Badugi is one of lesser-known forms of poker that many players haven't had a chance to play before. It is an interesting poker variation that takes basic rules of lowball games but adds some twists to them, creating a poker variation that's unlike any other game out there. Badugi (also known as badougi, paduki or padooki) is a draw poker variant similar to triple draw, with hand-values similar to lowball. Badugi Badugi originated in Asia and is a variant of draw poker. It shares many similarities with Lowball, as it’s the lowest hand that wins. It differs significantly from most popular poker variants however, as the hand ranking system is different.
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.
Poker Variations Badugi Variations
- 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
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:
- Variations
Introduction
Badugi is a poker-like game played with four-card hands. To win the pot at the showdown you need to have the lowest set of cards with no two cards of the same rank or suit, ace ranking low. The best possible hand is therefore A-2-3-4 with one card of each suit.
There is some controversy over the origin of this game, which has been played at least since the 1980's. Bill Rosmus reports that in the 1980's in Winnipeg, Canada it was played under the name Off Suit Lowball in the back room of pool halls and back room poker clubs. Bryan Micon says he has been told by several Korean players that it was also played in South Korea in the 1980's. L. Michael Riccardi tells me that Badugi is commonly played in prisons in the southern USA, for example in Florida, where it is known as Airborn.
Nick Wedd reports that the Korean word baduk, or badug refers to a black and white pattern. This gives rise to the Korean name baduk for the board game Go, played with black and white stones. In Korea, if you have a black and white pet dog, you might well give it the name 'badugi'. Two high-low games featuring the 'doogie' hand, a low four-card hand consisting of a different ranked card of each suit, were contributed to pagat.com in 2000 by Bob Procter's poker group in North Carolina, and published on pagat.com in 2002: Doogie and Buddys Game. They have suggested that the 'doogie' hand may have been named after the TV character Doogie Howser. Badugi started to become well-known in the USA around 2004, popularised by Paul 'Eskimo' Clark, who was a friend of at least one player from Bob Procter's group.
Any solid information on the history of Badugi or Off Suit Lowball before 1980 would be of great interest in helping to establish how old the game really is, and whether it was invented in Korea or North America, or even independently in both places.
The following explanation of how to play Badugi assumes that you are familiar with the general rules of poker.
Players, Cards and Hand Ranking
Poker Variations Badugi Rules
Badugi can be played by from 2 to 8 players, using a standard 52-card pack. The cards rank from Ace (low) up to King (high).
When comparing hands, within each hand all the cards must be different in suit and rank. If a player has more than one card of a suit, or two or more cards of matching rank, some cards must be eliminated to create a valid hand. Examples:
- 5-9-3-J: only one diamond can be used so this is a three-card hand J-5-3.
- 7-4-A-4: only one four can be used so this is also a three-card hand 7-4-A.
- 3-6-8-6: eliminating the 6 makes a valid three-card hand 8-6-3.
- 3-6-8-3: in this case two cards must be removed - a club and a three - leaving a two-card hand 6-3.
- 10-10-10-8: this is another two-card hand 10-8.
- 6-5-4-2: only one heart can be used, so this is a one-card hand: 2.
- 8-K-5-Q: this is is a four-card hand, also known as a badugi, though not a particularly good one K-Q-8-5.
The rules for comparing hands are:
- Any hand with more cards beats a hand with fewer cards. So a badugi beats any three-card hand, which beats any two-card hand, which beats any one-card hand.
- Between hands with the same number of cards, compare the highest card. The hand with the lower top card is better.
- If the highest cards of equal sized hands are equal, compare the second highest card, and the lower card wins. If these are also equal compare the third highest card (if present), and then the fourth highest.
- If two hands have the same number of cards and the ranks of the cards are the same, the hands are equal. There is no ranking of suits.
Examples:
- 8-7-5-4 beats 9-4-3-2 because 8 is lower than 9.
- 10-7-5-4 beats 10-7-6-A because 5 is lower than 6.
- K-Q-J-8 beats 3-2-A because any four cards beat any three cards.
- If one player has 5-3-5-3 and another has K-Q-3-5 their hands are equal. These both reduce to two-card hands 5-3. The ranks of the unused cards and the suits of the cards are not considered. If these are the best two hands in the showdown the players split the pot.
The best hand, consisting of A, 2, 3, 4 in four different suits, is sometimes known as “the wheel”.
Deal, Draw and Betting
Badugi can be played as a fixed limit, pot limit or half pot limit game - see the betting page for explanation. As in any poker game, the turn to deal (or to have the dealer button if there is a non-playing dealer) passes clockwise after each hand. If there are more than two players, the player to dealer's left places a small blind, and the next player to the left places a big blind, which is normally twice as big as the small blind. In a 'heads up' (two player) game, the dealer places a small blind and the dealer's opponent a big blind.
The dealer deals four cards to each player, clockwise, face down, one at a time, and the players look at their hands. There is then a betting round, begun by the player to the left of the big blind. The minimum bet is normally equal to the big blind. If none of the other players does more than call, the player who placed the big blind is allowed to bet.
The players have three opportunities to improve their hands by drawing cards. Starting with the first active player to dealer's left, and continuing clockwise around to the dealer, each player states how many cards he or she wishes to exchange, discards that number of cards face down to the muck (discard pile), and is immediately given an equal number of replacement cards face down by the dealer. Players can exchange any number of cards from zero to four: exchanging no cards is known as 'standing pat'.
After each round of drawing, when each active player has had an opportunity to draw cards, there is a new betting round, begun by the first active player to the left of the dealer. There are therefore up to four betting rounds altogether: before the first draw and after each of the three rounds of drawing. In a fixed limit game, the size of the bet doubles after the second draw, so that the third and fourth betting rounds are played with big bets.
Showdown
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If at any stage only one active player remains, that player takes the pot without showing any cards.
If there is more than one active player at the end of the last betting round, there is a showdown in which the active players display their cards in turn, beginning with the last player who bet or raised in the final betting round, or with the first active player to dealer's left if all checked in the final betting round.
Players show all four cards, even if because of duplicate ranks or suits they only have a three-card, two-card or one-card hand. The cards speak for themselves, and the holder of the best hand wins the pot. If two or more players tie for best hand they divide the pot equally between them.
Variations
L. Michael Riccardi described the following variations.
Progressive Badugi
A qualifying limit is specified in advance, for example that in order to win a showdown a hand must be 'airborn' (i.e. a four-card badugi) with no card higher than a 9. If the showdown stage is reached and no one has a qualifying hand the cards are thrown in, the pot remains, and there is a new deal to all players at the table. The game may be played with a different limit (for example 10) or other qualifying conditions - for example three-card hands with a pair may qualify.
Progressive Badugi with a Buy
The above game is sometimes played in a format where each player has one open card and two opportunities to buy a card at the end. Assuming that the qualifying limit is 9 or lower, the process is as follows:
- The dealer deals one card face up to each player, burning any card that is 10 or higher.
- Three times, the dealer deals one card face down to each player, which is followed by a round of betting.
- At this point each player has one face up and three face down cards. Now each player has two opportunities to improve their hand by buying a card in exchange for one of their cards: the dealer specifies the price to be paid to the pot for buying a card before the start of the game.
- There is then a final round of betting and a showdown.
[The exact buying procedure was not explained to me. Presumably players must see the card on sale before deciding whether to buy it, as it would never be worth paying to exchange for an unknown card.]
Other Badugi web sites
Poker Variations Badugi Strategy
A Badugi strategy guide is available on the playlowballpoker website.