Squeeze play
Introduction
This article explains
- What a squeeze play is
- What to consider before making this play
- EV of the squeeze play
This article will explain the factors that determine the success or failure of a squeeze play, as well as how to react to a call or a 4-bet.
Factors
Pre-flop table image
One of the most important factors determining the success of a squeeze play is your table image. If you are tight and solid, or usually very passive, this image will give your raise more respect.
A low PFR, for example less than 14%, is very useful to give you such an image. If there are regulars at the table, this value should reflect a large sample size, since your opponents are likely to have statistics on you from other tables or previous sessions. On top of that, if you have already 3-bet in the last few hands, it is important to have shown a big hand like QQ or even AK.
On the other hand, an aggressive image, e.g. 20% or more PFR, or having raised a lot previously without showing down a strong hand, will significantly diminish the success rate of a squeeze play, since your opponents are less likely to fold.
Post flop table image
While this factor isn't as important as the last, it should still be considered. If you are considered as a good and aggressive player post-flop, then your opponents are likely to prefer to avoid confrontation in a big pot with a marginal hand.
Important questions here are:
- Do you make enough continuation bets after a pre-flop re-raise?
- Do you fire enough second barrels?
- Do you let go of strong hands without losing your entire stack often enough?
- Do you check/raise enough?
All the answers should be yes. Your opponents will easily remember good laydowns or good bluffs, and so will prefer not to play you, making a squeeze easier.
Position
As always, it is a huge advantage to have position on your opponents, especially if the effective stacks are deep. A squeeze play out of position is harder, since our flop continuation bet will often be called and we'll be faced with a tough situation on the turn, out of position in a very big pot. This can lead to costly mistakes that can only be avoided with good reads and solid experience.
Stack sizes
An important aspect to consider is the stack sizes of involved players. The deeper the stacks and thus the bigger our implied odds, the bigger our range can be.
Position, as stated previously, is closely linked. If for example we have a relatively strong hand like TT-QQ or AQ and a rather deep stack, e.g 150-200BB, then a squeeze is much less efficient, especially out of position. This is because it is very difficult to control the pot with our moderately strong hand post-flop.
However, if we have a hand with high implied odds, such as small pocket pairs and suited connectors, and we are on the button, then we can squeeze much more often since we'll have a much more defined hand after the flop, meaning it will be easier to play and control the pot size.
Tilt
It is important to be careful in regards to tilt. On one hand, our move shouldn't be interpreted as a result of tilting, and on the other hand, we should avoid squeezing a tilting player. Thus you shouldn't squeeze if, for example, you have just lost a big pot, since your image could easily be considered loose. Similarily, be sure that none of the involved players are on tilt. This often isn't easy to see, but, for instance, if a solid player starts playing more aggressively and tries to enter many big pots, or has just taken a big bad beat, then you should be careful.
Additionally, by re-raising constantly, we could frustrate a player, and it isn't rare to see someone who almost never goes all-in push with AK or QQ after the third or fourth raise. In this situation, you might see weak hands like Ax as well. Because of this, our monsters have significantly higher implied odds. This effect is also applicable to the table in general. Indeed, if we have already made several squeeze plays previously, then our EV with a hand like Aces will be much higher.
Involved players
Open raiser
Good enough reads are an absolute necessity for a squeeze play. If you don't have any history with the player, then you need a truly ideal situation to justify a squeeze play. The more you know a player, the more profitable is the play, especially if your opponent calls.
You should pay attention to the following values:
- PFR : The higher the PFR, the more marginal the hand of the open-raiser. On the contrary, if our opponent is a rock, then he'll often have a hand that he won't, and shouldn't, let go of.
- VPIP, Call-PFR : The tighter the player preflop, the more profitable it is for us. A high VPIP indicates a tendancy of liking to see flops, and a high call-PFR indicates defiance, or high confidence in one's own post-flop skills. Both are bad for a squeeze play.
Exception: If you have a relatively strong hand, then you should choose a 3-bet over a call. Some players have a high Call PFR even though they raise aggressively pre-flop. If such a player should call on the button, then it is usually profitable to squeeze with TT/JJ and AQs. If your opponent calls, you still have a good playable hand.
- Individual reads
1. Does your opponent re-raise or even push with his monsters (AA, KK and AK) against a 3-bet? IP? OOP? Or will he often try to trap us with such a hand
2. How does he usually react to continuation bets on the flop? Does he call the flop with middle pairs? Does he sometimes call a raise with nothing? Or does he fold most of the time against a flop bet?
The middle players (if any)
An early position raiser will often find several callers. For instance if UTG raises and is called by MP, CO and BU, with us in the SB, then MP and CO are the so-called middle players. If faced with a squeeze, the middle players are in the same situation as the original raiser: even if they don't put the 3-better on a strong hand, they still have players to act behind them and hence do not know whether a call or even a raise is profitable. Since these players are in a strategically bad position (they are in a squeeze situation and haven't signaled strength), they are the least threatening elements.
You should still pay attention to the following values:
- PFR : The higher the pre-flop raise percentage, the more profitable the squeeze. Rocks could decide to not 3-bet a hand like AK or even QQ.
- VPIP or Call-PFR: see last section : "Open raiser"
- Individual reads: The most interesting read to us here is how they play big pocket pairs. Some players, especially in early position, tend not to 3-bet with their monster hands, but simply to call. It isn't very common, but can radically change the situation whenever they happen to make that play. This is why it is very important to take a note when you spot such a play. You should also note whether the player then calls again against a 3-bet, or whether he 4-bets.
The last caller
This player has a significant position and is thus one of the decisive players, along with the open-raiser. On one hand, it is very rare for him to have a weak hand if he is in late position, especially if he over-called previous players' calls: his option to raise in such a situation is usually better than a call. Moreover, he knows that he is last to act and doesn't have to 'fear' any other hand. He also plays the roll of table 'sheriff', since he'll be the last to be able to detect potential bluffs.
If all players fold and this opponent calls our re-raise, then the following three points should be noted:
1. He almost never has a strong hand like AK or QQ+ (you should however not completely ignore the PFR here)
2. He rarely has a weak hand like 22-66 or small suited connectors. Indeed, the implied odds after a re-raise would be too low to call again. It is however important to take effective stacks into account here
3. He is usually ready to fight for the pot. This assumption is even more true when he called a large re-raise. He will then often have a hand like KQs, AJ/AQ or middle pairs 88-JJ.
Note: Your history with the player is very important. If you have already fought over pots, and played aggressively in the past, then he'll tend to call us more. Moreover, it won't be rare for him to ignore conventional and optimal lines in order to stack you.
Raise sizing
Many of the previously stated factors should be taken into account when deciding on a raise size. As a general rule, a good bet size is around 3 to 4 times the original raise. Out of position, your raises should be slightly bigger than in position, in order to lower your opponents' implied odds, giving them an easier fold preflop.
If, however, you plan to show more strength, and take down the pot with a continuation bet in case you are called, then your re-raise doesn't have to be huge, since a re-raise is already a sign of strength. This kind of move works especially well against opponents who call a lot only to fold the flop against a continuation bet, or when the effective stacks are so deep that even a big re-raise would be called.
4-bet frequency
The higher the limits you play, the more hands will be decided pre-flop. While 3-bets are rather rare at the micro-limits, 4-bets are very common at high limits. If your table image is aggressive, then you will encounter 4-bets more often. Since 4-bets are a squeeze's worst enemy, you should simply avoid this move at such tables.
A few hand categories
Big hands: AK/AA/KK: These hands should, of course, alawys be 'squeezed' - even though squeeze isn't really the appropriate term, as these hands are much too strong to be a bluff.
Middle pairs 88-QQ: Danger! To be honest, I don't love raising an early position raiser and OOP caller, even with QQ and JJ! Although I usually end up squeezing with these hands, I like to play TT-88, in similar situations (except in blind battles), for set value only.
The reason for this is their bad playability. We have a medium hand and there will often be overcards on the board, and we can't be certain that we aren't against a higher pocket pair. If our continuation bet is called or raised by a solid player, our hand has comparable strength to 22. Moreover, in a simply raised pot, we have good playability as well as deception.
Small pairs 22-77 : These are the easiest hands to play. After our continuation bet, we have a clearly defined hand - either monster or trash - and can easily play according to this.
Solid hands: AQ, AJs/ATs, KQs : When I squeeze with these hands, it is usually against a loose CO or BU open-raiser and a loose caller with a high PFR, since I can trust my hand is strong in these cases. Here, the open-raiser can have a very wide range and the loose caller will in most cases have re-raised with a stronger hand than ours. This is valuable information, as it defines our opponents' ranges quite accurately. I wouldn't squeeze with offsuited hands lower than AQ however, since we'll often be dominated and only rarely hit a draw with which we can push on the flop with a 3-bet.
Suited connectors / suited one-gappers: To play these hands, we need very good conditions, such as an aggressive TAG open-raiser as well as position. Stack sizes play a more important role here. Squeezing with a suited connector OOP is, in my opinion, usually a mistake. You often hear people say that one flops either monsters or trash with these hands, but this isn't quite true, since you'll often hit a small pair and/or a draw, which is hard to play out of position.
Trash hands, Ax: About trash hands: rather than raising a weak hand like 96o, you can simply wait for Ax-type hands, and not squeeze with trash. Here's why:
Ax-type hands have two very good characteristics:
1. The odds of someone having a good enough hand to call us are rather small.
2. We have acceptable equity against all hands other than AA, and the probability of someone having AA at a shorthanded table when we already have an ace is smaller than 1.5%.
This is why these hands are the most suitable for our move, after small pocket pairs. Especially A2s-A5s, which are much more playable post-flop, making decisions significantly easier. With an acceptable equity against almost all hands (A3s vs AKo 31.5:68.5; A3s vs TT: 33.3:66.6), they are good candidates for a squeeze play.
Good situations for a squeeze play
BB vs BU+SB
This is the best situation for a squeeze. At the higher limits, aggressive blind stealing is particularly common. Even at the lower limits, you should keep an eye on your opponents' attention to steal, since it isn't rare to see values around 35-40%.
If such an aggressive player open-raises on the button and is called by the SB, then you have an ideal situation for a squeeze play. BU often has a very weak hand here with which he can't call a re-raise, regardless of position. SB hasn't raised despite BU's very wide range, which is clearly a sign of weakness and will probably hold a pair 22-99 or a weak hand such as AT/AJ, KQ or QJ, and so on. On top of that, he'll be out of position in a re-raised pot should he call, which increases your fold equity.
SB/BB vs CO+BU
This situation is significantly more complicated, since you'll have to play out of position. The basis is the same as previously: CO steals are very loose, almost as much as those made on the button. However, in this case, BU has shown great weakness by calling - even more so than SB in the previous example.
Important: These theories suppose that your opponents are aggressive and know what they're doing. If a 15/5 player calls a CO steal, then it won't necessarily be a sign of weakness.
If a player has TT on the button, he should normally re-raise almost systematically after a CO open-raise. If the button just calls, he'll often hold a hand with good multiway playabality without having particularly high equity, e.g a small pocket pair or suited connector, or even JTo or T9o. Thus he'll often fold against a reraise; however, you should be careful not to make this move too often without a good hand.
Limp/Squeeze UTG
Tricky play. You should obviously not use this too often, but if you also limp/raise with monsters, this is an ideal spot to get tricky and represent a big pair. You'll usually take down the pot directly, at the latest with a continuation bet.
Squeeze EV
We'll now calulate the EV of a squeeze from concrete examples. The better our observation and reads on all players involved, the more precise the results.
Situation
We have just joined the table with the same stack size as SB and BU, 100BB, and are playing our first round. BU has an ATS of 35% and a call preflop-raise of 4% over ~1000 hands. SB has folded his blind 7 of 11 times against a steal. His call-PFR is 7% over 180 hands.
Our hand: A8o
Everyone folds to the BU who raises to 3.5BB. SB calls relatively quickly. We see a good spot for a squeeze play and raise to 14BB. This is a good raise size, as we do not invest much, without however giving good enough implied odds to hands like small pairs. What does our fold equity have to be for this move to be profitable (counting the pre-flop action only) ?
This is the size of the pot before we act:
3.5 + 3.5 + 1 = 8BB (rake not considered)
Calling is not an option, as it has negative EV. The EV of a fold is 0, hence our move must have >0 EV to be profitable in regards to the other options.
EVsqueeze = Pc⋅(-13bb) + Pf ⋅ 8bb = Pc⋅ (-13bb) + (1-Pc)⋅ 8bb = 8bb-21bb⋅ Pc => 21bb ⋅ Pc < 8 => Pc < 0.38
Where:
Pc = Probability of a call from an opponent
Pf = Probability of a fold from an opponent
This means that our opponent must call less than 38% of the time in order for our move to be profitable. In this case, since BU steals loose and has a low call-PFR, he will fold most of his hands.
Let's demonstrate that based on a good open-raising range:
Assuming that a player with 35% ATS will raise 1 in 4 hands on the CO, this makes for a BU ATS of 45%. This means his button range is approximately: 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J8s+, 53s+, 43s+, A2o+, K8o+, Q9o+, T8o+, 54o+
We only have a small sample for SB, but we can already guess that he will call a very wide range. Let's not assume 35%, since our sample is very small, and attribute a range of about 20% of hands, which means he will play the following hands: 22+, A2s+, KTs+, QTs+, 65s+, ATo+, KJo+, QJo, JTo.
According to the above calculation, the probability of one of these two opponents calling should be under 38%. This means they both have to fold 62% of the time; each of them has to fold approximately 80% of his hands. Thus BU's call or reraise range would be, at most, 77+, ATs+, KJs+, AJo+, KQo – which is already very loose.
SB's range would be somewhat tighter and be something like TT+, AJs+, AKo.
Thinking that such a loose player would fold that many hands against a reraise would be too optimistic. However, the fact that he didn't reraise BU's open-raise suggests that he doesn't have a big hand; we can assume he'll reraise 60% of the range we attributed him earlier. Hence the chance of being against a big hand is significantly smaller, which compensates for a more realistic, wider range which could look like: 77+, AJs+, KQs, AQo+.
These ranges look quite realistic. And if they are exact, then we'll have a positive EV squeeze situation, regardless of our hand. By the way, we didn't take into consideration the fact that we are holding an Ace, which means we'll be against strong hands less often.
Our EV is actually higher than this since our hand has some post-flop value. We have an equity of 30% against SB and BU's ranges. And even though we would be in an uncomfortable spot HU against the BU or in a 3-way pot, we have good playability HU against the SB.
On top of that, a lot of players fold too many hands against continuation bets, especially in re-raised pots. If for example BU folds against a 2/3 pot c-bet 50% of the time, we have even more positive EV. In this example, EV(CBet) = 0.5*31.5BB - 0.5*21BB = 5.25BB
This is still positive with a less optimistic, >40% fold equity, even without considering the strength of our hand.
Including our hand in the calculations would be very complex and not necessarily useful for most readers. Such a calculation should include preflop fold equity, continuation bet fold equity, re-raise probability, as well as an estimation of our hand's EV for a flop or turn raise depending on opponents and reads.
Considering all this, we can see that we only need 40%(!) fold equity pre-flop to make our move +EV, supposing our opponent will fold in HU situations 1/3 of the time against our c-bet. Here are the associated assumptions:
- We have a small pocket pair
- Our opponents trap us with AA/KK preflop to push against our c-bet on the flop.
- We always bet 2/3 pot HU
- We only play on in 3-way pots if we hit our set, which gives us implied odds equal to the pot size.
- If we are called or re-raised on the flop and haven't hit our set, we always give up our hand. If we have a set, we suppose 60%-pot implied odds on the turn
- If we are called preflop, we will be in HU 2/3 of the time, 3-way in the remaining 1/3 of the time.
The result is impressive, but the assumptions made above aren't optimal. We don't consider the preflop 4-bet, which occurs relatively often in reality. This is what we'll discuss next.
A little math
For those who are interested in knowing the formula including preflop call and c-bet probabilities, here it is:
EV(Squeeze) = p(F)*8 + p(C)*p(f|C)*18.5 + p(CC)*1/8*71 + p(C)*p(c|C)*1/8*83.6 - p(C)p(c|C)*7/8*34 – p(CC)*13
Reads
We supposed that we would never be facing a pre-flop 4-bet. Even though this is generally not the case, it will be true for some players. If you have spotted such a player, then this is a very important read. Your squeezes will gain a lot of EV since you won't have to fear a 4-bet, which means you can make this move with a very wide range, especially if you're deep, rather than just calling for set value. This will of course increase the variance in you game (as with almost every aggressive move), but will also increase your EV quite a lot.
Another important read, as stated previously, is your opponent's tendency to fold to c-bets. You'll find a few fish who fold way too much. Against some players, you can squeeze almost any hand on the BU to win the pot directly on the flop. We'll call these players loose/tight. They'll call a lot, and often, to see the flop, but will then only continue with a good hand. When such a player is at your table, be careful to watch the others too, since a good thinking player will sometimes re-raise you as a bluff to exploit your play.
Against some players with a high Call PFR, you should be careful about making a squeeze play (whether it's a bluff or semi-bluff), unless of course they are loose/tight. You should however re-raise more medium hands like AQs or 99+. This will sometimes lead to rather complicated post-flop situations in which you won't know exactly where you stand, but if you are in position with a hand that can easily be ahead, then the move will be profitable in the long run.
It is also important to know how your opponents play AK; whether they 4-bet with it and if so, from what position. It is also important to know whether they 4-bet to a specific size with AK, which is a very big tell. If so, you can play many pocket pairs very profitably by simply calling the 4-bet.
As stated previously: watch out for 4-bets at the table! If your opponent 4-bets aggressively on the BU, then don't bluff as much, and instead, raise more strong or middle hands for value.
Conclusion
Although the squeeze is a very profitable move to have in your arsenal, it requires you to be more attentive and concentrated to constantly observe your opponents. Your own image as well as your opponents' playing style, your position and stack sizes are all factors that should be considered to make a squeeze play profitable.
This might be obvious, but the most important condition for a squeeze play to work is that your opponents must be capable of folding. Their ranges, especially the open raiser's should be wide enough for them to throw away their hand often enough without any problem.
If you are going to squeeze, then you should remember that if called, you'll be playing for a rather big pot, and you have to be capable of playing in such situations. A squeeze is not a simple pre-flop bluff destined to make one's opponents fold directly.
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