Squeeze Play 101

[serendipity]

Greetings fellow students and teachers of poker! I have been reading over some hand alalyses today, and have come across the term "squeeze" yet again. I have a fairly good idea of what this means, but I still have some lingering doubts. So as not to derail the analysis of the original hand with my beginner's questions, I ask them in this thread.

The original hand is from a Ring Game and can be seen here:

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-game-hand-analysis-50/200-nl-he-full-ring-jj-158077/

I'd like to know:

• What specifically is meant by the term "squeeze" and what exactly does the stat % vs. "squeezes" tell me?
• What exactly is a "squeezer" trying to accomplish with this type of betting? When is it a good play, and what mistakes do players commonly make when attempting (and defending against) this sort of play?
• How does "squeezing" differ between Ring and Tournament play?

Thanks for the help!

 

[ChuckTs]

Player 1 Raises
Player 2 calls
Player 3 reraises

What player 3 is doing is the squeeze play.

Basically when someone opens, any number of players call in between, and we reraise, it's called a squeeze.

This can be compared to 3betting, which would be just reraising one opener (and no callers in between).

Basically the best spots to do this are when you think the initial raiser is opening a wide range of hands, the callers are flatting weaker ranges of hands (things like 76s, 55, JTo, etc), and they can all fold well to 3bets.

The big difference between squeezing and 3betting is the dead money. It gives us a better price on our bluff, so our bluff needs to work less often to be profitable.

 

[benevg]

... It gives us a better price on our bluff, so our bluff works more often.

surely you meant "our bluff needs to work less often to be profitable"? if it were working more often because of the dead money, that would be quite weird...

 

[ChuckTs]

Exactly. Worded that wrong. (edited).

 

[c9h13no3]

http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplaye...clements-21-6/articles/17404-the-squeeze-play

 

[Falian]

Yea, a squeeze play is not card dependent at all, it is player dependent.

You are usually targeting a very loose player open-raising a pot and then a call behind.

Due to the nature of position, squeeze plays often work the best when the open-raiser + caller are in late position.

So, In theory, I would assume most of your squeeze plays would come from SB/BB.

E.G:

Hijack Raises
Button Flats
BB RRAI.

 

[LizzyJ]

You have to really, really know your players if this is going to work. Also, you have to sure that you have players that are willing to drop big hands. Dan Harrington did this at the wsop. 2-6 offsuit and he raises!

 

[coolnout]

You have to really, really know your players if this is going to work. Also, you have to sure that you have players that are willing to drop big hands. Dan Harrington did this at the WSOP. 2-6 offsuit and he raises!

This is the Harrington hand he describes in his book: YouTube - Harrington's Squeeze Play at WSOP 2004