rules
Badugi has a ranking of its own.
Four cards each, three chances to swap, four betting rounds, and a hand you will not recognise from anywhere else. There are no pairs, no straights and no flushes here. What you want is four cards that are all a different suit and all a different rank, as low as possible, and the lowest such hand wins.
four suits, four ranks, nothing repeated
A badugi is a set of cards in which no two share a suit and no two share a rank. Any card that repeats something you already have simply falls out of your hand, so you can end up playing three cards, or two, or in the worst case one. Fewer cards always loses to more: a four card badugi beats every three card hand, however low that hand is.
| Hand | What it is | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The best hand there is | Four suits, four ranks, as low as it gets. | |
| An eight badugi | Complete and playable. Read it from the eight downwards. | |
| A king badugi | Complete, and beaten by every lower four card hand. | |
| A three card nine | Two fives, so one of them is dead. Loses to any four card hand. | |
| A three card five | Two spades, so the seven drops rather than the five. Better than the nine above. |
Within the same number of cards, you compare from the top down: highest card first, and the lower one wins, then the next. That is the same method razz uses to read a low hand, and it is the opposite of everything on the standard ranking of poker hands, which does not apply at a badugi table at all.
what you are actually dealt
| Starting hand | How often | |
|---|---|---|
| Four card badugi | 6.3% | All four cards a different suit and a different rank. This is the goal. |
| Three card badugi | 57.1% | One card is a duplicate suit or rank and simply does not count. |
| Two card badugi | 35.6% | Two of your four cards can be used. Almost always losing. |
| One card badugi | 1.1% | All four in one suit, or all four the same rank. Nothing to build on. |
Counted over all 270,725 four card combinations from a full deck. A complete badugi arrives 6.3 percent of the time, and of those most are far too high to be worth much: a complete badugi headed by a king loses to any lower one. Three cards is the ordinary start, which is why badugi is a drawing game more than anything else. There are 715 different four card hand values in the whole game, because the ranks decide everything and the arrangement of suits inside a badugi decides nothing.
four rounds, three draws
Blinds are posted and everyone gets four cards face down. Then it alternates: a betting round, a draw, a betting round, a draw, a betting round, a draw, and a last betting round before the showdown. Each time round you may throw away as many of your four cards as you like, or none at all. Badugi is normally dealt fixed limit, with the smaller bet on the first two rounds and the bigger one on the last two, and the round itself opens and closes the way every betting round does.
Three draws mean three chances to watch what everyone else does. Standing pat, taking no cards, says you have a complete badugi and you like it. Drawing one says you have three cards and are hunting for the fourth. Drawing two, at the second or third draw, usually says the hand is going nowhere. It is the same reading you do in five card draw, where the number of cards is the only information, but you get to do it three times.
Badugi is often dealt as one leg of a mixed rotation rather than on its own, and that is a good way to meet it. If a word here is new, it is probably in the poker glossary.
next
A different ranking, and the same game underneath.
Badugi changes what wins and nothing else. The betting, the turn order and the rule that you play for what is in front of you are all unchanged. The rules hub has those foundations, and what each variant builds on them.
badugi questions
What is badugi?
A four card draw game played for the lowest hand, with four betting rounds and three draws. The aim is four cards that are all a different suit and all a different rank, which is what a badugi is. Aces count low, and straights and flushes do not exist as hands.
What is the best hand in badugi?
Four, three, two, ace with one card of each suit. It is the lowest possible set of four ranks with no duplicates anywhere, and it is sometimes called the number one hand.
How do you read a badugi hand?
Count the cards first. Any four card badugi beats any three card hand, and any three card hand beats any two card hand. Within the same size, compare the highest card and the lower one wins, then the next, exactly like a razz low.
What happens to duplicate cards?
They drop out, and you keep whichever of them leaves you the better hand. If two cards share a suit, or share a rank, only one of them counts and your hand is a card shorter. Nine, seven, five, five is a three card nine. Seven and five of spades with a three and a two is a three card five, because the seven is the card that drops, and that beats the nine.
How often are you dealt a complete badugi?
About 6.3 percent of the time. Counted over all 270,725 four card combinations, 17,160 have four different ranks in four different suits. A three card hand is by far the most common start at 57.1 percent, which is why almost everyone draws.
How many badugi hands are there?
A complete badugi is four different ranks out of thirteen, and how the suits are spread across them makes no difference to its value, so there are 715 possible four card hand values. Three card hands are ranked among themselves the same way.
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