Where and How to Play Badugi Online
Badugi is a unique variant of poker that uses modified lowball rankings with a triple draw game structure. In Badugi there is a dealer button, as well as a small and big blind, and the game can be played with up to eight players at the table. The game starts with each player being dealt four cards and then a betting round takes place. There is then a series of three draws with a betting round after each, commenced by a showdown where the player with the best Badugi hand wins the pot. To note, Badugi hands consist of only four cards and there is a unique set of hand rankings that determines the winner.
Badugi Hand Rankings
In Badugi the goal is to make the lowest possible hand with each card coming from a different suit, without any pairs. When a player makes all four suits with no pairs this is called a badugi and will win against all non-badugi hands. The best possible Badugi is A-2-3-4 using all four suits. If a player fails to make a badugi then they have either a three card hand (semi –common), a two card hand (rare), or a one card hand (very rare). For example if a players hand is Ah 2c 3s 3d they have a strong three card hand of A-2-3 and will beat all other three card hands but would lose to even a king high badugi. In full ring games (eight handed) the winner at showdown most often has a badugi, where in short handed games three card hands sometimes win the pot. Optimal strategy in this game is to not get caught up in drawing with high-cards; this is a mistake many new players make.
Badugi Books
Interesting enough Badugi is one of the few games available online that very little strategy has been written about. In fact at this time we are not even aware if any Badugi strategy books have been written. This is however not due to lack of volume. At PokerStars the Badugi tables are going strong at a variety of stakes, high stakes Badugi ring games can be found in both Vegas and Southern CA, in 2025 Matt Savage introduced Badugi to the LA Poker Classic, and the WSOP committee has it under consideration to add a Badugi event at the 2025 World Series of Poker. There is no better time to learn this game in our opinion. Imagine the profit you could have made if you were one of the first players to learn Texas Hold'em? Well the chance for that is over 40 years in the past; that same chance is available this very moment when learning Badugi.
How do you learn such an odd game though if there are no books? Well simple, starting practicing at the low stakes games at pokerstars while learning from poker forums and articles. A good place to start is twoplustwo (look for their forum section "Other Poker" and then refer to the "Draw" category). From there Google everything you can on the topic. PlayLowBallPoker has several strong pages of Badugi content, as does lowball wiki.
This is a game where practice makes perfect. Right now the only sites we know of offering Badugi is the merge network (ex: sportsbook) and PokerStars. The most traffic by a massive margin can be found at PokerStars, so if you're looking to play Badugi that is where you'll want to head.
