Calling Stations

Is there a particular strategy that I have missed that works against calling stations.

I played in a live tournament this weekend friends house 13 people. I played very LAG especially compared to my normal style and was the chip leader at the final table when it got down to 4 players. Now I readily admit that I made some mistakes and will do my best to learn from the going forward but everyone at the table turned into calling stations and I got busted out way early. Your thoughts please.

It's pretty simple, really. If you've got a player who's calling down with sub-par hands on a regular basis (ie a calling station), then value bet your marginal hands, and avoid bluffing.

Usually you would only value bet your strong hands vs a player who won't call with marginal hands since he'll only call you if he has you beat, but if you've got someone who'll call with crap, then you can value bet a wider range of hands.

As for bluffing, I'll loosely paraphrase Brunson: "it takes an idiot to bluff a calling station". No point in bluffing someone who can't let go of middle or bottom pair.

I didn't bluff in this particular case becuase I had just switched tables and didn't know how half the table played. I think I got caught up with everything being checked and didn't value bet my hands enough to get reads on anyone and scare away chasers.

Thanks for the tips chuck.

To your first post, if the players realized you were being aggressive with nothing, that's when you have to change gears and only be aggressive with strong hands so that they will happily call you down thinking that you have nothing again.

To your second post, even if they hadn't noticed, but you noted they were calling stations, you have to realize that you can't continue LAG. One of the advantanges of playing TAG early is to establish a tight image that you can open up with when the blinds get high/table gets short. Unless you can play like Gus Hanson and have the image to scare then like he would.

Even with calling stations or other LAGs you have to bet to protect your good hands, unless you want to let the LAG bet into your monster, but then it better be a monster.

That is a good reminder to remember to switch it up. I think due to inexperience I wasn't prepared for the brakes to be slammed on so hard, and got caught with two pair A's and 9's beat by a nut flush.

well calling stations can be frustrating...but like chuck said....bluffing is obviously out of the question....my strategy against calling stations is to be aggressive enough for them not to keep calling an dsuckout but to keep them around if they have mid pair and your sitting with a set or high pair......if you check theyll check with you usually and betting on the river when you have the best hand of course theyll fold...you want them to keep calling to build up the pot but dont want them to suck out...once again frustrating

Thanks Curtis, I think like I said I got frustrated and stop valuing betting properly to push them off of drawing. Rookie move and I will do my best to stick to my plan in the future, thanks.

I've got a question, if I may add on to the thread. It seems when my ring game is improving, I lose my tourney game and am stuck in a rut playing them. What do you do when a few people or even half the table is calling stations? It seems these tourneys are more advanced freerolls, if you get my drift. You sit back for decent hands, but you best be lucky, because when you get a hand you'll be reraised or called by any garbage anyhow. They'll either catch with their garbage, or call your preflop raise based on the fact that they think they'll raise and push you out. I've been drop-kicked from tournaments because they're low-limit buyins and playing a tight aggressive game obviously isn't working. Any ideas. I'd really like to pick up a good book like Harrington's or Super System, but currently don't have the time. Hopefully soon. Any ideas?I'm in need of help!

In these tournaments you need to be more concerned about playing position than playing cards. You'll win as many if not more chips by smart position stealing from button or CO when everyone checks round to you than you will from big cards. Also, don't chase anything but make sure you make chips from people that do. That's my 2c worth.