432A Badugi Poker

My breaking badugi post showed a hand with break value but I didn’t really talk much about that. I figured most people will look at the hand and see what I’m talking about. I should not assume that’s the case.

I had

The 3 card hand within that, 642x is a good drawing hand.

Ok Bob but we have a badugi so who cares if it has good draws?

Well my good reader, YOU do. What is the object of the game of badugi? It’s not to make a badugi which seems to be what many people think. No it’s to make the best hand for a given hand right?

Sometimes as in the example hand you will have a badugi and know that someone just drew to a better hand. You have a couple of choices in that situation.

You can bluff. If you RR everything enough villain might believe you and fold here but because of history you’re screwed. You know he’s got an 8 or better 98% of the time in this situation and no way he folds it, brute force is out.

You can fold. I still haven’t figured out why but even when it saves me chips I still end up with less chips after folding than I had when I started the hand. Hmmm two draws left and I’m not really feeling ready to admit defeat. (pride will cost you chips at poker trust me)

Or you can do what I did and break the hand. I RR here because the 3 card is good but it’s not great and I’ve only got two streets left to try and catch our villain. My best shot is HU. So I toss the Ten and cross some fingers…

It was a bad play by me especially since I know exactly whats going on in this hand but it shows how carefully selecting weaker hands can give you more options. If I had say T863 and villain bets into me there it’s auto fold. I would still be taking T863 out on a nice date it’s just I’m not going to marry the cards. 863x are probably dead cards and 63xx very well could be too so you’d muck.

In the beginning it can be hard to toss cards like that. You just don’t want to believe someone is not on a bluff. You’ll probably know the player well enough to know it’s not a bluff and still be looking up more often than you should with cards you know are beat. As I’ve said before knowing when to lay good cards down is one of the keys to long term poker success. Looking someone up to keep them honest is one thing but doing it consistently in the wrong spot too often makes you a target for abuse.

Next thing I want to talk about is how really knowing what’s in your hand will open options in play. Sounds strange right?

I looked at my hand. I know what my cards are.

Do you really?

There is one regular villain at our game who can be very tough to beat. I don’t generally take notes on players but that is going to change. I read a great article on player notes recently and the article really hit home seeing what notes should be on poker players. It’s a good read I recommend it. I keep great mental notes but you can get so much more specific with real notes, anyhow after losing to this person for more than a couple games one stretch I really focused on his play. He’s got some creativity in his game.

I realized that in early positions and with a full table he’s playing a much wider range of starting hands than one might think even after playing many games with him. What he’s doing is let’s say he gets dealt 852×. He’ll raise. Players will raise hands like this up into hands like 789x drawing and betting the whole way trying to induce a fold but that’s not what he’s doing.

He’s looking at this hand as two separate hands. The 852x which he will play if he gets enough folds (he will pick spots to snow from here!) and the 52xx which he will play if he gets too many callers. A hand like 852x in a 4-way pot is about 20%. HU vs 32Ax it’s about a 2-1 dog, not great but if you get folds and can isolate a couple of tight players you should be making moves trying to take down the pot. If you get loose callers left or more than a couple calls you break the 3 card and lay back till you catch or you get out of the way cheap if you don’t improve and someone bets. Obviously there are other plays off this line as well it’s up to you to know when you can make them.

It didn’t take too long to put this together once I REALLY focused on his play. The dealer was kind enough to help expose some of this in two games with kind of long streaks of crap cards.

It’s something I do as well but I was not using this at fuller tables like this player does. This play has more value later in the game when there are less players because the chances that everyone got dealt 3 jokers and a rules card are much higher than they are when there are 8 players. But if like everything else in poker, you pick your spots wisely it gives you more options to make a profit from weaker cards OOP.

There are four parts to your hand and you should be aware of them individually, as the different size hands and as a whole. Call it a zen thing if you like but if you’re only looking at your cards as the hand as a whole you’re probably missing options in your play.

Here’s a tip. Lets say its you and the button. You’ve called his raise pre flop and on the first draw you make your hand a smooth 8. You check raise, after the long pause he calls and draws one. You bet out and he raises. How do you play now?

Call. He’s caught a hand. Unless you have a top few nuts hand my experience says he’s got you beat. I wouldn’t recommend folding something like this because it could be close but I’ve seen this play out many times and it almost always ends the same. (I’ve played a TON of badugi) Villain broke a bad badugi or it was a snow (shouldn’t be the case in these instances though) and he came right back with a monster. I say you shouldn’t be catching snows here because if you have a hand like 43Ax you should be drawing not standing pat. The hand has more value drawing to it than snowing with it as proven by the fact that he just drew ONE to a monster to suck back out. If it was a snow and he caught a badugi it’s probably not going to beat you.

Naturally if the situation involves someone you know to be a class A move master you need to consider 3 betting but I would weigh that decision carefully.

I’ll show you a hand that went from K low to Q low to…check back to watch this hand transform from rags to razor sharp cards!

432A