The No-Limit Toolbox — The Re-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 Re-Squeeze

How It Works: You open-raise, and a few people call. Then an aggressive player in the big blind who is sometimes known to try a squeeze play makes a sizable reraise. You reraise again.

The Play In Action: You open for $50 in a loose $5-$10 game with A K .(In this game, your raise size is not unusually large.) You have $2,000, but most of your opponents have in the $800 to $1,000 range. Three players call, and then the big blind, an aggressive player with an $800 stack who likes to try squeezes, makes it $250 to go. You move all-in.

Why It’s Good: The intervening callers have sweetened the pot and are almost certain all to fold. The way you’ve played your hand, you’re representing exactly pocket aces (or perhaps kings), and any decent player will realize that. Therefore, even if your opponent has a hand as strong as QQ or AK, you could get them to fold it. Naturally they’ll likely also fold if they were, indeed, squeezing. Overall, it’s a powerful semibluff with a high rate of success.

When It Works: If you’re against an opponent who sometimes likes to try squeezes, then any time he makes a raise in a squeeze situation, there’s a fairly good chance he doesn’t have a “real” hand. That’s because most players typically wouldn’t reraise with a good, but not monster, hand such as 99 or AQs. They’d just call. So a reraise means either a somewhat rare “big” hand like pocket aces or kings, or it means that the reraiser is squeezing. Theoretically, you don’t need any hand strength to try a re-squeeze, because it relies so heavily on fold equity to be profitable. So if you had opened for 54s in the above example rather than AKs, perhaps you could try a re-squeeze anyway. However, hand strength can give you a little extra value to cushion those times things go wrong, as they inevitably sometimes do. For instance, sometimes the reraiser will fold, but one of the callers will decide they simply have to call your all-in with their A 9 . Obviously in that case it’s more desirable to have AK than 54. Also, some smart squeezers will sniff out your re-squeeze and may decide to call even without pocket aces or kings. But your read and the stack sizes are more important than your hand. If it’s likely you’re being squeezed, and the stacks are right for a bluff, then you can try a re-squeeze with any two cards.

When It Doesn’t Work: The Re-Squeeze obviously only works against opponents who themselves use the Squeeze Play. If your opponent doesn’t squeeze, then his big reraise after your raise and several calls is likely to be a monster, and re-squeezing will probably just get you stacked. Also, if you try it too often, your opponents will soon pick up on it and you’ll find yourself getting called lighter by some players (though others may never feel comfortable playing a big preflop pot without pocket aces or kings). The re-squeeze is also stack size sensitive. The perfect stacks are such than an all-in bet is enough to push the squeezer off their hand, but not too much more than that. Obviously, if you don’t have enough to force a fold even if you “catch” your opponent, re-squeezing is useless (though you might push all-in for value with a hand like AK). And if your stacks are much bigger, then your re-squeeze won’t be an all-in raise, and you’ll risk getting pushed off your hand if you do happen to run into pocket aces. For instance, say our opponent had a $2,000 stack instead of $800, and you had JT instead of AK. After their $250 raise, you make it $800 to go. (You could probably lower your risk by making it $600 or so instead, but let’s keep the amount the same for simplicity.) Then they push. If you were all-in, you’d have a roughly 20% chance to draw out against their likely AA. But now you simply have to fold, forfeiting your bet completely.

Variations: You can also try re-squeezing if you’re one of the callers and you feel like you’re being squeezed. For instance, say an aggressive player opens, two people call, and you call with 44. The big blind, a squeezer, makes a sizable reraise. Everyone folds to you. You could try a re-squeeze by reraising. The upsides are the same, but you have an additional downside that your reraise is less credible. The re-squeeze represents specifically pocket aces (or perhaps kings). So its success depends strongly on how likely your opponent is to believe that’s what you have. If you were the initial raiser and simply raised and then reraised, it’s a credible threat. But if you called after several callers and then woke up with a huge reraise, your opponent might find your play unbelievable and put you on a re-squeeze. Some players won’t have the guts to call you even if they do think your play is fishy, but some will, so if you want to try this variant, think extra hard about how your opponent might react.

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