Lesson overview
Squeeze Plays
When 3-betting an open + a caller is the highest-EV play in poker
Read this introduction, then sign in to continue the full lesson and exercises.
Inside the full lesson
CO opens. BTN flats. You're in the BB. Why does your 3-bet print more here than against a single open?
In the full lesson, you work through this scenario with interactive examples.
A squeeze is a 3-bet against an open AND one or more cold-callers. There's more dead money in the pot, the cold-caller's range is capped (they'd have 3-bet their premiums), the opener's wide range folds too often, and you have positional clarity. The math is one of the cleanest exploitable patterns in NLHE — and most players miss it because the multi-opponent count makes them defensive instead of aggressive.
What you’ll learn
- The three conditions that make a squeeze +EV (dead money + range advantage + position)
- Sizing rules — why squeeze sizes are bigger than standard 3-bets
- Which hands work as squeeze bluffs (and which collapse multiway)
From the full lesson
The three conditions
Referenced activities and other examples are available in the full lesson after sign-in.
A squeeze is +EV when ALL THREE are true.
1. Dead money in the pot. The opener's 2.5bb plus the caller's 2.5bb is 5bb of dead money you can claim with fold equity. The bigger the dead money, the looser you can squeeze.
From the full lesson
Sizing — bigger than a standard 3-bet
Referenced activities and other examples are available in the full lesson after sign-in.
Standard 3-bet vs. an open: 3x. Squeeze: 4-4.5x the open size, plus 1x per cold-caller.
Picking within the 4–4.5x band: lean to 4x in position or vs a single weak-flatting caller; lean to 4.5x out of position — worse postflop realization means you want more fold equity now — or vs sticky/multiple callers. The worked example in the full lesson uses the 4x lower bound for clean numbers; from the BB (out of position) you'd often round toward the top of the band.
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