The Complete Guide to Badugi Poker: Become the King of Games
Try Badugi Poker, a novel, fast-thinking, and wildly entertaining poker game, to shake things up. This is your go-to resource for starting, complete with guidelines and advice.
You will scream and toss your chair out the window if you play Texas Hold 'Em one more time.
Okay, so it's not that dramatic, but if you play the same kind of card game over and over again, it may get boring and lose its fun. However, what game can you play without spending a fortune on new equipment?
You've found the correct people, then. We are here to provide you with a thorough explanation of Badugi poker, including its rules and gameplay.
Does that sound good? So let's get going!
What is Badugi Poker?
South Korea is where badugi poker, a unique variation of lowball poker (meaning the lowest or weakest hand wins), first appeared in the 1960s. According to Paul Eskimo Clark, who claims to have learned the game abroad while serving in Vietnam, it (allegedly) made its way to America.
It is true that badugi poker and more well-known poker variations like Hold 'Em have certain parallels. They both use comparable blind-posting procedures, for instance, with the player two seats away from the dealer posting the big blind and the player to the left posting the small blind. But after that, Badugi is a completely other creature.
The game's rules
Badugi's win condition is the exact opposite of traditional poker. The number of cards you have that are unique—that is, don't share a number or suit with another card—and the highest number card you are holding make up your "score" (bearing in mind that you want as low a high number as possible). Therefore, pulling an ace, two, three, and four of different suits is the best hand in the game.
The number of unique cards you hold has a higher in-game value than your rank (or greatest number in your hand), and doubles of either suits or numbers are worthless regardless of number. Therefore, even if the highest value of the four cards was an eight and the highest value of the three cards was a four, the person with four valid cards still beats the one with three.
Assume that the five of clubs, three of clubs, seven of hearts, and four of spades were in your hand. Your hand would be the three of clubs, seven of hearts, and four of spades (a three-card seven-high Badugi in the game's jargon) since you can only utilize the lower-value card because the clubs match.
How to Play Badugi
The dealer deals each player a hand of four cards at the beginning of the game. The player to the left of the person who posted the huge blind then gets to go first. They can fold (give up for this "round"), increase the wager higher, or match the current bet (called a call).
The dealer indicates that a turn has ended by discarding a card after each player has had a chance to place a wager. Each other player has the option to either keep their hand or discard up to four cards, with the number of cards they discarded being redrawn.
The little blind poster goes first for the following betting round. This phase gives you some new tactical options, such as the opportunity to check (pass turn) to see if there isn't a bet on this turn. In addition to the options you had in the first turn, you can also place a bet and call/raise if someone else places a bet (you get that as a "free action" if you wouldn't get the chance to answer in the normal turn order).
You have the option to reshuffle your hand once the dealer discards a second card at the conclusion of betting. A third betting and drawing round follows, followed by a final betting round before to the hands being revealed. The winner takes all the bets in the middle of the table (known as the pot).
What occurs, though, if two hands are tied? After that, you and the other guy divide your earnings for that round 50/50. Until one player has accumulated enough money that the other player either taps out or is unable to play, gameplay continues.
Another variation of Badugi is called Badacey, in which the pot is divided in half. The player with the lowest-valued hand (regardless of suit) receives half, while the player with the best Badugi hand receives the other half. Additionally, players begin with five cards instead of four.
The majority of the regulations are the same as in Badugi, other from that.
How to Become the King of Games or Use Badugi Strategies
What tactics can you use now that you know how to play to increase your chances of winning? Well, understanding when to "snow" is a crucial tactic. Snowing is the practice of a player pretending to have a strong Badugi hand (such as the ace, two, three, and four we discussed previously) when they don't in order to fool other players into folding out of the game.
Observing the actions of other players is necessary to determine when to snow. For instance, it is reasonable to infer that your opponent has a poor hand if they discard three cards in the second phase. It is unlikely that they will be able to improve their hand with a single draw. In that scenario, your opponent will bail out to avoid losing additional money if you double down on the idea that you have a god-tier hand.
Snowing frequently is also crucial. By being aware of the deck's card ratio, you can make this play even safer. You know there is only one jack left in the game, for instance, if you draw three jacks in your opening hand.
Have faith in the cards' heart
Well done! You won't have to stop to check the rules once you've learned everything there is to know about Badugi poker and how to play it with your buddies.
