Why Hold’em Players Are Trying Badugi

Hold'em players often find themselves in search of a fresh challenge after years of grinding tough games with boring, solver-based plays. In an effort to break the monotony, they often turn to mixed games, such as Badugi – a four-card lowball draw game. Games like these haven’t been solved to the same extent as Hold’em, leaving room for more creative plays and on-the-spot thinking.

While considered a niche game, Badugi has seen an increase in popularity in recent years, gaining its own bracelet event at the WSOP and featuring in the Super High Roller Bowl Mixed Games event. The game offers a unique challenge with plenty of scope for strategic depth. This article explores why Badugi is becoming a popular choice for Hold'em players and how you can translate your existing skills effectively into this new format.

What Makes Badugi Different from Hold'em

As a poker game, Badugi and No Limit Hold’em are about as far apart as you can get. While they share the fundamental concepts of “blinds,” “raises,” and “showdowns,” pretty much everything else is different. To make things easier to understand, we’ve explored how the Badugi structure and hand rankings differ between each game.

The Core Game Structure

In Badugi, each player receives four private cards, and the game involves three drawing rounds where players can discard and replace cards. Unlike Hold'em, there are no community cards, making all information private.

Most Badugi games are played in a “limit” format, which means that the amount you can bet is fixed in every round. For example, in a $2/$4 game, the maximum you can bet in the first two rounds is $4, rising to $8 in the last two rounds.

Hand Rankings: Everything You Know Is Backwards

Badugi's hand ranking system is inverted compared to Hold'em. The goal is to create the lowest possible un-paired four-card hand with each card of a different suit. The best hand, known as "the wheel," is A-2-3-4, with each being a different suit. Aces are low, and straights do not count against you.

Each hand is numbered 1, 2, 3, or 4, depending on how many suits are used. For example, 9s8s6sAs would be a “1, ace” as the ace is the lowest card and the hand only has one suit. Similarly, a 7d6s5h2h would be a “3, 762” as these are the lowest cards of unique suits. When determining the winner, a “4” of any rank will always beat a “3,” and so on.

E.g. K♣Q♦J♦T♦ would beat 4♥3♥2♥A♥.

Why Hold'em Players Are Making the Switch

The appeal of Badugi for Hold'em players is in its ability to address specific frustrations that arise during their games. They also offer the opportunity to try something new and learn a new aspect of poker.

Escape from Solver Culture and GTO Fatigue

Hold'em has become increasingly dominated by solver-driven strategies, to the point where even low-stakes games are filled with players playing a similar style. This results in gameplay that feels mechanical and stifles your creativity. In contrast, Badugi hasn’t been solved and high-level strategies aren’t easily available, rewarding creative thinking and exploitative play. This lets you experiment and develop your own strategies, reigniting the intellectual challenge that makes poker engaging.

A True Test of Hand Reading Skills

Badugi amplifies the importance of hand reading. Without community cards, you must deduce your opponent’s hand strength from betting patterns and drawing behavior alone. This reliance on observational skills makes Badugi a true test of a player's ability to read opponents, providing a huge difference for Hold’em players.

Common Mistakes Hold'em Players Make in Badugi

Transitioning to Badugi can be challenging for Hold'em players, as they’re often full of ingrained instincts that just don't apply in this new game. Being aware of the common mistakes that Hold’em players make can help you avoid costly errors early on and fast-track your improvement of your Badugi game.

Overvaluing High Cards and "Made Hands"

In Badugi, high cards and pairs are detrimental to the strength of your hand. Many Hold'em players struggle to adapt to the reverse hand rankings and inherently see these hands as good, often leading to poor decisions. In Badugi, low cards and unpaired hands are what you’re looking for, so train yourself to prioritize these elements when evaluating your hand.

Drawing Too Conservatively

Hold'em players often stand pat too early with mediocre hands. The “Limit” betting system in Badugi rewards aggressive drawing, especially early in the hand, as it’s usually cheap to stick around to try and improve. You should be willing to break mediocre hands to draw for better ones, taking advantage of the three drawing opportunities available.

Playing Too Many Hands from Early Position

Position is critical in Badugi, even more so than in Hold'em. Playing weak starting hands from early position can be costly due to the 3betting frequency of late position players. This can lead to you playing weak hands out of position in bloated pots. You should adopt a tight strategy from early position, focusing on strong starting hands to play profitably.

Essential Badugi Strategy for Hold'em Players

For players familiar with Texas Hold’em, the poker fundamentals of Badugi may seem hard to grasp. However, to help you get a handle on the important adjustments you need to make, our experts have offered a selection of practical strategies that you can use to compete effectively in Badugi.

Starting Hand Selection

Starting hand selection in Badugi follows similar positional principles to Hold'em. You should play tight from early position and loosen up in late position. Premium starting hands include three low cards of different suits or smooth four-card hands.

Drawing Strategy: When to Break and When to Stand

The drawing decision is critical in Badugi. Players should almost always draw to improve their hand unless they have a premium Badugi. Breaking rough Badugis to draw for better ones is often the best strategy (e.g., breaking a Q-high 4 to try and draw to an 8 or lower). Don’t be afraid to break a good hand in search of a better one, particularly when playing multi-way.

Hand Reading Through Drawing Patterns

Tracking your opponents' drawing behavior across all three draws is the best way to get information on the strength of their hand. Combining draws with their betting patterns allows players to construct potential ranges, which you can use to make decisions about your own hand.

By being in position, you get to see your opponent make their draw before you do. This is vital information, and a reason why having position in Badugi is potentially even more important than in Hold’em!

Where to Start Playing Badugi

Unfortunately, as Badugi is a niche game, it can be hard to find poker sites or rooms that offer it. Based on our research, only sites like Pokerstars and GGPoker have the platform and the traffic to run regular Badugi games. Adjusting your playing schedule may be necessary due to smaller player pools and less frequent games.

Before playing for real money, we recommend that you start with play-money or micro-stakes games to learn the mechanics before moving to regular stakes As you learn the game and gain competency in Badugi, you can start to move up the stakes when you’ve hit a solid win rate of a significant number of hands.

Discovering a New Poker Passion

Badugi offers Hold'em players a refreshing escape from solver culture and sharpens your hand reading skills. Learning Badugi isn’t easy, but it can reignite passion for poker by challenging you to think differently about the game. As the game is growing in the US and abroad, it’s the perfect time to start learning Badugi. Player pools are still soft and the game remains unsolved, with few strategies publicly available.

Check out our list of the best online poker sites of 2026 to find the top sites offering real money Badugi games.

Jordan started writing about poker in late 2020 after discovering he could combine his passion for explaining things with his favorite game. He continues to stay on top of the newest poker theory and the latest goings on in the poker world to deliver top-quality content. While poker is his biggest passion, he also closely follows soccer, snooker, and F1.