What do I mean by a maniacal snow-shover? The snow shover is one of those players who goes all in all the time. These players can be from free poker online tables upto WSOP level but are a particular menace to good fun if you play poker online for free in particular.
On free poker online they can ruin it for us players who are trying to play an intelligent game as they know there is no risk of real loss so they move all in with hands as bad as 2-7 and now and again by cause of remote probability they win (and claim that as proof of poker being only luck)
In free poker games of all types they are annoying. However, when you come across them in short-handed cash Sit and Go tournaments they can be a serious danger to your stack. When the blinds are high (the average stack is just ten big blinds) they move all-in every hand and the others fold. If this tactic succeeds in consecutive turns then they can achieve a big chip advantage.
The main problem is that maniacal snow-shovers are hard to beat.
1) First, whenever they move all-in, because they do it so frequently, you can't know what they are holding.
2) Sometimes it may be 7-2, sometimes 5-5, sometimes, even A-A.
3) When you decide to call them, it's one of those. And 'one of these' translates to, 'I don't know.'
In five-person Sit and Gos, handling maniacal snow-shovers is simple.
1) When they shove all-in every hand, there are three others, one of whom might have a quality hand (or great hand) to call with.
2) The Snow Shover will be eliminated should this happen. (If I have a perfect calling hand I would be the one to do it.)
3) Or the Snow Shover, with some stroke of extraordinary luck, may knock out one of the other players.
The other players will have a hard time managing the Snow Shover who now has a pyramid of chips to throw bricks with, and I can now afford to play conservatively.
1) I'll wait until I have A-A, K-K (or even just A-K or A-Q) so I can double up over the Snow Shover.
2) Or I will wait until the Snow Shover is knocked out by the other players, or until the Snow Shover knocks out the other players, then we will be heads up with the Snow Shover.
Basially then what this is super tight aggressive play. Because nearly all action here takes place preflop, forget the connectors and weak Aces.
1) Forget small pairs that could be underdogs up against the K-10 or Q-9 the Snow Shover may drop onto you.
2) Wait for a hand where you stand no less than a 70% favorite preflop (tight), then when you have it, put your chips in the center (aggressive).
When you're down to the final two (you and the Snow Shover, which usually occurs when you play tight and there's an Snow Shover in play), the Snow Shover usually is leading in chips.
1) Heads-up, your weak Aces (A-8 below) and even K-x will be effective. Your K-x is equally as powerful as A-x if the Snow Shover decides to call you with Q-x.
2) You simply can't afford to wait for the big hands because here, the blinds are overeating you now.
3) Shove even with 5-4 or with 10-7. If you get called and you are the underdog, you've still got two live cards.
Against an Snow Shover heads up, play as an Snow Shover, but fold obviously weak hands.
1) When you fold those weak hands, typically you will have a better hand range than the other guy, so you have the better chance of winning even if you start with the smaller stack.
2) You cannot and won't beat them all the time but if you follow this advice and play tight aggressive poker you are going to beat them more often than not and in poker more often than not is good enough make you decent money.
Keep in mind that learning to play good poker is not an overnight job, it will take you a while to rise above the all in mob. But the reward is that you will be be among the maybe 10% of poker players who really can play poker well and that means you get to extract lots of money from snow shoving maniacs. The job how then is to be patient and practice hard, make lots of use of free poker game sites, they will save you money and also expose you to a lot of snow shovers.
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