In my last article, I talked about snowing in 2-7 triple draw. This time the topic is still snowing but I will talk about different games.
A-5 Triple Draw
This game is very similar to 2-7 triple draw. The main difference is that flushes and straights don’t count against you. Most players don’t snow enough because there will not be rough straight draws which are natural snowing hands in 2-7 triple draw (E.g.: 8764, 7653, etc.).
But snowing can be still effective in this game and the general principles apply.
1. We need to have a weak draw (7653, 764A, 7543, etc.)
2. We want to have blockers, at least two paired cards and preferably trips. 7653-33 is better than 7653-63.
3. Additionally, because the 2 is the key card in 2-7 triple draw, the Ace is the key here. So if we start with AAA, we can also consider a snow.
But I note that players underestimate that in this game (just like the general snowing frequency goes down). In 2-7 triple draw, players are more likely to snow with 222 compared to AAA in A-5 triple draw.
In response, because players snow less often, we should tighten up our calling/bluff catching at the showdown, when our opponent bets with a pat hand and preferably only call with hands that can beat some of villain’s weaker value bets.
Badeucey and Badacey
These are split pot games and snowing opportunities are essentially zero. It’s a terrible idea to snow in Badeucey or Badacey. In split pot games, players are more likely going to showdown because they hope that they can get half of the pot.
Because of this, it’s reckless to snow. It doesn’t matter if we start with 2222-K in Badeucey, we should fold (or try to steal the blinds and then draw four if called). Any Eight badugi and many worse hands will call us down and we will be drawing dead for the whole pot.
Badugi
The most snow oriented game out of the draw games is clearly badugi. The reason is because we will have by far the most weak draws in this game.
A clear example for this: we open the button with 876 and Big Blind calls. Big Blind takes two and we take one. If Big Blind improves to a three card hand, he will usually be in the lead and we need to hit our badugi. Because we have a rough draw, this type of hand (876, 965, 764, etc.) is a good candidate to turn into a snow. We can do that two ways and should mix these options: we can pat after the first draw, or we can pat after the second draw.
Keep in mind that we will have by far the most snowing situations in badugi and if we snow with these hands all the time we will overbluff. We should try to reduce the frequency and a good rule can be to use “pairdugi” to snow. That means if we started with A
9
7
and picked up a 7
/9/A, we can go ahead and pat/snow.
Just like in every form of poker, most of our decision should be opponent dependant. We rarely play with players who are playing GTO every time. If somebody is folding the river every time when they miss, we should go ahead and snow all of our rough draws. If somebody snow-catches really light (with a three-card Seven) then we should reduce our frequency to bluff.
How to Defend against Snows in Badugi
First, we have to figure out whether our opponent is capable of snowing. If they aren’t, then we should fold all of our non badugis at the river once he bets after he was pat. But if he can be snowing, then a good rule is to call them when we have a strong three-card hand. It’s a really complicated and long topic but generally speaking with most of our three-card Fours or better we should try to snowcatch our opponent. There are situations when we should have three-card Fives and sometimes even smooth three-card Sixes (642+), mostly when we think that our opponent oversnows. But there are also situation when we assume players undersnow, therefore we should fold most of three-card Fours and sometimes even A23
Where Players Undersnow in Badugi
There are two situations where most players lack bluffs.
1. When they are pat from the beginning and they pat every street.
If they never have a bluff (like most players), we should definitely fold A24 and sometimes even A23.
If we don’t want to be that unbalanced, we can pat from the beginning with four same suited cards. A234, A478, and 3468 are good candidates.
2. When they go from 2 → Pat
Players are playing this spot straight forwardly because it’s really hard to balance. Therefore, when somebody bets his pat hand when they went from 2 → pat, we can reduce our calling frequency. For this situation, against a typical player only A23 is a calldown. Of course, if an opponent shows the habit to bluff in this spot, you must expand your snow-catching range.
If somebody is aware, then we can exploit this and snow in this situation.
A perfect situation for this: We open in the small blind with 35 and BB calls. Both players draw two and we catch 35-46. We not only have a weak two-card draw with 35, but also have some favorable blockers, blocking three low spades
When not to Snow
Staying in the last situation, we shouldn’t bluff when we have a good draw, despite hitting favorable blockers. E.g.: As2h-3s5s. We still have A2, and if we improve to a good/strong three-card hand, we are likely retaining the lead, so with this hand we should take two.
The same goes for the tri card hands. We should never turn a hand like A23 into the bluff, because if our opponent is drawing, we still have the best hand. Any three-card Six or better is too strong to turn into a bluff. And from three-card Sevens, Eights, or Nines, we should try to use our roughest hands. A hand like A27 or A38 isn’t a hand that I turn into a snow. With A27, we can not only improve by catching a non pairing club and make a badugi But also when we catch the 3, 4, 5, and 6 we also improve our hand to A23, A24, A25, and A26.
