Calling Station Poker Style

A calling station is a player who calls too often and folds too rarely. Calling stations love to see showdowns, hate being bluffed and are very curious about opponents' hands. They almost never run big bluffs themselves.

How calling stations play

• Call too many hands preflop, especially from the blinds.
• Call flop and turn with weak pairs, backdoor draws or pure gut feelings.
• Rarely fold rivers, even when ranges are heavily weighted to value.
• Almost never bluff-raise or represent strong hands credibly.

How to exploit calling stations

The adjustment vs calling stations is simple:

• Value bet big and thin with strong and medium-strong hands.
• Stop bluffing them — your bluffs will be called too often.
• Play straightforwardly: bet when strong, check when weak.

How calling stations can improve

If you recognize calling station tendencies in your own game, focus on folding more on turn and river in clearly bad spots, and value betting more when you actually have strong hands instead of just calling.

To see how calling stations fit into the bigger picture of poker archetypes, read the Poker Styles Guide. You can also take the Poker Style Test to check whether you are closer to a calling station, nit, TAG, LAG or maniac.