Badugi? What’s Badugi? Maybe you’ve heard it referred to as Padooki? Maybe not. Before getting into the rules of this poker game, if you haven’t heard of it, no worries; the game lived in relative obscurity unless you frequented play on the Asian continent. Now it is becoming a more and more popular poker variation the world over to conveniently accompany the monster explosion that the game of poker is.

If you’re interested in trying your hand at every poker game available, you’ve come to the right place for the basics; no history lesson, no crack-pot poker strategy scheme – the basics.

Badugi begins in a similar fashion to all poker games in which the players are dealt cards. Before the deal, one player will receive the dealer button and will post the small blind, the player to their left will post the large blind. (If no blinds are used, the player to the left of the dealer will bring in the action.) The dealer will deal four cards to each player.

After each player has received their four cards, a round of betting takes place. All players must place a bet equivalent to the large blind to remain in the game, raise the bet or fold. After all bets are equal, the dealer will offer players the
opportunity to discard any amount of their four cards that they choose, and take an equal amount from the deck.
All traded cards are discarded from the deck.

After all players have received their cards, another round of betting takes place. From this point on during the betting rounds, players may choose to check the action. After betting, there is another draw round followed by yet another round of betting; and finally a third draw round and fourth betting round followed by a showdown if necessary. Sounds simple enough, right? 4 Card Draw might be a better name for it, yes? No – definitely not!

Although everything seems “normal” to this point, now you must consider that you’re not trying to accumulate pairs or suits in Badugi, rather the lowest valued high card within a pair-less, four card, unsuited hand. In a complete 4 card Badugi hand, the high cards will be compared. The ace is played as the low card, and thus if you miraculously pulled the 4 aces, you would have the best possible hand. Making sense?

If you have any pairs or suited cards by the time you get to the showdown, you’ll have to get rid of one or more of the suited cards, and one or more of the matching numbers. This may leave you with a one, two, three or four card hand. The 4 card hand will always beat a 3 card hand; a 3 card hand will beat a 2 card hand and so on. Consider a couple example hands and you’ll be ready to rock some Badugi.

Ace(h), 2(c), 5(d) 7(s) – vs – 2(h) 4(h) 3(s) 7(c) – In this example the first hand would win based on the fact that the second hand holds two cards to the same suit.

2(c), 3(d), 5(h), 8(s) – vs – 2(s), 4(d), 6(h), 7(c) – In this example the second hand would win based on the high card being the lowest. In the event that the high cards match, the determining factor would become the next highest card.