The Calling Station: Loose-Passive Poker Player

You see a lot of flops and you'd rather call than raise or fold. The fix is knowing when the price of a call is right.

Signs you play this way

• You play a lot of hands, and you usually come in with a limp (just calling the big blind).
• When someone bets, you call more often than you raise or fold.
• You chase draws because the card you need might come.
• You’ve called a river bet because you were already in the pot.

What it gets right

You’re hard to bluff. A player who bets without a hand runs straight into your call, and the players who bluff the most tend to give up on you first.

Where it costs you

Every call has a price, and some prices are too high. The way to tell is to compare two numbers: your chance of hitting, and the share of the pot you’re paying.

Take a flush draw on the turn. Nine cards complete it, and the Rule of 2 says nine outs with one card to come hit about 18% of the time. If your opponent bets the size of the pot, calling costs a third of the final pot, so you need to hit 33% of the time to break even. At 18%, that call is a fold, however good the draw looks.

When the call is right

The same math also tells you when to call. Take the same flush draw one street earlier, on the flop, and say your opponent moves all-in for half the pot. Now you see both the turn and the river for one price, and the Rule of 4 puts nine outs at about 36% over two cards. Calling costs a quarter of the final pot, so you need 25%. That’s a call.

The goal is to call when the numbers say so and fold the rest. You keep the part of your game that’s hard to bluff, and you drop the calls that were losing chips.

Counting outs and turning them into a call or a fold is Skill 7.

The other player types

• The TAG (tight-aggressive)
• The LAG (loose-aggressive)
• The Rock (tight-passive)
• The Steamer (tilt-prone)

Not sure this one fits? Take the quiz and see where your answers land.