to make up your mind on whether they were slow playing a strong hand or are turning their hand into a 4-bet bluff.
Now that we know what a poker squeeze play is and how to apply it, the question becomes how much we should raise when we decide to squeeze.
In most cases, you will want to raise about the pot size while also keeping in mind whether you are in or out of position against the other players. As usual, you will want to make your raise bigger OOP in order to increase your fold equity while making it a bit smaller if you are IP.
Here is a quick example of how you could size up your squeeze on the button and in the small blind in the exact same spot.
You are playing a $2/5 cash game, and an aggressive player in early position raises to $15, the hijack and the cutoff call and the action folds to you on the button, and you decide to squeeze.
A pot size raise in this spot would amount to $82. Since you have the button, you can make it a bit less than a full pot, which means a raise to $75 would work well as a squeeze.
On the other hand, if you were seated in the big blind in this same spot, you may want to go as big as $90 to make sure any marginal hands lean towards folding rather than calling.
The postflop advantage you gain by being in position is quite big, so you will be able to win more pots on later streets when you have a position, making a smaller raise acceptable.
Picking hands with which to squeeze in poker is one of the hardest things to do. Most players don’t squeeze enough, while others squeeze way too much.
The hand range with which you should squeeze depends on whether you are playing in a cash game or a tournament, how deep you are, and your position compared to other players.
As you would expect, you can get away with squeezing more hands in position than out of position, and you can squeeze more the deeper you get.
A frequent squeeze play spot comes up when you are in the small blind, with one player opening the pot and another on the button calling the raise.
In this situation, you always want to squeeze your strongest hands like AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQs. However, hands like AQ, 99, JTs, QTs, and everything in between also become great candidates for a squeeze play.
You will also want to mix in an occasional random bluff in there, with the solvers suggesting K9s as one of the best hands to do it with.
However, you will be able to squeeze a lot more hands in soft and passive games, assuming you are actually sure that players are folding a lot and won't play back at you very often, either.
In position, you can adjust your squeezing range to include hands like J9s, 76s, 87s, A2-A5s, and KQ with great success.
Keep in mind that you will still want to call with some hands on the button in multiway situations, while you will always want to be squeezing or folding when you are out of position.
It is also worth noting that squeezing in tournaments is much different than in cash games, with optimal ranges changing significantly between the two.
Shorter stack tournament play allows you to call and see more flops in the small blind with speculative hands and squeeze with some hands that aren't part of the cash game squeezing strategy.
To fully master the poker squeeze play, you should download squeeze play charts for different positions and learn them by heart, test them in-game, and only then try adjusting them to your opponents’ tendencies.
One of the most annoying situations that can come up in poker is when you fire a squeeze play against a loose and aggressive opponent's raise, and they come back over the top.
Of course, your squeezing range will include plenty of big hands like QQ, KK, AA, and AK, as well as hands like AQs, JJ, and TT that you can comfortably shove all in against some opponents.
However, you will also have a ton of semi-bluffs like QJs or 76s that can’t really be played for value as a shove, so what do you do with them?
Well, the answer to that question depends on the size of the 4-bet. Against small 4-bets, and especially if you have the position, you can call with hands like QJs, JTs, or 99 and see the flop.
Against a very big 4-bet, there is really nothing you can do other than fold these hands and play the next hand, as your opponent is already pretty committed in most cases, and your hand isn't good enough to play for it all, nor do you have the implied odds to make a call.
The exact way to proceed after facing a 4-bet will depend on your hand, your read on the opponent, and the size of their 4-bet, but playing it fairly straightforwardly from there will usually be your best option.
Squeezing in poker is one of the most powerful plays that many players underutilize and don’t apply nearly enough in their play.
If you play in games where players like to flat-call raises, you should do a lot more research on squeeze plays and the exact ways to make them most effective. There is a ton of value to be had from mastering the art of poker squeeze play and learning how to adjust your squeezing ranges to the population tendencies in your games.
Start with the basics we laid out in this guide and keep learning about squeeze play until you have mastered the subject and start crushing your opponents and making their lives difficult more often than you thought possible.
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