There are spots in no limit cash games even in full ring where you can profitably make money. The squeeze play has become popular of late and is based on the following dynamic. One player raises, another calls and a player in one of the blinds re-raises. The concept is a simple one in so much that the re-raise is geared towards two ranges that are wide. However for the squeeze play to be effective then it needs to be defined much better than this! At the end of the day then a squeeze is looking for fold equity most of the time.
Let us begin by looking at some examples as to when squeezing can be profitable and when it isn’t on cash games at say www.888poker.com. In this first example a player limps in the UTG seat and another player calls in the UTG+1 position. It then gets folded to a reg on the button who raises. We have the 10c-9c in the big blind. I may call here but the presence of the two early limpers would deter me from squeezing. There is a much greater chance that in a full ring game that they are limping with strong hands and do not want to identify their strong holding whilst being in early position.
Likewise if a minimum stack reg had limped followed by another player and the reg raised. I do not want to isolate myself against a big hand from the minimum stack player and so I would only three bet for value here. Another example where I wouldn’t squeeze is where it has been open raised by a fish and a strong reg calls in position. If the fish has say 70bb and is normally tight before the flop then I would ascertain that they had eventually found a hand that they liked.
I would be forced into too many situations where the fish either four bet with a powerful holding because their open raising range is narrow or calling with me being out of position. The reg may call as well getting better implied and expressed odds. This is a situation that I do not want. The regs calling range is wide but the fishes raising range isn’t. If I do not want to play a hand out of position then I will not squeeze. However, playing a hand out of position isn’t necessarily bad if the player that you are out of position to is a fish and will simply four bet the top end of their range and play fit or fold with the rest.
If we change the dynamic of the previous hand and make the opening raiser a reg and the caller a fish then the situation is dramatically different. Here both ranges are wide and the fish hasn’t committed to the pot anywhere near as much simply calling a raise as they did open raising. Before I squeeze then I want to have a good idea that I am facing wide ranges. This is because in order to capitalise on fold equity then I need my opponent to fold a large percentage of the hands that they originally raised with.
This will happen more with a sequence of raise (reg)- call (fish) than raise (fish)- call (reg). As I said then various other dynamics like position alter the ability to squeeze profitably as well. However let us say that a min stack player on 888poker with 17bb makes it 3.5bb to go and gets three callers. If you put their range at say 5% and you have the 10d-9d then there are 11bb in dead money in the pot if you squeeze and get called. There are 43bb in the pot and your investment is 17bb.
However your equity share against a 5% range is roughly 32% which roughly translated means one third of the pot. So you are –EV here and you need a bigger hand to squeeze with. This is why I said earlier that you can value bet sometimes as a squeeze. Change your hand to A-K and suddenly with 46% equity then you are +EV and in business. This highlights that squeezing lightly against a minimum stack reg who has raised from early position isn’t profitable.
For squeezing to be profitable then you need dead money. The best way to get dead money is to find wide ranges. When a range is wide then the holder of that range will fold a large percentage of it to a three bet. If they will fold 75% of their original raising range then you can make money squeezing if you time it right. However even if you get called by a fish then this scenario is better than being called by a fish and a reg. So if the raise has come from late position then knowing who has raised and what type of player they are is helpful.
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