This is one of the most important adjustments to learn to a new players game, as many of our opponents in small stakes cash games and tournaments will be calling stations.
What are calling stations?
These are players that will call down in pots with various hand strengths so very weak holdings like Ace high or bottom pair they will call down the whole way including stronger holdings too. They open up the station and call all day long.
We need to have some counters for this player type in order to profit from them playing this way, so let’s take a look at some key adjustments we can make…
Bluff Less
These players are going to call us down with pretty much anything, so bluffing is almost a useless prospect versus this type of opponent, therefore, we need to just barely ever bluff.
Let’s look at this example:
Pokerstars 100NL Game $0.50/$1. 6-Handed. $100 Effective Stacks.
BTN, Hero: K♠ T♠
Hero: Raises to $3
SB: Folds
BB: Calls
Flop ($6.50): 8♥ J♣ 9♣
BB checks. Hero checks.
Turn ($6.50): 5♠
BB checks. Hero bets $4. BB calls.
River ($14.50): 2♥
BB Checks. Hero bets $16.50. BB calls and shows K♦ 8♦
This is an example of a hand where we should be able to get the river bluff through for a few valid reasons:
- Our opponent has one of the worst hands they will get to the river with.
- We don’t block the missed flopped flush draw
- We block the straights with our hand containing a Ten
Go For Thin Value More
As our opponents calling range widens we need to widen our value range to get thinner value from hands we would normally pot control with against opponents that could possibly raise us.
The difference with playing against stations is that they don’t raise ever! (almost) So we need to be betting way more as we don’t have to worry about getting bluffed off our hand.
Pokerstars 100NL Game $0.50/$1. 6-Handed. $100 Effective Stacks.
BTN, Hero Q♠ Q♣
Cut-Off, Villain raises to $3. Hero raises to $10. Villain calls.
Flop ($21.50): 4♥ 2♥ 7♦
Villain checks. Hero bets $13. Villain calls.
Turn ($47.50): 7♠
Villain checks. Hero checks.
River ($47.50): J♦
Villain bets $10. Hero raises to $43.50. Villain calls and mucks A♠ 4♠
This hand is a perfect example of raising a players block bet on the River, our opponent would most likely go for a much larger bet if they had turned trip sevens so it’s much more likely they are betting small with a worse two pair than ours.
Against a trickier opponent that might try and bet small to induce a raise with a very strong holding we may need to just call this bet, but let’s remember who we are playing against, a level 1 player that will not be thinking on levels like this, against these players we need to get more value and go for a little raise as we will get called much lighter, so with our solid two pair we raise it up and get called by our opponents worse holding of sevens and fours.
Bet Bigger For Value
When playing against stations another thing to remember is that they will not look at bet sizes as much as a strong player, this means we can look to bluff smaller and bet huge with our value hands because we will risk the minimum with any bluffs and getting maximum value with our good hands.
Pokerstars 100NL Game $0.50/$1. 6-Handed. $100 Effective Stacks.
BTN, Hero K♠ Q♣
Hero, Raises to $3.
SB, Folds.
BB, Villain calls.
Flop ($6.50): Q♥ 3♥ 9♦
Villain checks. Hero bets $8. Villain calls.
Turn ($22.50): 5♠
Villain checks. Hero bets $30. Villain calls.
River ($82.50): 2♦
Villain checks. Hero bets All in $60.50. Villain calls and mucks Q♠ T♠
This is a great spot for us, we have a strong top pair against a calling station on a good run out, so we size up our bets twice on the flop and turn, allowing us to play for stacks and get maximum value.
We end up getting called from a fairly strong hand from our opponent who also has a good top pair hand.
Sum Up
So the complete adjustments we will want to make against calling stations are:
- Bluff Less
- Go For Thin Value More
- Bet Bigger for Value
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