Badugi Poker Rules
When it comes to badugi, there are a few rules to be sure that you are aware of before you start playing the game. It’s always a good idea to read up on the games general rules to be sure that you don’t make any mistakes during play to cost yourself money. We will go ahead and start with a few basic rules for badugi, and get to the more in-depth rules here as well, to give you a full understanding.
Four Card Badugi
The first thing to remember is that the only way to get a badugi, is with four cards of all different suits. If you do not have four different cards with different suits in your hand, then your lowest combination of cards with different suits is your hand. And remember, no matter how low your three card badugi is (A-2-3 is the nuts there), any four card badugi (even K-Q-J-10 of four different suits) would beat you.
Pairs
Another thing to remember is that anytime that you have a pair, one of the two cards that is paired will drop, because you can only use one of the two paired cards. Speaking of dropped cards, when you have two cards of the same suit (Ah-9h-5d-6c), then highest of the two cards is the one that will be ignored (or the 9h in that situation).
Aces Low, Straights are Ignored
This is very important when it comes to the game of badugi. You never want to get caught folding your hand when you have something very strong when you actually think it’s very weak. Aces are ALWAYS low, meaning that if you have something like 4-5-6-A of all different suits, that is a strong hand. One other important thing to always remember, is that straights do NOT count. So if you have 3-4-5-6 of different suits, then once again, you have a strong hand.
Depleted Deck
A depleted deck won’t be something you specifically are going to have to worry about, but more of something that the dealer will need to worry about. If enough players are involved in a hand through enough rounds of discarding, the deck may run out of cards. First of all though, discarded cards are not returned to the deck automatically, but are discarded until the end of the hand unless the deck becomes depleted. If this does end up happening, all of the discards are then re-shuffled and play will continue with the deck.
As you can see from the rules listed above, there are a few rules to keep an eye out for. While not all of the rules will directly affect you, some of them could result in you making decisions to fold or call a hand that you wouldn’t actually want to fold or call with. Badugi is just like any other poker game, in the way that after you play it a few times, you get the hang of all of the small rules that come along with the game.
