Dealing the Pinch

Barbara Connors

One of the most sophisticated weapons in any poker player’s arsenal, the squeeze play is potent and best used sparingly. It’s an advanced type of bluff normally reserved for big bet games such as pot-limit and no-limit. Moreover, it’s mainly useful in tournament play, and even then, the would-be squeezer must pick his spots very carefully.

As with any bluff, the squeeze play can only work against thinking opponents who are capable of laying down a good hand. And the bettor must be careful to wager just the right amount, so that he won’t be giving his opponent good odds to call, while at the same time not committing too many chips on a lousy hand—just in case the bluff doesn’t work.

Aptly enough, the squeeze play works by putting pressure on your opponent from both sides. It usually goes something like this: An aggressive player opens with a raise, and—this is an important point—you suspect that he is raising with a less-than-stellar hand. Then another player cold-calls behind him, and you come over the top with a big re-raise. Assuming your read on the original raiser was correct and his cards are not that strong, this presents him with something of a conundrum. Squashed between your re-raise and the cold-caller who is still yet to act behind him, he should be powerfully persuaded to throw his hand away. As for the caller, presumably he has a good hand—he did cold-call the first raise after all—but not a great hand, since he didn’t re-raise himself. If you read him right, he should also be inclined to toss his cards into the muck.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to work, but it’s a delicate operation, and can only be performed under the right conditions. As mentioned above, it can only be executed successfully when you are playing against opponents who have the ability to fold when they are “supposed” to. In other words, it should be reserved for times when play at the table is reasonably tight, such as during a freeze out tournament when the players are getting close to the money bubble.

For your squeeze play to succeed you must have a good read on both of your opponents. The original raiser should be an aggressive player, capable of raising on light values in a sticky-fingered attempt to buy the pot. This can be an early-position player who has recently been doing quite a lot of raising at your table, or he can be a late-position raiser who appears to be on an obvious steal attempt. The cold-caller should preferably be a tightish player, since he won’t be faced with any kind of a squeeze after the original raiser folds, but he still needs to be sufficiently intimidated by your big re-raise that his cards will also end up in the muck.

The ideal squeeze play should be performed from late position, which would put the original raiser in early-mid position and the caller in middle position. But players often perform the squeeze play from the big blind too, particularly when the original raiser appears to be making a purely positional raise from the button or cutoff. Obviously the one big disadvantage of doing it this way is that you will be horribly out of position if you are called. You could potentially nullify that disadvantage by going all-in with your bluff—very risky though—or by only raising with pure trash that you plan to fold if anybody should play back at you.

The squeeze play is high risk-high reward, but when you’re dealing the pinch, a little goes a long way, so use it sparingly.

Barbara Connors is a sucker for classic old movies, science fiction, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Her life’s ambition is to figure out the unusual behavior patterns of that unique breed of humans who call themselves poker players. Contact her at fyreflye222@yahoo.com.

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