How to Play Badugi Poker

Now that Full Tilt Poker has joined PokerStars in offering Badugi games I thought I might give my readers a little insight into the inner workings of the poker game that has come to us from Korea, and is now taking the online poker world by storm. Badugi is also known by the names of Padugi or Padooki, but the online poker rooms seem to have settled on Badugi as the game’s official name.

Badugi is a fun, action game, where most players like to draw at least once -which makes Badugi extremely profitable for good, tight, players. While the game is still in its infancy online this is the perfect time to learn the games concepts so you are ahead of the average player’s learning curve.

First off let me explain the general game-play of Badugi: Badugi is a Draw-Poker game where players can draw up to three times throughout the hand. Like most Draw-Poker variants there is a Small and a Big Blind that are posted by the two players after the dealer -If a house dealer is being used than the dealer is represented by a “Button”. Each player is dealt a total of four cards and action begins with the player to the immediate left of the Big Blind.

Typically Badugi is played as a Limit poker game with predetermined betting amounts -Typically the amount of the bets and raises are the same as the Big Blind on the deal and first-draw; this amount doubles for the second and third-draw.

Your goal in Badugi is to make a Badugi, which is a hand of four unmatched cards of the four different suits. In Badugi the lower your card-rank the better -Aces are considered low-so the best possible hand is 4-3-2-A of different suits. Hands are valued from their highest card to their lowest card; therefore an 8-5-4-2 is better than a 9-3-2-A (assuming both hands contain 4 different suits). Always count your Badugi hand in descending order from the highest card down.

You will find that often times you will not make a four-card Badugi, so if your hand contains either a pair or two of the same suit only your best three cards are used -the fourth card is irrelevant, so a Ks-3s-2c-Ah is the same as a 4h-3h-2s-Ad. The same holds true for paired hands, so if you have 3h-2c-Ad-As or 8h-3s-2c-Ah than you have a 3-Card 3-2-A, which is beaten by any 4-Card Badugi regardless of card-rank.

Here is a look at the top 10 hands in Badugi:

1. 4-3-2-A of different suits
2. 5-3-2-A of different suits
3. 5-4-2-A of different suits
4. 5-4-3-2 of different suits
5. 6-3-2-A of different suits
6. 6-4-2-A of different suits
7. 6-4-3-2 of different suits
8. 6-5-2-A of different suits
9. 6-5-3-A of different suits
10. 6-5-3-2 of different suits