There's a decent reg that frequents the same casino as me and on average we are on the same table 50% of the time. This guy must have a tit fetish or something because he loves squeezing.

He likes to squeeze from the blinds pf, as well as from the straddle quite a bit. Follows with a 3/4 - pot sized c bet usually.

Also likes to squeeze on the flop in late position to isolate. Example: 1/2 game.

Limped to V who is in cutoff and raises pf to 10 and gets 6 callers.

Flop is 752r.

Checked around to the btn who shoves his remaining 40, big blind and utg calls, and V raises to 110, bb and utg folds. V shows 88, turn and river bricks for btn. Why is he trying to c/r from the cutoff?

Thats not a squeeze. Thats him raising with the best hand and getting his money in vs the short stack before the turn comes where half the deck will scare him or beat him.

Obvious adjustment that comes to mind is to widening your 4 bet/ shoverange against him preflop.

What usually happens is that nobody adjust- everyone just calls his raises preflop so he can C- bet barrell off wich keeps him in his comfortzone.

Start 4 betting him with a reasonable range when you suspect he is out of line 3 betting too wide.

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If he's 3-betting pre a lot, the standard adjustment would be to tighten up your raising and in particular your calling range when he's yet to act, and loosen up your 4-betting range some. If he 3-bets/folds a lot, you can 4-bet bluff him in good spots until he adjusts. If he 3-bets/calls a lot, you can take what would have been the top of your calling range and 4-bet it for value instead.

Also, if you flat his 3b be prepared to float his cbet with both good and bad hands. When he 3b light and cbets, he's hiding information about his hand well and forcing you to gamble.

So, embrace the gamble and ensure you hide information about your hand as well. Don't make it easy for him to figure out roughly what you have while you're in the dark about what he has. (For example by raising his cbet with your good hands and folding or calling your marginal ones.)

The price he's paying for hiding information is that he has a wide, relatively weak range often OOP pre and OTF. (Obviously you should be more inclined to either 4b or flat IP.) Keep your range ahead of his range, though not so far ahead that he can pretty much figure out what you have.

He's either going to take that wide range to the river, or there's going to be a discontinuity on the turn where he dumps his marginal hands. Figure out which it is. Attack in that spot with your marginal hands and vbet there with your good ones. Sometimes he's going to pay you off with a marginal hand and sometimes he's going to fold a winner. He can't fix that without correcting his preflop play.

Buckle up. If he's catching, you're going to look like an idiot. On the plus side, looking like an idiot occasionally is great for your image.

He's doing one of two things depending on his cards.

1) He's raising with what he thinks is the best hand to get more $$ in the pot

2) He's semi-bluffing with what he thinks is a good hand with enough outs to make the semi-bluff profitable.

(This is assuming he's not just a moron.)

In general:

If its (1), then the only option is to have a stronger range then he does, and if you do not, then fold.

If its (2), then prevent him from setting the price. If you're going to continue, raise him again so he has to put more $$$ in with his draw. If you're not going to continue vs. his raise, then fold before putting your call in (or don't bet... i.e. stop b/f).

Also, if you are stuck on his right, try x/r his x/r a few times and see how/if he adjusts. Your reads might be off and he might just be a terrible LAGtard who you can exploit.

This is a good post. The only tweak I would add is be more likely to 4! your value hands when OOP and be more likely to flat when IP. 4! in position lets villain off the hook way too easily. Being able to play against villain with a card, position and skill (presumably) advantage is the trifecta of advantage poker.

+1 to all of the above. I would also throw in some lite 4! with hands too weak to call a 3!, say ATs. Once he knows you're willing to come over the top, he'll be less inclined to squeeze you.

Excellent points, both.

Stay attuned to what he's doing. He should start to adjust; you want to be sure you're adjusting to his adjustments. If you can slightly lead his adjustments and tune your play in lock step, he's going to hate you.

I have a wider 3 bet range than most in my games. Everyone thinks I'm squeeZibg when I'm almost always just raising a big hand for value. Make sure this is actually what he's doing before going off the rails and 4 betting light.

So if you have a wider 3 bet range than most players the proper adjustment to your play should also be to 4 bet or shove on you wider than normal.


That being said i totally agree with you that you got to observe actual hands being shown down in 3 bets pots with this villain, to get a grasp of how wide he is indeed 3 betting. As soon as you get some actual proof from in game of how his 3 betting range is constructed you can start build your 4 bet range.


Ive have been handling a couple of young aggro 3 bet monkeys in my games and noticed how effetice it is. 95 percent of the players just calls with speculative hands trying to smash the flop, and if they dont they check-fold.


One of the keys to handle these guys and also win some decent money off of them is to being able to adjust- because in my experience very very few are able to adjust back to whats happenning. They are often used to being stuck in 1 gear: full aggromode and running over the table.




Example hand from a game last Christmas:

I raise aggromonkeys straddle to 8 BB with AQ. 2 callers in between before its around to aggro 3 bettor in the straddle. Young hoodie internetkid with very high 3 bet percentage.

I was not surprised seing him 3 bet/squeeze out of the straddle to 35 BB as he loves to put pressure on these kind of spots. (And its the right move, because so few fight back at him and most people folds too many hands to him).

When it comes back to me i waste little time to move allin for approximately 100 BB as i know for a fact that aggromonkey can 3 bet hands as weak as 55 or KJ in this spot.

The guy calls me pretty fast and the whole table know me as a pretty tight player so they say like "show your kings Gilmour". I announce AQ and to my surprise i am up against AJ and shipped the pot.

My point was that I 3 bet more often so they always assume I'm just making a move. It's not true. I'm not squeezing just to squeeze. I almost always have a legitimate hand in those spots because my pool just doesn't fold enough. A lot of these guys have read Harrington and seen just enough tv poker to know what a squeeze is so every time they spot one they assume that's what's going on. Not the case in my experience.

No problem Spike,got your view on it now- we were just talking past eachother a little bit.

Why can't he be outright bluffing? He has it or he has it, those are the only options?

Im doing a lot of work on 4 bet/3 bet strategy right now. I will say first that I'm not an authority, and have done less than 5 hours of actual computations outside of watching videos/taking w a grain of salt what 'pros' say about how to react to these scenarios. With this said, even scratching the surface of the math for these spots it's becoming very apparent that in all but the most extreme of scenarios it is possible to give our opponents a very wide range of bluffs, and still without possessing a blocker ourselves, not be able to commonly exploit their loose tendencies in these situations. To give myself some base, I'll point out that our opponents, even when they're seemingly out of line (let's say for example, squeeze vs open % of up to 10%) still have at least a 15% premium hand base (KK+, AKo+) coupled w the initial opener having closer to a 25% premium hand base often leaving us w only a 15% blocker Bluff overlap vs our premium hand base. I know that most of us don't closely consider how often we can Bluff in these spots; however even when our opponents Bluff seemingly very wide in these spots there seems to be a lot to consider in terms of what we can profitably (and very narrowly oftwn) rebluff in these spots.

I know that people are going to jump on PokerStove and say that Qq+, Ako+ represent 2.6% of the actual hand base, but run your calcs again taking out any random A or K from every combo and it actually reduces premiums to only near half, at 1.6%of overall hands when we have a blocker. The point being that I do still feel a polarized/blocker included strategy is best (in my initial finding) to combat this strategy, but I acknowledge that I definitely need to dive much deeper

Fold less

sungar,

Guys don't bluff at the right times. They do it when the lines makes no sense and never do it with a blocker, with a blocker they think they have a sick draw and utilize it incorrectly.

It's kind of late, I didn't read your post in detail, but at first glance it was difficult to tell what your point was. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but adding to it. The above paragraph is what I experience but it must differ geographically.

No chance that a 1/2 player is correctly structuring his squeezing range.

You're being very kind, and I'm kind of drunk, I'm sure the fault is mine. I was just saying there are a mind bending load of variables that go into knowing whether we can/or cannot exploitably rebluff any given player/situation. I'm going to/have been applying more of my sober mind to this concept and 2+2 critique as soon as I can.

I play with 1 guy with the same description. I don't rebluff him a ton. I call with stronger hands and let him bet as much as he wants and he can own himself. Or with a draw I raise small so he'll check the next street, that gets you pot control. If you call his flop bet of $30 and call his turn bet of $75, that's $105. It's better to raise his flop bet to $75 and check back the turn, you save $30 chasing your draw. Again it's late, this might be a tangent to the discussion, but these are ways to play back against a guy like this if you're IP. OOP I don't have a better plan yet than to tighten up and forego the c-bets with air, continue with solid hands, surrender quickly with air.

And for the record, I'm pretty sure that's the first time someone's said this about me. I'm gonna email this page to my parents, they won't believe it without proof.

We're already reading son.

Against a predictable squeezer, you should be willing to slow-play strong hands to induce a squeeze. I've been known to over-limp with AA preflop in the CO after a bunch of limpers because the button and blinds are players who like to raise pretty light after a bunch of limpers. If you know your opponents' tendencies well, it is a smart play that most players don't have the balls to pull off.

Obv adjustment as mentioned put some bluffs in your 4! Range (I do prefer a polarized Range with A or K blocker suited) and move some value hands into your flatting range. But beware of 3! 4! Wars as if this is his usual style he may have had more practice adjusting than you. If he routinely is an active 3 bettor and decent, and I'm just speculating here, he will recognize your adjustment if you over do it. Pick your spots.

^Value flatting ITT