Some time ago, I think it was January 2010, I came across a weirdly named draw poker variant which was played strictly for low. At the time I was still trying to convince my mother to move away from Rummy and give Texas Hold’em Poker a spin but I was getting nowhere. She still insisted on playing the cards, had no idea how to at least semi-bluff with a drawing hand and won very few if any pots. Not winning did not help the learning as you might have guessed. Rather than just throw my hands up in the air and give up, I thought I would give Badugi a try.
I was quite pleasantly surprised then to note that, she did get it! More so my father who actually won several hands that day. Now let me clarify it was all play tokens with no real money changing hands but we still managed to successfully experience the competitive thrills that such card games can offer the casual player.
Badugi poker is perhaps one of the simplest versions of poker out there, at least simple when it comes to rules. You are dealt four cards faces down which remain hidden right up to an eventual showdown. You are playing for a low and Aces are always played as low. Anything from a pair upwards is bad and if you have two cards from the same suit you would have to scrap the higher one at a possible showdown. This said the best Badugi hand would be a 1-2-3-4 rainbow with all four suits represented.
…and that’s just all the rules you need to know to get started.
Badugi is played with Blinds and Antes so anyone familiar with Texas Hold’em knows how this would play out. There are three draws in Badugi, with a round of betting after each and before the first giving at total of 4 betting rounds. Yet before going into what to look out for and what to avoid when choosing what starting hands are worth playing let’s have a go at some examples and how they would fair at a showdown
[ NB – In the following examples lowercase c stands for clubs, lowercase d for diamonds, lowercase h for hearts and lower case s for spades. So for instance King of diamonds would be Kd, nine of spades would be written as 9s ]
EXAMPLE 1 | Both hands are valid 4-card Badugi | ||
PLAYER 1 | As 2h 5d 9c | LOSES | |
PLAYER 2 | 3d 4h 6s 7c | WINS | Highest card (7)is lower than Player 1’s highest card (9) |
EXAMPLE 2 | |||
PLAYER 1 | Ah 2d 3s 4c | WINS | Player 1 has the lowest possible 4-card Badugi. |
PLAYER 2 | As 2s 3d 4h | LOSES | Player 2 only has a 3-card Badugi since both the Ace and Deuce are of spades. |
Yet if the rules of Badugi are rather straightforward, playing good Badugi is a different kettle of fish! To begin with, as you could have noticed from the two examples above, hands are not won by your lowest card but rather by the best worst card you can show. In example 1 for instance the Player 1 wins because his “highest” card is still smaller than the Player 2’s “highest” card. This irrespective of the fact that the loser had the lowest possible card in his hand (Ah).
When you will have played through a few good hands of Badugi you will become aware of how difficult it really is to get a valid four-card hand, more so if you insist on playing any four cards that are dealt to you. As with any other Poker variant being selective with your starting hands pays. Additionally you should as a minimum be prepared to showdown a strong three-card Badugi if you really want to start winning pots. Most average to good players will bet aggressively with a three-card Badugi as from the second/third draw, so if you happen to have an average four-card hand you might just want to call a bet placed after the fourth and final draw. There again, don’t dive into the deep end of the pool before at least getting a feel of how your opponent is playing his or her hands, or you could be betting away your chip stack sooner than you think.
Since in Badugi your ultimate aim would be to look down at a dealt hand composed of 1-2-3-4 rainbow, if you happen to be dealt any two of these cards (obviously different suits) you should at least give the first draw a shot, that is if it wont cost you too much. Also as with all poker variants, knowing when to extract the most chips from a relatively weaker hand, play defense or attack relentlessly, is what really separates the winners from the losers. For instance if you are firing bet after bet only to be called by a player who is only drawing one card on every draw, chances are that player is drawing to a potentially strong final hand…therefore beware.
What if you are dealt an average 4-card Badugi hand, what would be your best course of action? Again as stated earlier, before you even dream of firing away, you need to at least be in a position to make an educated guess on what kind of hands your opponents will be willing to play. Definitely a good amount of information can be reaped from the first draw and how opponents respond to your second bet. Some may argue that not betting pre-draw signals weakness but on the other hand a strong bet might alert marginal hands you have something noteworthy and all you’ll end up getting would be the blinds and antes (if any).
Also two aspects that you should always keep in mind, and which apply to all poker variants that utilize the blinds structure, are position with respect to the blinds and then the number of players at the table. Acting last is always a big bonus because you can determine your preferred course of action based on the betting patterns of all your opponents. Yet the number of people at the table will also significantly impact any strategy adopted mainly as a consequence to the number of cards in play.
Consider that with more people playing the chances that one will have a four-card Badugi dealt to them increase proportionally. Therefore on a full table, bluffing with a measly 2 or 3-card Badugi is never the preferred course of action. On the other hand bluffing becomes more effective with 4 or fewer opponents.
Some odds worth noting, if you have a strong 3-card Badugi like Ac-2d-3h-5h (5h does not count since you have a lower heart 3h) before the first draw, the chances of you hitting on a 4-card Badugi by the final draw is 51%. If by the third draw, all your opponents are still drawing, then Ac-2d-3h is most probably the best hand out there and you should bet/raise.
For anyone wishing to try something different to regular Hold’em, Omaha or 5-card draw….or maybe who feel better with draw poker variants, Badugi should really get your mental juices flowing. For those who would like to try their hand at playing Badugi online, Pokerstars do offer this variant through their client software. However I am not aware of there being any free-rolls or play money tables being offered so you will have to opt as a minimum for a micro stakes cash game, sit-n-go or tournament.
For more information on Badugi try one of the following links
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