An interesting weapon to have in your poker arsenal is the squeeze play, an aggressive move that will enhance your imagine at the table, making you being considered an even aggressive player.
What’s a squeeze play?
A squeeze play is a move that you execute when a player have raised and another have called before your turn. E.g. UTG raises to 3bb and CO calls. You, having the BTN, decide then to squeeze, sizing the move just a bit bigger than the size of a regular 3bet, let’s say up to 14bb rather than 10bb.
The reason why you need to increase the size of the re-raise is due to the amount of dead money you are trying to get from the player who just called, who likely will then fold given the aggressive spot that has been generated by your move.
When to squeeze
Squeeze the caller off is a great move because the perception of your strength cannot be anything but increased, given you not only did 3bet but also did it with another player in the pot.
Situation where you know that the original raiser is aggressive and the caller is passive, you should go ahead and squeeze, because there are good odds you are taking away a decent pot uncontested preflop.
If, instead, the original raiser is nitty or the caller a loose passive who doesn’t dislike to play postflop even in 3betted pot, then the opportunity to squeeze or not depends entirely on the strength of your hand
Squeezing ranges
State a squeeze range is very difficult because in a good amount of occasions it will be a 3bet in bluff. Either you have a strong hand – playing the spot by itself then – or you are trying to win a pot uncontested so the suggested range is similar to the one you should use 3betting in bluff which includes combos with blockers (KQ-KJ-AJ) and pure bluffs with some speculative value on some flops (A2s, 89s, T8s)
Playing against a squeeze play
If you are the caller instead, there’s not much you can do against a squeeze. If you called with a speculative hand or with a pocket pair hoping to set mine (click here to check the ultimate set mining strategy) and got squeezed, in most of the cases fold is the right decision.
Incidentally, if the opponent is a very aggressive one, you could decided to 4bet in bluff scaring him off, but such a play requires solid information on your opponent. If you want to take your game at another level, though, you could consider to call the original raise with a monster hand, waiting for a squeeze play from a regular and then calling or 4betting, but, as said, it needs to be supported by good analysis on the players at the table, avoid it turns against yourself making you lose money.
