The No-Limit Toolbox — The Preflop Squeeze

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The No-Limit Toolbox is a new series that showcases the array of tactics available to no-limit players.

The Play: The Preflop Squeeze

How It Works: Someone raises, and a few people call. You put in a big bluff reraise, everyone folds, and you pick up the pot.

The Play In Action: You’re in the big blind of a $1-$2 game with $200. Everyone has you covered. An aggressive player opens for $10, and three players call. You have 7 5 and make it $40 to go. Everyone folds.

Why It’s Good: The intervening callers make the play profitable, because by calling they indicate that they likely don’t have hands strong enough to reraise (and therefore may not call your reraise either). Their calls become the “dead money” that your bluff targets.

When It Works: The Preflop Squeeze works best when the initial raiser could have a wide range of hands (i.e., is aggressive). The tighter the raiser, the more likely you are to get called or reraised. Tight callers are often ok, though, because even though they’ll tend to have better hands in the first place, they’ll also be less likely to call a big reraise with a weak hand.

When It Doesn’t Work: The Preflop Squeeze is generally a poor play in wild games where people will call big preflop raises with a wide range. It’s also bad when the stack sizes are wrong. If the stacks are too short (e.g., around the size of your preflop raise), you may get called more often due to the “what the heck, let’s run ‘em” effect. If the stacks are too deep, then your raise might not be big enough to deter callers.

Variations: You can also try a bluff raise against a few limpers. The dynamics of the play change somewhat because the stacks are generally deeper (compared to the raise size) and the hand ranges are somewhat less well-defined.

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