The Calling Station Strategy
Image It's one of the ultimate “love ‘em or hate ‘em” players you can run into at the poker table: either you treat them like an automated teller machine, or they win hand after frustrating hand against you.

Regardless of how you run against them in any given session, however, calling stations should be among your most desirable opponents.  Why? Because they are weak and predictable, making them easy to game plan against.

A calling station is a player who will allow you to control the betting in the hand and will call your bets if he hits any piece of the board or has any sort of draw. He will rarely raise and will rarely fold unless he has absolutely nothing.

The difficult part about playing against a calling station is that he will just not give up on a hand. Bottom pair? That’s worth calling. Inside straight draw? Hey, a straight is a strong hand! As such, you are bound to suffer some suckouts and lose some big pots against a calling station. Your top pair, top kicker may be good against a reasonable player, but you will have a hard time seeing the calling station’s two pair coming when he is holding 9-7 offsuit.

Therefore, do not try to bluff most calling stations. These players do not think about anything besides their own hand. They don’t try to figure out what you have, why you might be betting the way you are betting, or if the pot odds are right for them to make a call. They just see the board and their hole cards, and if any of the cards match on the river, they will likely call your bet. If you are on a pure bluff, they will beat you. Heck, if you didn’t know any better, you would think they made some brilliant read. A bluff is only effective if the other player is willing to fold. Since a calling station will not fold, do not fool around with tricky plays. They will go right over his head like a Dennis Miller joke.

In general, the most effective way to beat a calling station is to play in a very straight-forward manner. When you have a strong hand on the flop, bet it for value. Do not go too crazy with your bet size: a calling station, while not a good player, still does have a brain in his head and will not just call off all of his chips on the flop with nothing. If you think he might be trying to draw to a straight or flush, bet at least the amount of pot to give him incorrect odds to continue in the hand. Obviously, he will draw out on you at times, causing you to lose money, but if you consistently put him in the position to make a bad call, you will siphon more money from him than you lose in the long run.
 
< Prev   Next >