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Badugi Poker Hands

Badugi poker unlike any other poker is played with four cards. In conventional poker the Ace is the highest card. In Badugi Ace has the value of one and thus is the lowest card. Ace, 2, 3, 4 of different suits is the best hand one can have in Badugi poker. Also you can improve your hand by drawing cards three times.

In Badugi poker you can have a hand of four cards, three cards, two cards and one card. To understand how the number of cards gets reduced in player’s hand you have to understand the card combinations in Badugi poker.

Lets start with best four card hands. These are called Badugi as they are the ideal hand. As mentioned earlier the highest or the winning hand is A, 2, 3, 4 of different suits. The other examples are 2,3,4,5 then A, 2, 3, 5 or 2, 4, 5, 6 and so on. As long as you have four cards of different suits and under 8 card values you will have a good chance to win.

Take for example you have a hand of 5♣ 7♠ 4♥4♦. Here you have cards of all different suits but you have two fours. In this case you can use only one 4. So your hand now becomes 5♣ 7♠ 4♥. In Badugi poker this is considered to be 3 card hand. In the same way if you have a hand of QQJA of different suits it becomes AJQ. So even if a person has three low cards of different suit the hand will always be beaten by the person having four cards of different suit. Again if you have 4 555 hand, your hand will be 4 5 that is a two card hand. Therefore AJQ hand will be better than A5 hand.

Same suit hands also have the same consequence like the paired hands. If you have a hand for example 4♥ A♦ 6♣ 3♣, in this case 6 and 3 are of clubs and you will have to discard the 6 as it is of higher value. Your hand will become a three card hand of 4♥ A♦ 3♣. If you have a hand of 5♠ 2♦ 6♦ J♦ then your hand will be reduced to just 5, 2 and 6. J of diamonds will be discarded.

There can be a situation where you may have both pair and suit. For example 7♥ K♦ 3♦ 7♣ are the cards in your hand. Now to take out the lowest possible combination you have to drop K♦ and 7♣ reducing your hand to just 7♥ 3♦. Another example would be when you have 4♥ A♦ A♣ 10♣. Here you will drop A♣ and be left with a three card hand of 4♥ A♦ 10♣.