Badugi hand from the 40/80 mixed game at the Bellagio

[Micturition Man]

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I'll tell you a secret: In limit games, the cards you snow with don't really matter very much.

Snowing with four deuces is something that came from NL 2-7 single draw, where people wouldn't want to risk their stacks without a seven. People liked the idea so much they extended it to limit games. But in a limit game, people will see showdown with far more hands, so you can't restrict their possibilities nearly as much.

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This is not at all true with competent opponents in 2-7 TD, in my experience (and in theory as well).

You don't have to pay off that liberally on the end against a previously pat player because of the combination of (1) the fact that the pat guy has invested a lot of money if he is on a snow, and (2) the fact that you will often make a hand.

So in a lot of situations people only pay off with something like a 9 or better on the end versus an early snow (which I think is theoretically correct too).

If someone is paying off with that frequency, the blocker cards you have caught makes a huge difference in the profitability of a snow.

Just off the cuff I would say an early snow might be 20% more likely to succeed based on having excellent blockers versus having poor blockers.

Also I think people actually pay off less than they should against potential snowers, so I think against typical opponents it is quite possibly profitable to snow even without special blockers. Of course you don't want to do it constantly because they'll adjust, just saying...

I don't know though, this is based on my experience at UB TD long ago. Maybe live people pay off more (although in most limit games live players pay off less.)

I have no idea about badugi though... it seems like someone who starts off drawing 2 will make a badugi infrequently enough that you should in theory be paying off pretty liberally with 3 card hands against possible snowers.

And to answer the guy who started this subthread, yeah, in theory at least the ideal snow hands in badugi have many low cards of the same suit.

[2461Badugi]

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I don't know though, this is based on my experience at UB TD long ago.

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In the old UB games nobody paid off enough. In the current Stars games almost everybody pays off too much. Full-way pat snows still work, but there are ways to do much better with them than playing 222-type hands.