Badugi, is the Asian variant of poker that has been gaining significant popularity among the card playing enthusiasts in the past few years. Badugi is usually reported to have come from Korea but there are also accounts of its Chinese origin. It is offered in many poker online sites as well as in big casinos. With its present status, there is no doubt that Badugi has ‘arrived” in the gambling scene. In Badugi, a hand is made up of four cards, where a player has three chances to draw or change the combination, to attain the lowest hand possible and win the pot.
A badugi is a hand made up of a combination four of cards of different suits and values. Since Badugi is a lowball game, the best badugi is the combination of the ace of club (AC), 2hearts(2H), 3spade(3S) and 4diamond(4D). The ace has a low value in Badugi and again, the lower the hand score, the better. To cite an example: AC 8D 3H 6S wins over 2C 9D 4H 7S, another badugi.
A player is not always lucky to have a badugi and there are other hand combinations like the:
1. 3-card hand where two cards either have the same value or the same suit. If a hand consist of the cards AS AD 5H 3C, there are only three active cards, AS, 5H & 3C because the two aces shall be counted as one card. Another combination may have two cards of the same suit like 2H and 5H in AS 2D5H 2H. In this case, the one with a higher value, 5H, shall be out and the three-card hand shall be AS 2H 2D.
A badugi wins over a three-card hand.
2. 2-card hand where there are three cards of the same suit or value. For example, the hand consisting of the cards AABB shall become AB while another hand with 5S2F4F5F shall become 5S2F. A three-card hand wins over a two-card hand.
3. 1- card hand which happens if a player is dealt with four cards that are one of a kind, that is, they are of the same suit or the same value. A combination like 5S5D5F5G shall be reduced to a one-card hand only.
A combination with two or more cards of the same value is also called a paired hand while that with two or more cards belonging to the same suit is called a suited hand.
Betting depends on whether you are playing the limit, pot limit, half-pot limit badugi. Yes, in Badugi a player must always aim for the lowest badugi but remember that a Badugi can be won even without a badugi.
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