How To Play Badugi

Advance Badugi Strategy & Badugi Hand Analysis

When table selecting on Pokerstars, look for people who play too many hands and play passively, try to avoid the regulars. In general Badugi is all about making high quality draws and low badugi hands and we do not do that by not playing 89T8 for example. Playing a 3-card T high Badugi hand like this is a mistake beginners make, this hand is just trash to play.

Conversely, with a hand like 35QQ – we can defend in the big blind against a small blind  raise, maybe defend against a button raise but against an under-the-gun raise on a full ring table, this now becomes a fold. The game isnt as much about making a badugi, its about making the best hand, and the best hand may be a 3 card badugi sometimes.

So you’ve read our basic badugi strategy page and got a feel of what basic badugi strategy is all about so below we’re going to outline some more advance concepts through the form of some hand analysis;

Hand 1 – $1/2 on Pokerstars – 6 handed

UTG  limps $2, CO raises to $4, we have   in the Big Blind
- folding is the worst option here, a 3bet is possible here and certainly isn’t bad, but I prefer to cold call and draw 1 card, to a 7 high badugi.
- I used to prefer 3betting, as felt like calling was turning hand face up, but now coming round to the fact that its sometimes not that bad to give away a bit of information and draw 1 as our equity isnt that good.

Hand 2 – $1/2 on Pokerstars – 6 handed

Our hand was   and I open raise to $4 on btn, SB calls, BB folds.
- obviously we’re trying to steal the blinds here.
SB draws 1, now the steal attempt is called we can draw 2, the 2d & 7s (we draw ). SB bets into us for $4
- We’re probably a card behind now, but in position we can take 1 shot at it and call once, but if we was out-of-position here then we should check-fold in this spot. We can call because we have position and  if we can hit any card between a 2 and a 6 we’ll probably have the best 3 card hand.
SB draws 1 card, we draw 2 ,obviously the pair of Queens (we recieve )
- We brick and definately the standard play is to now fold, but maybe 1 time out of say 6, bluff raising and standing pat is not a bad play, and we also have blockers with 3 low diamonds for his hand.

Hand 3 - $1/2 on Pokerstars – 6 handed

We open a King high Badugi  UTG to $4, BTN calls, SB short-stack calls and BB folds.
- If BB calls to make it a 4-way pot, we can draw 2 to break our hand as a K high badugi is a medicore hand doesnt stand to be the best hand after all the draws multi-way.
- 3 way and with a bad short-stacker we can stand pat and bet
- We bet $4 and BTN and SB both call.   They both draw one. We bet $4 again for value and to protect our hand against draws. The BTN  and SB both call again.
- We stand pat and this time check as theres no reason for them to call unimproved.
- We go ahead and check, BTN bets $4 and SB calls the rest of his stack off and we fold. The player on the BTN shows an 8 High badugi with .
- For the most part people dont fold here normally, but this is actually a safe and fairly easy fold.

Note: A KTxx high Badugi is coinflipping equity wise vs a villian with a 1 card draw, but against two opponents with one card draws a KTxx high badugi is a dog and not a favourite in the hand

Hope you liked this hand anaylysis and more hands will be added shortly, so bookmark and come back for more How To Play Badugi!