- Nov 29, 2019 The draw typically occurs before each betting round and occurs three times in Badugi. This unusual poker format does belong to the lowball poker variation where the so-called worst hand wins, however, it really falls into a category of its own. The primary goal is to make the lowest hand possible and all in suits that are different.
- Sep 09, 2011 RealKidPoker Daniel Negreanu The mix: Badugi, 2-7 3draw, Razzdacey, Badeucey, Hold'em, 2-7 Razz, 2-7 NLH single draw, Omaha 8, Badacey Razzbadeucy.
- Badugi is part of the draw poker family, i.e. Those poker games where you have to draw cards; Badugi is quite similar to Triple Draw Poker. There are some fundamental differences, though: Badugi is a so-called ‘lowball' game (i.e. A game where the player with the lowest-ranking hand wins) where the ace is low only (i.e. It always counts as.
- In poker there are three main game variations; Flop games (i.e. Texas hold'em and Omaha) Stud games (i.e. Seven-card stud, Razz) Draw games (i.e. Five card draw, 2-to-7 Triple Draw).
- Poker Variations Rules
- Poker Variations Badugi Games
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- Poker Variations Badugi Rules
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Aug 24, 2020 Badugi is a draw game gaining popularity in the poker world these days and for good reason - it's a very fun, action-packed poker game. Although it shares many aspects of its structure with other draw games, such as 2-7 Triple-Draw Lowball, Badugi uses an entirely distinct system for evaluating the winning hand.
Rules & Strategy for Badugi & Badeucy Poker
Badugi is a draw game gaining popularity in the poker world these days and for good reason - it's a very fun, action-packed poker game.
Although it shares many aspects of its structure with other draw games, such as 2-7 Triple-Draw Lowball, Badugi uses an entirely distinct system for evaluating the winning hand.
A hand in Badugi is aptly named 'a Badugi.'
What is Badugi?
The origin of the card game Badugi is somewhat undetermined although many people have noted the similarity to the South Korean word 'baduk,' which means 'black and white pattern' - similar to what you might find in the game Go.
In North America it was reportedly played as 'Offsuit Lowball' in the 1980s in Winnipeg and a comparable high-low game was played in Toronto.
In Vegas some say it originated with poker pro Paul 'Eskimo' Clark, who reportedly brought the game back with him from his military service in Vietnam. These reports are unconfirmed, though.
How to Play Badugi
- Badugi is a 'blind game,' meaning the player to the left of the dealer puts in the small blind and the player to the left of the small blind puts in the big blind.
- Starting with the player on the left of the dealer and moving clockwise around the table, every player is dealt four cards facedown, one card at a time.
- Once all players have their four cards the first betting round starts with the player to the left of the big blind.
- Once the betting round has completed the players enter the first drawing round.
- Starting with the player on the dealer's left the player announces how many cards he would like to throw away from his hand and receives new ones in return.
- The dealer deals all of the cards to that player at once and moves on to the next player.
- A player can choose to throw away no cards, keeping their hand intact. This is known as standing pat or rapping pat.
- Once all players have received their new cards the second betting round begins, starting with the player to the left of the dealer.
- This pattern repeats until either:
- Only one player is left, the rest having folded.
- The players have completed the betting round after the third drawing round.
If you'd like more information on things such as betting rounds or blinds, head to this article:
Badugi Hand Rankings
Once all betting is complete the best Badugi wins the pot.
- A Badugi must be made up of the lowest one to four cards from a player's hand.
- Hands are counted from the highest card down; the value of the hand is based on how low the highest cards in the hand are.
- Aces are low.
- All cards used must be of different suits and ranks.
- Any four-card Badugi beats any three-card Badugi.
- A two-card Badugi is beaten by any three- or four-card Badugi.
How to Read Badugi Hands
- A♥2♣3♦4♠ - This is the best possible Badugi, known as a 'four-card 4.'
- A♥2♣3♦3♣ - Since you cannot have a pair this hand can't use the second three, making the hand a 'three-card 3.' This hand would lose to any four-card Badugi.
- 2♣3♣7♥9♠ - This is a three-card 9. Since the 3♠ is of the same suit as the 2♣, the higher of the two cards cannot be used.
- A♥2♣3♦10♠ versus 4♥6♦7♣9♠. The second hand wins with a four-card 9 beating the four-card 10.
Any two players holding the same hand split the pot. Once the player with the winning hand has received the pot, the player who was to the left of the dealer becomes the new dealer for the next hand.
Play Badugi online, free
The best way to get a proper handle on how to play Badugi poker (and how to play it well) is to play some actual Badgui hands, either live or online.
The best way we've found to get some free Badugi poker in is on PokerStars, where you can create an account and access the play-money games. You can play free Badugi poker online until your heart's content; then, when you're ready to try it out for real-money you can easily add a deposit to your account.
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How to Play Badeucy Poker
Poker Variations Rules
Two poker games that have exploded in popularity over the last couple of years are Badugi (as explained above) and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. Both are draw poker variants and tend to produce a lot of action.
Somewhere along the line someone also decided to make a split pot game by combining the two games. Badeucy was born.
Aces Are Bad
As a quick refresher: In 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball you're looking to make the lowest five-card hand. Straights and flushes hurt your hand and an ace is always high.
The best way we've found to get some free Badugi poker in is on PokerStars, where you can create an account and access the play-money games. You can play free Badugi poker online until your heart's content; then, when you're ready to try it out for real-money you can easily add a deposit to your account.
Get a new PokerStars and access to our up to $600 bonus via the link below:
How to Play Badeucy Poker
Poker Variations Rules
Two poker games that have exploded in popularity over the last couple of years are Badugi (as explained above) and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. Both are draw poker variants and tend to produce a lot of action.
Somewhere along the line someone also decided to make a split pot game by combining the two games. Badeucy was born.
Aces Are Bad
As a quick refresher: In 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball you're looking to make the lowest five-card hand. Straights and flushes hurt your hand and an ace is always high.
In Badugi you're looking for a four-card hand with one of each suit. This is called a Badugi. If more than one player has a Badugi, the lowest hand wins.
Normally the lowest Badugi is A-2-3-4. However, in Badeucy, aces are also high for the Badugi hand. This makes the best Badugi hand 2-3-4-5.Most Badeucy games run six-handed.
In Badeucy the goal is to scoop the full pot by taking half with the best 2-7 hand and the other half with the best Badugi.
Playing Badeucy
Most Badeucy games are played six-handed and fixed-limit betting is generally used. A button will determine the dealer position and the two players to the left of the dealer post the small and big blinds.
Once blinds are posted each player is dealt five cards. After a round of betting the remaining players may exchange cards or stand pat.
Players can exchange up to five cards, but this is not typical.
There are three draws in Badeucy with a round of betting after each round. Betting on the deal and after the first draw is in the small bet amount, or the size of the big blind.
Betting on the second and third draw is done in the big bet amount, typically double the big blind. After the third draw and final round of betting the remaining players go to showdown.
The player with the best 2-7 lowball hand wins half the pot and the player with the best Badugi hand wins the other half. In the event the same player wins both hands, he or she scoops the pot.Play Badeucy Now!
Basic Badeucy Strategy Tips
Like most split-pot games you want to focus on starting hands that give you the best possibility to scoop.
First, stay away from higher Badugis when possible. Since everyone is getting five cards instead of four the odds of improving to a lower Badugi increases.
For starting hands try and focus on playing hands requiring just two cards to complete a hand. Preferably you want at least three suits to start with. That way you have three draws to your Badugi and you can focus on your 2-7 hand.
Pump Your One-Way Hands
Unlike Stud 8 or Omaha 8 this is one game where you want to pump your one-way hands.
Let's say you get dealt 2s-3s-4s-5h-7d. You have the nut 2-7 hand but no badugi. In this case, don't worry about the other half and try and pump the pot.
Odds are that you will have multi-way action to the end and win half of a nice pot. Yes, there is a chance you could get quartered by someone else hitting the same 2-7 hand.
However the odds of that happening are not the same as in Omaha Hi-Lo. If there is a lot of action in a pot after the first draw and you have to draw more than one card it might be time to abandon the hand.
Unless your game is very loose a lot of action after the draw is usually being driven by one or more players with at least half a made hand. These players are freerolling and pumping the pot. You're drawing and should wait for a better spot.
More Poker Games:
Go Badugi
Badugi is part of the draw poker family, i.e. those poker games where you have to draw cards; Badugi is quite similar to Triple Draw Poker. There are some fundamental differences, though: Badugi is a so-called ‘lowball' game (i.e. a game where the player with the lowest-ranking hand wins) where the ace is low only (i.e. it always counts as 1); the aim of the game is to build the lowest possible, off-suit hand. In order to reach this, players may swap cards up to four times. If you want to play Badugi online we recommend PokerStars. Sign up through BonusBonusBonus and get a special welcome bonus.
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Badugi - crash course
At the very beginning of each Badugi game, the two players who sit next to the dealer (the person marked with the dealer button) have to place their blinds. This happens before the cards are dealt. The blinds are there to make sure that there is money in the pot so every winning hand can actually win money. Since the dealer button moves on clockwisefrom player to player with each round of the game, every player has to pay a blind at some point during the game. The player to the left of the dealer places the Small Blind, the player to his left has to place the ‘Big Blind' which is usually twice the amount of the small blind.
Cards and 1st betting round
As soon as all players have paid their blinds, each player is dealt four cards face down. Now, starting with the first player after the big blind, players may decide whether they would rather fold, call or raise. If you have a nice hand to start with, it is recommendable to start raising right away because as soon as you do not exchange any cards in the first exchange round, the other players will be warned.
1st exchange of cards and 2nd betting round
Each player may now exchange up to all of his cards and after this, there is another betting round where the first player to the left of the dealer button has to start betting.
2nd exchange of cards and 3rd betting round
Again each player has the possibility of exchanging up to four of his cards, this is followed by yet another betting round where – again – the first player to the left of the dealer button hast to start betting.
3rd exchange of cards and 4th betting round
Now players may exchange cards for one last time, followed by a last betting round which is again started by the first player to the left of the dealer button.
Showdown
During the showdown the winner is determined i.e. the player with the best badugi hand (i.e. as low as possible, no pairs, preferably four different suits) receives the pot. Should two player's hands have the same value, they share the pot, suit does not matter. For example: one player has A, 2, 4, 5 and another A, 2, 3 and 5 (obviously always made up of cards of different suits), in this case the second player wins because of the one card the two players do not have in common, he holds the lower one. One special rule in Badugi says that a player who has two cards of the same suit at the point of showdown, has to discard the higher one and stay in the game with only a three-card badugi hand, a four-card badugi hand always wins over a three-card badugi hand. So, if player #1 has A♠, 6♣, 10♥ and J♦, he beats player #2 who has 2♣, 10♣, 5♥ and 8♠, because player #2 has to discard his 10♣ and is thus left with only three cards. The same rule is also applied to situations where a player holds a paired card at showdown because in that case he, too, has to discard one of them. Both rules explained above obviously also apply to situations where a player's hand is only made up of two different suits, or worse, only of one suit. In those cases players might actually be left with only two or even one card.
Poker ABC
If you do not like the cards you were dealt, you have the opportunity to discard (fold) them and thus leave the current round of the game. Should you be big or small blind or should you have called someone's bet already, you lose the money. Apart from that though, since you have folded, you cannot lose any more money during this round. If you want to keep your cards and stay in the game, you can, for example, check. This means that nobody before you has placed a bet yet and that you do not either. Now the player after you has the opportunity to check himself, or to bet. If any of the players in the round bets, you need to – as soon as it is your turn – decide whether you fold, call or raise. To call means that, in case a player before you has placed a bet, you bet the same amount as he does; you call his bet. If you find you have been dealt decent cards, you can bet a certain amount of money on your hand being the winning hand. If a player before you has already placed a bet, you can raise his bet. Depending on the betting structure the amounts you can bet or by which you may raise, are fixed in online poker rooms.
Poker Variations Badugi Games
Fixed limit: On a $ 5/$ 10 table you may bet $ 5 in the first two betting rounds and up to $ 10 in the last two. In each round players may bet once and raise three times (bet, raise, re-raise and again re-raise or ‘cap'). After three rounds of betting the so-called cap is reached, this means that in this betting round, no more betting can be done. In this case the next card is dealt – or if it was the last round – the showdown begins.
No limit: Here the betting structure follows these rules: Each player may bet all the money he has on the table, regardless of the size of the pot. As a rule, the minimum bet has to at least equal the amount of the Big Blind and if you decide to raise, your raise does at least have to equal that of the player before you.
Pot limit: In a pot limit game a player may bet a sum between the minimum bet and the total size of the pot. In a $ 5/$ 10 pot limit game the small blind is $ 5 and the big blind $ 10. The first player could call the big blind (i.e. $ 10 in this case) or raise to any amount up to the total pot size. The raise has to either equal or exceed the previous bet. So in this case, the maximum possible raise would be $ 25 ($ 5 small blind, $ 10 big blind and $ 10 the call) which means that player #3 may actually bet a total of $ 35. So should player #3 raise the pot limit, the total amount in the pot would then be $ 50.
Now if the next player (let's say player #4) wants to go on playing, he at least has to call the $ 35, i.e. the bet player #3 has made. Should player #4 want to raise (up) to the pot limit he would have to put $ 120 into the pot. That is the total pot size ($ 50) plus the maximum raise of $ 70 ($ 35 call + $ 35 raise). The number of betting rounds per hand is not limited and in each round calling and raising continues until every player has either called, or folded his cards.
All-In
Primarily, players go ‘All-In', when they have a particularly good hand. This is because: when one or more other players call this move and the player who went all-in wins anyway, his winnings in this round increase considerably. Another possibility would be, that a player goes all-in to bluff and merely signal that he has a good hand, in order to make the other players fold and win himself the pot. (What the precise rules for an all-in situation are is described in the following paragraph.) Apart from the situation described above, players could also go all-in for the following reason: In case a player lacks the necessary amount of chips to call or finish a hand but has nice cards and wants to stay in the game anyway, he does not have to fold. The player can also go ‘all-in'; so he bets all of his chips (even if they are not sufficient to cover the sum he would actually need to call) and can stay in the game without being able to act any further though. All the money that is in the pot up until the point when he goes all-in, is what the player can win. All money put into the pot after he went all-in is put in a separate pot (‘side pot'). Should the player who is all-in, win the showdown, he wins the main pot, whereas the side pot goes to the player with the second best hand. When a player goes all-in and his fellow players decide to call his bet, they obviously have to call the sum he bet.
Learning by doing
Fun Poker Variations
Even after the best of explanations, you still need to practice playing at an online poker table. We have created reviews of the best online poker schools where you can practice your play.
Short history of Badugi Poker
Actually the history of Badugi really is short because this poker variant has only existed for a few years. This triple draw variant was created in Korea and has spread farther into the west in the past few years. In online poker this entertaining and interesting variant has not quite conquered all the tables yet, many people in online poker already see it as the new Texas Hold'em though. Generally, probably due to its relatively high degree of difficulty, Badugi is not a very far spread poker variant and usually not represented at big poker events. There are quite a few famous poker pros who like a good game of Badugi in their spare time though. There is, for example, the Australian poker star Joe Hachem, who has won quite a sum here and there, playing Badugi and enjoys this game very much.
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