HU Strategy - Use of the Call

[lstream]

The general prevailing wisdom at full tables is that "callers are losers". After playing quite a lot of HU, recently I have started to think that calling is a lot more valuable HU than I previously thought. I wonder what everone else thinks.

When I play a more passive player HU that just calls many of my third street raises (lots of stealing and raising with lesser strength heads up), the lack of definition of where I stand makes it tougher to play fourth and fifth streets. I think I am more prone to errors when this is going on. You start to think "is he on a draw", "is he setting a trap", "am I really ahead and if so by how much". Decision-making becomes more complex.

With certain players, I have adopted a more passive, calling approach on third and fourth and it seems to unsettle them a lot. They make more mistakes and end up deeper in hands than they should be. With one guy in particular, when I was trying to match his aggression, I was getting killed as he had this frustrating ability to outdraw me all the time. I know that is variance, but nevertheless it was expensive. With the modified style, I have turned the tables since he seems unsure of himself now in the mid streets. I think he is making a lot more mistakes. Now the problem is that he wont play with me very much.

Anyone have any thoughts on the usefulness of calling a lot more when HU?