Anchor — The Calling Station

Anchor is the player you both love and hate to play with. He calls almost anything — preflop, flop, turn, river. He almost never folds once he's in a hand. He bluffs by accident.

Style summary

• Very loose preflop: VPIP 45%. He plays nearly half his hands.

But almost all those entries are calls — PFR is only 8%.

• Very passive postflop: aggression factor 0.8 — he calls

more often than he bets. Fold-to-c-bet is 25%, meaning he continues on the flop 75% of the time, often with backdoor equity or a weak pair.

• Almost never 3-bets: 2%. When he does, it's the literal nuts.

How to play against him

Stop bluffing. Don't try to push him off pairs — you can't. Value bet thin. Three streets of value with top pair is the normal play; he'll find a call with second pair, third pair, ace-high. When he does raise, fold one-pair hands; his raising range is monsters only.

Why he matters

Anchor is the whale. Most live-cash poker money is won from players like him. If the aggressive bots can't beat the bot who literally never folds, they're not exploiting the game's biggest edge.