The rules of this game are very simple and I wrote a few useful and detailed articles about how to play badugi and the rules of badugi. So basically, this game is just a type of lowball triple-draw poker with a little bit of a twist. There are also four rounds of betting and this game is almost never played with no-limit rules because people going all-in would drastically reduce the skill of the game because there are no community cards showing.

The first thing that happens in the game is each person is dealt 4 cards and two people will pay the blinds, a big blind and small blinds. These blinds rotate around the table along with a dealer button. The main objective goal of the game is to get the lowest 4-card hand possible and each card must be of a different suit and none of them can be paired. All 4-card hands (known just as a badugi) beat out any 3-card hand. 3-card hands out-rank all 2 card hands and so on.

Ace counts as low and is the best card to hold in the game. The most powerful hand is A-2-3-4 with each card being a different suit. If you get a paired card, such as a pair of aces, then one of them will not count. The same goes if you have matching suites of spades, hearts, clubs or diamonds. Players have three rounds of drawing opportunity to trade in their useless cards in hope of getting the right 4 card combination.

Surprisingly, 3-card hands are common, especially when fewer people are playing badugi poker. Each draw round is followed by a round of betting, so there are 4 total rounds of betting in a single hand. In the first two rounds of betting, players may only bet in increments of the small blind, the last two rounds allows player to wager with big blind stakes. For example, if you are on a table with stakes of $1/$2, then the small blind would be 1 dollar and the big blind is 2 dollars.

It is also important to note that you will usually only see fixed limit or pot limit badugi ring games. There are also half-pot limit rules as well but this is not as common. Fixed limit badugi requires additional strategy since players are less inclined to fold during bluffing. You will also see that there is some serious strategy involved and I will go into it with later blog posts.

Basically, this is just a simple summary of the rules. You can read those articles on our site through the hyper-links above and read the full details and step-by-step process, which is something I would recommend if you want to thoroughly learn how to play.