The calling station is 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.

Assuming you believe you have the best hand, the river is the best time to put in a large overbet, if you ever consider doing so. If the calling station completely missed his draw, he is not going to call any sort of bet, so you will not miss out on an opportunity if you bet a bit excessively. If your opponent has anything, even a weak pair, there is a good chance that he will pay you off. Now, don’t go ballistic and bet $1,000 into a $50 pot – even the worst player won’t come close to calling that without a huge hand. But a $70 or $80 into that $50 pot might work. Of course, you still need to trust your read. If you have seen your opponent fold to large bets, but call more reasonable ones, then tone down the river bet. And, as always, you can’t just assume he has a bad hand every time – think about what cards he may have played and the texture of the board and act accordingly.  You know, all that deep poker stuff and what-not.

When all is said and done, while calling stations can make you want to break things when they catch lucky card after lucky card on you, they are very easy players to beat and you should be licking your chops when your “calling station radar” starts beeping. In a nutshell, your strategy against a calling station should be to bet with your strong hands, check with weak holdings, and don’t bluff. Maximize your winnings when you can, minimize your losses (or at least potential losses, as you still might win with a marginal hand) when you don’t. Calling stations lack high level poker processing skills and will not be thinking about what you could possibly have. They have tunnel vision; they see nothing around them except their cards. Stay the course against a calling station and you will reap the rewards.

One Comment

  1. marios says:

    I like that “tunnel vision”!

    Sometimes we tend to play worst when we are against weak players.
    We become weak ourselves.
    Becase he is a fish-calling station doesn’t mean that he cannot win.
    So… I see people doing extreme bets with weak hands against a station and at the end they give him his money back.

    Of course you can play a little looser in position with him, but don’t be a fish!

    Great article!

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