Why do calling stations accumulate a lot of chips?

[TheJackal]

I've been running into calling stations in the past couple of days and something has amazed me, they somehow accumulate a lot of chips! I played in a sat last night and this guy was giving me his chips with the worst hands and calling raises during the rebuy period. Finally he started to accumulate while I lost when I moved all in (against another calling station BTW) who had KJ vs my ATs and won. We were equal in chips (approx) and the blinds were not too high and we were both about average at that stage in the tournament. I decided to move in because I felt I had the best hand, and was called. Same thing today, I move in with AQ and get called by K2s and flops a king and rivers another one.
My question is what is the best play against this type of player? I know not to bluff, but my TAG play makes it tough against this type of player because he can have a general idea of how good of a hand I have and it's hard for me to determine what he has. I have to push harder than I like to, which sometimes ends up costing me the tournament. I know I shouldn't be results oriented because both times I had the best hand, but is there a defense against this type of player?

[Potowame]

its 60/40, its a big edge to push , but 40% of the time you are gone. The best thing about having a hand like AK and AQ suited is that, a normal player will fold most hands to a push and if called you are usually in decent shape. But unless the edge is greater, as in them calling you with Axs,Kx,Qx you are either goig to lose 37,40 or 50% of the time to hot cold all-ins.

So, in conclusion "see a flop unless you have a big pair", and play passive after the flop. Always remeber if they miss they check, if they hit any part they call, top pair they bet. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[aces961]

When will people realize that if no one ever called you with a worse hand it wouldn't be worth their time to play in any tournaments with a vig.

[TheJackal]

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When will people realize that if no one ever called you with a worse hand it wouldn't be worth their time to play in any tournaments with a vig.

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Not what I'm saying at all, what I am saying is contiunally calling you and the defense against it. I'm not saying these are good players or that if I have the best hand PF it will always hold up...

[aces961]

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When will people realize that if no one ever called you with a worse hand it wouldn't be worth their time to play in any tournaments with a vig.

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Not what I'm saying at all, what I am saying is contiunally calling you and the defense against it. I'm not saying these are good players or that if I have the best hand PF it will always hold up...

[/ QUOTE ]

Is what you are saying is you want a better way to play the tourney than to get all in preflop with a 60/40 chance of wining the hand against these type of players.

[fnurt]

If they are really calling stations, it's silly to get all-in preflop, because they will still pay you off when you hit your flop. Be patient, wait until you have something, and then charge them the maximum while they are drawing to few outs.

[TheJackal]

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Is what you are saying is you want a better way to play the tourney than to get all in preflop with a 60/40 chance of wining the hand against these type of players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well yes and no. Its dumb to pass on any edge, even for your tournament life, but it is avoidable. It's a double edged sword, either you win and double up or lose and are out. I am just shocked to see the amount of suckouts and how these calling stations accumulate. But it's funny because I just looked and the K2s guy finished 100th and 99th paid, LOL! He was second in chips when he broke me and he made just as much as me, a big fat zero. I tried the call every hand in a sng, it didn't work too well. I sometimes forget that there is a thing called variance in tournaments and it sometimes works against you...

[aces961]

The only examples of hands we've been given are two cases where the so called calling stations went all in as 60-40 underdogs preflop, we have no examples of hands where they get all in worse situations like this.

To those who say getting all in as a 60/40 favorite is risky I ask this.

Say I'm in a 1024 person winner take all tourney. My play basically equates to this, at any given point in the tourney I'll double up 60 percent of the time before going broke. My questions are as follows
Quesiton 1: How much more likely than an average player am I to win this tourney.

Question 2: If (insert whoever you think the best pro is) played in 1024 of these 1024 player tourneys how many do you think he/she would win.

[TheJackal]

Question 1 - I'd say anywhere between 2-3 times as likely as the average player (for a good player).
Question 2 - Phil Ivey, I don't know, but against average opponents, probably in the realm of 6-10 times as likely.

[aces961]

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Question 1 - I'd say anywhere between 2-3 times as likely as the average player (for a good player).
Question 2 - Phil Ivey, I don't know, but against average opponents, probably in the realm of 6-10 times as likely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Question 1:

The correct answer for this is 6.19 times more likely. If I have a .6 chance to double up I have to double up 10 times to get all the chips and win. .6^10 is .0060466. The average player will win 1/1024 times for .0009765625. Dividing these you get 6.19 times more likely to win, assuming at any point I have a 60 percent chance to double up before going broke.

[TheJackal]

I never went past advanced algebra in high school, so I'm sure your right.

[davidross]

I'm not sure I understand this post. Your asking how to defend against someone who calls all-ins with worse hands? That's nuts. You love that.

A true calling station is a perfect opponent. You get in pots with him, and only bet when you have top pair or better. He's going to pay you off.

[Potowame]

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A true calling station is a perfect opponent. You get in pots with him, and only bet when you have top pair or better. He's going to pay you off.



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They will usually check if the miss also, and let you get there, and still pay you off. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[beachbum]

The answer to your exact question is simple: They call lot of hands. I mean if 2 people are all in, one goes broke and the other gets all his chips. Rocket science, right? I'm not being sarcastic.

I'll give you an example. If everyone in a tourney is a calling station, half the players are going to go broke pretty quick and the other half are going to have their chips. Now take this half, and divide it in half again. Do this a few more times and in a 160 player tourney (160 -> 80 -> 40 -> 20 ->10), 10 calling stations are gonna have a lot of chips.

[jwvdcw]

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Its dumb to pass on any edge, even for your tournament life,

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this is very very untrue.

[jwvdcw]

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I'm not sure I understand this post. Your asking how to defend against someone who calls all-ins with worse hands? That's nuts. You love that.

A true calling station is a perfect opponent. You get in pots with him, and only bet when you have top pair or better. He's going to pay you off.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, there is a very good question buried beneath all of this.

Say you have AKs and you know that this one maniac will call all in with crap hands like 33 or 44. How do you play there against him if he is yet to act? Can you push late in a tourney(when the blinds are a significant portion of your stack) with him sitting there behind you?

Bad players are often times tough to play against, espeically if you are a good, AGGRESSIVE player.

A good, passive player can take care of them better.

[TheJackal]

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I'll give you an example. If everyone in a tourney is a calling station

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never played in a tournament where everyone is a calling station, esp since I'm not one. I see your point, but what I'm just amazed that someone can call 70-80% of their hands and still have chips. Like I said in a previous post though, they usually go broke at some point. Speaking of which, Alan Goering at Festa Al Lago who plays a lot of hands, was the chip leader on day 3 and missed the final 6. So sad....

[beachbum]

You know when bad players do seemingly stupid things, they're really doing the right thing theoretically, even though they don't know it! We on this forum as good players (many here are decent, many are great, just am generalizing) know that if you're at a table with 9 world champions for example, these two principles hold:

1. Knowing you're the least skilled player at the table (say I took Phil Ivey's place the Poker Superstars on FSN), you should NEVER pass up a slight edge and probably should not pass up decisions when you're only a slight dog.
2. A quick way to negate a world champion's skill is to get all in on him asap in the hand when it dictates.

Ironically, these fish are doing just this.

[beachbum]

Yeah that example was just hypothetical to make a point. 2 of the most successful players out there can be calling stations at times, Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu. However, they are loose-aggressive and not loose-passive and have insticts far better than the online calling stations. Also you mention Alan and here's an enlightening article on him: http://www.howardlederer.com/article8.html

[davidross]

If the crap hands he will call with include AQ, AJ AT, KQ etc in addition to 33 and 44 of course you push. You will be in bad shape less than 5% of the time, a coin toss maybe 30 % of the time, a favorite 40% and a big favortie the other 25% of the time. THis is a no brainer.

I think we get too caught up in this "waiting until we are significant favorite" stuff sometimes. It hurts to get knocked out of these things as a slight favorite, and when we only get into contention once in a while it stays with us, but in the long run (for some that is shorter than others) if you keep making moves with those edges it will pay off.