The squeeze play is one of the most effective moves in tournament poker. It can be an effective way to build your chip stack and see you progress to an in the money finish in pokerace99 tournaments. However because the poker squeeze play sees you attempting to win a pot whilst holding poor cards you have to know when the time is right to attempt such a move.

Essentially the squeeze play is a type of bluff. You are seeking to represent to your opponents that you have a monster hand and also trying to force them off their hand as a result after they have already committed their chips to the pot.

When seeking to steal the blind you are trying to take down a pot without a fight from your opponents. You want them to fold instantly to your bet before the flop. The best time to try this is when you have late position and are last, or one of the last, to act. If when it is your turn and there are no raisers in front of you it could be a good time to attempt a blind steal by throwing out a good sized raise.

It goes something like this. You are in late table position. A player in front of you has opened with a raise and one other player has called that raise. Now it is your turn to act but you have a poor hand. You have a gutshot straight draw, say you have a 6 and 7 and no one has raised you before.

You may not be sure that you will make your hand but this is your only chance. You have to attempt to take down the pot before the flop. There are a few ways you can accomplish this. One is to see the flop for as cheap as you can. See the flop for as long as you can and hope you hit your card, or attempt to blind steal the pot.

The other way is to make a continuation bet after the flop. Perhaps you got a piece of the flop but your opponents got a piece of the flop too. You want to get more chips in the pot so that you have a better chance of winning.

See the flop and try to get as much chips in as you can. If you are in early position and everyone checks around to you, you can see the flop for free. If there are a few players left in the hand and no big raises, see the flop for a small blind and a big blind.

With your small open-ended straight draw you have 2 cards to a straight and you have seen the flop, you have 9 outs. You have about a 12% chance of hitting your straight on the turn. This is because the odds are about 2 to 1 you will hit your straight and only about 1.5 to 1 you will not.

Because you have about a 12% chance you have to pass on the turn and wait for a time when you have about a 10% chance of hitting your hand. One good way to think of this is to think of it as an art. You have to decide exactly how you are going to bet, what your opponent thinks you have, and what your opponent thinks you think he has.

Bets and Bluffing

You must be really careful when you play in a poker tournament. You are not in it to win it, but to survive and get back to the poker tournament. As you miss stack and run low on chips, you need to make sure that you don’t bet too weak and get outdrawn. He could have a better hand, and just calling you will not hurt you. Hopefully he will have a piece of the flop, but if he does not, you have to make a decision. Either you will win the pot, or he will hit a better hand.

A good bluff, for example, will work in these situations. If you have a good medium pocket pair, there is not a whole lot of money to be made at the pot before the flop. You can get some more value later when you have the real hand. In these cases, you should slow play and let your opponents make mistakes.

The flop is the perfect time to check-raise. You have to get a feel for your opponents’ situations. Are they tight? Are they loose? It is important to let your opponents do the betting. Let them make those gut calls. Watch the flop and do some continuation bets. Sometimes you will win the pot, and sometimes you will lose the pot, but over the long haul you will make a lot more money by seeing more cards and getting paid off with your monster hand.

Think about the river. Is the river worth a call? Are any of your opponents likely to have a better hand than you?