Badugi Poker Hand Selection

Written By: HorsePoker.net

Becoming a great Badugi poker player involves knowing which hands are the best to play and which cards you should throw out of your hand immediately. Badugi is a complex game that is not for the timid player, and becoming profitable at this draw poker game means that you will need to learn the game inside and out in order to recognize and play the best hands consistently.

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Rules of Hand Ranking in Badugi Poker

Selecting the best hand in Badugi poker means that you must make the worst possible traditional poker hand from the cards that you are dealt or from the cards that you draw during the drawing rounds. The best hand in Badugi is known as a ‘Badugi’ and is ace-two-three-four with each card being from a different suit.

Pairs are not allowed in Badugi, so if your Badugi hand consists of a pair, then you will only be allowed to play a three card hand (assuming you cannot get rid of one of the paired cards during the draw, as if you drew the paired card during the last drawing hand).

Building Your Badugi Hand

At first glance, Badugi poker seems complex but becomes less so the more often that you play the game. Building your Badugi hand usually takes some effort and careful choices along the way as there are four rounds of drawing for you to go through. Let’s look at how Badugi poker is played so that you will get a better understanding of the time it may take to build a strong Badugi hand in the game.

Badugi poker is a button or chip game, which means that a dealer button or chip will mark the dealer for each round. Badugi also uses a blinds system in lieu of the ante system, and this means that the two players seated to the immediate left of the chip that marks the dealer will post two forced bets at the games beginning. Badugi hands are made up of four cards only. Each player is dealt a beginning four cards when the game begins, and may elect to raise, bet, or check, depending on the actions of the small and big blinds. Betting during the first two rounds of Badugi poker is at the small limit while the remaining two rounds is at the bigger limits. Following each round of betting, players may discard any or all of the cards in their hands to be dealt new cards from the dealer.

Building the best Badugi hand is a mixture of luck and skill. Often times a player will take no cards at all during a round of drawing; this player is said to be a player that is standing pat. While players may choose to take one, two, or three cards, it is often when a player discards a card like six or seven out of their hand that they find that they draw a higher card. That makes it difficult to determine whether or not they should keep certain cards. As a general rule, it is most often in your best interest to keep cards that are six and below; cards that are seven through nine are possible but will usually not hit, and anything over a ten should be discarded as soon as possible.