One of the most frustrating situations for beginning players who have spent time learning poker strategy arises when they’re stuck on a table full of calling stations. As you may know, calling stations are usually horrid players who are willing to call with ATC, which doesn’t make them so tough one-on-one. However, if you’re playing against a bunch of them at one time, it seems like you can never capitalize on good hands.
Using a hypothetical instance of this, let’s say that you’re on a six-max cash game table with all stacks relatively equal. You’re sitting on the button with Ah-Jd, and all three players in front of you limp in; you make a 4xBB raise, which draws one caller from the small blind, a fold in the big blind, and calls from two out of the three limpers. The flop comes out As-6c-8s, which is seemingly good for you.
The first two players check, while the cut-off makes a pot-sized raise. Feeling good about your hand in this instance, you call, and so does the small blind. The next card is Ks, which prompts a shove from the small blind, and the CO calls. You fold your top pair, and watch the two play out the remainder of the hand – only to see that the small blind is holding K-6, and the cut-off is holding 9s-5s.
Situations like this are quite common in micro stakes and home poker games, and can be really frustrating to those who know the game. After all, what can you do to beat a table full of players who are determined to see every card?
Fortunately, players such as these are the easiest to beat when you consistently make strong plays because they’re willing to pay your good hands off. The key is to play a tight-aggressive game where you’re frequently value betting and making big preflop raises. For instance, if your 4xBB preflop raises are inviting too many callers, make a 7-8xBB preflop raise to isolate one player and press the advantage on your good hands.
Another thing you can do against terrible calling stations is to limp in along with them (assuming you have a drawing hand), and beat them with postflop play. If you don’t connect on the flop, simply fold because it’s only cost you a BB; if you do connect, make value bets to extract maximum value from the opponent(s).
