how to beat calling stations

How to Beat Calling Stations

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We have all been there, we’re playing a cash game or tournament and we see these players that just play every hand imaginable and somehow come out on top what seems to be an alarming amount of the time, calling people down on draws and hitting and calling flop bets with just an overcard and beating our better hands… It can be really frustrating.

In case you are not really sure about what type of player were are discussing today, here is a great example that comes in the form of a rich amateur player Bill Ruffin

In this poorly played hand, the amateur player limps into the pot, instantly capping his range and declaring his hand a poor one, then calls a large raise and plays the rest of the pot out of position with K♣ 3♣.

Once he sees a flop of K♠ A♥ 8♦ he donk bets the pot, which is not the best way for him to get to showdown, a check call is a much better way to do this as any lead into this pot could easily get raised.

The turn card brings 4♥

and he leads out again this time for a full pot sized bet, Viffer then chooses this time to raise the pot as a bluff, making it $50,000 to go, Ruffin quickly calls this bet.

The river brings the most dangerous card in the deck completing straights and flushes with the Q♥ hitting, Ruffin finally checks this card and Viffer fires out $100,000 as a complete bluff and Ruffin manages to call this without any problem at all.

So how do we combat these players that are just putting too much money in the pot with too many hands?

Well we have come up with 4 key tips for besting these types of players… The first thing can we learn from our valiant friend Viffer from this example is…

Don’t bluff the calling station!

They are not going to think of hands the same way we or other players may do, they simply have picked up poker on level 1, this is my hand, I have hit this pair, I should bet, Oh I got raised, this player bluffs, I will call.

If you can think back to the early days of yourself playing poker, you may have taken similar lines, they are not the type of player to put opponents on hands and act accordingly. In Bill Ruffins case, he bloats the pot with a very marginal hand, doing this serves no purpose as he should only be building a pot for if he is beat or blowing his opponent out of the pot if they don’t have anything.

So just don’t try and bluff these types of players anywhere near as much, as they are sticky with the worst of holdings.

Throw bet sizing out of the window

These players are not concerned with pot odds, so, on draw heavy boards with good holdings throw in some over bets as these calling stations will almost never fold a draw!

Consider betting 1.5x the pot on all streets, so if the pot is $100 and you have top pair top kicker, just bet $150 to charge the max, this is a great way of collecting value from all the times they are going to station you with drawing hands and worse pairs.

Don’t be afraid to go for thin value

We are going to get looked up more often than against a more solid opponent, so go with your gut if you think you are good in a pot, regardless of how thin a value bet might seem, remember these opponents are in the pot with a much wider range, so we can widen our value bet range on the rivers against this.

We can use the Ruffin Vs Viffer battle as an example for this, say Viffer was raising for value on the turn with say two pair and the flush/straight card hits on the end, we are still going to want to bet for value, especially if our opponent is calling pot sized river bets with second pair, they are going to be calling far too wide.

Look to 3Bet these players

These players are going to be cash cows to play against, so we want to get as much equity against their hands as possible, the easiest way to do this is to isolate them preflop and play in position against them for more money/chips.

Look to widen your range against them and play a lot of suited connectors, as their ranges are wider, so to must, ours be. If they are playing hands like K3, we need to be playing all our suited connectors like 54s etc as these types of hands will realise equity and perform well against these any two card type of players.