Clobbering Calling Stations
10/3/2006 10:23:27 PM
New players are often frustrated when they lose to someone who won’t fold. Well, it’s not just a “new player” problem. The calling stations can drive all of us crazy.
This is not a bad beat story; I wouldn’t do that to you. Nobody’s a fan of bad beat stories because normally you can’t learn much from reading them. In fact, normally you finish reading one and decide that the author hasn’t a clue why he lost the hand. About the only thing they’re good for is to reaffirm that bad luck happens to everybody.
Let’s climb inside my mind for a minute admittedly, a scary proposition) and watch me live through a poker situation that happens all the time and really tightens up my jaw. In fact, I’m grinding my teeth into chalk right now just thinking about it…
I looked down to find 6c 8h and would’ve insta-mucked them if I weren’t lucky enough to be in the big blind. I feel like I got a break when a few people limped in and I got to see the flop for free.
The flop showed me 8d 6s 3c, and I was suddenly much more interested in this hand. First to act, I knew enough not to slow play my 2 pair. I threw out a pot-sized bet hoping that one of the limpers was holding a straight draw or overcards, and sure enough, one of them called my bet. The turn was practically the perfect card for me: 9h. No threat; the rainbow board removed all worries about a flush and the kind of hands that would’ve just made a straight aren’t likely to have called the big bet on the flop. I potted it again to keep the straight draw honest and got another call. The river revealed Kd, which may have hit my opponent’s overcards. I checked in order to convince my victim that I was scared of the king and it worked like a charm. He shoved the rest of his stack into the middle. I balked, but then made the call and got beat by his Ks 3s.
Here’s one way to handle it: “Nice flop call you idiot. Nice turn call, too. Keep playing like that and you’ll be broke in no time. Do you have any idea how stupid this hand makes you look? I’m serious. You must be drunk. No, you’re just the biggest fish I’ve ever seen. Oh, you’re ready for the WSOP with plays like that. You’re a dumb lucky fish idiot. You’re so clueless you had no idea that I was an 86% favorite after the turn. Just wait until I get more chips. Hey, don’t sit out, you fish. You’re not leaving…. Don’t leave…. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
But here’s the proper way: “Nice hand.” He got really lucky; good for him.
This hand happened to me a few nights ago. I wish I had a happy ending, but I don’t. My opponent was playing a fairly short stack, so his win didn’t cripple me too much. It just erased all the profit I had made at that table for the last 100 hands or so…plus a little extra. I did manage to coax out a “nice hand,” and he didn’t leave, but I never really got a chance to exploit his calling station tendencies for the rest of the time we played together. I’ll see him again, though, and I know how to make money off of him. That’s really what this article is about.
While it isn’t smart to stereotype people you meet in “real life,” it’s possible to profile poker players, and, in fact, it’s essential when learning how to deal with them. Once you know that your opponent is a calling station you can design a strategy to extract the most money from him. Here’s my first tip: forget all about bluffing when you have a calling station in the hand. Why bother? They never fold. I’m only half-kidding. Actually, they’ll fold, but only if they completely miss the flop. If they catch third pair, as my friend did in the hand above, they will call. And that is one of the keys to dealing with calling stations. Just as I wrote in the earlier article on dealing with table bullies, all you really have to do is determine how a player changes the game, and then make adjustments to take advantage of it.
Besides removing the bluff from your arsenal of weapons, there are adjustments to make when facing an opponent who plays too many hands, plays passively, and won’t fold even if all they have is a faint ray of hope. Since you want to play a lot of hands with them, you can afford to loosen up your starting hand requirements, especially if you have good position on the rest of the field. If you can play a calling station heads up, all the better, so try to isolate them. It’s probably worth raising big cards (like AT or KQ offsuit, for example) if you can fold out the rest of the players. This is especially valuable if the calling station has a full stack of chips. If they have a short stack, its no use trying to concentrate on them, play your normal game with respect to your starting hands.
One other way to take advantage of a calling station is to be sure to do everything you can to build a big pot when you have a powerful hand. If you find QQ in your hand, make your raise as large as you feel the “caller” will call. If, after the flop, you have top pair, an over pair, or an even better hand (like my 2 pair) then continue to build the pot. Normally, if you make your raises large enough so that the calling station’s drawing hands can’t be played profitably, you’ll extract the most from your opportunities, because they’ll continue to chase regardless of the cost.
How do you prevent those hands from being profitable for them? Easy. Be sure to deny them the proper pot odds to continue. Sometimes they’ll catch their perfect card and clobber you, but in the long run, you’ll prevail if you always make them pay too much for the privilege of chasing you.
Poker rewards patience, and this is especially true when playing passive opponents. They won’t punish you too severely even if they notice that you fold a lot of hands, and even better, they probably won’t understand what it really means: that when you finally do play a hand you probably have a good one. How can I tell you on one hand to loosen up your starting requirements while also telling you to remain patient? Simple. Play your looser starting hands, but if you’re the one who whiffs the flop, don’t be concerned with staying aggressive. Check the hand down and hope to get lucky. Remember, if you whiff and then bet, you’re bluffing. Remember about bluffing?
Play good “made hands” aggressively. Most of the time your hand will hold up, and when it doesn’t remember the one thought that should be going through your mind:
“Nice hand.”