I was playing in the 8-game WSOP event, and the table turned to discussion of mixed games in Vegas, and a player was commenting on how bad the regs are at badugi, and as an example was saying how they didn't understand why patting A23 tri was a good play. The table nodded in agreement, and I was sitting there feeling like I was in crazy land because the play made no sense to me and still doesn't really. I spoke up and asked why it's a good play, I didn't understand why you would want to miss out on value from worse tris by overrepping your hand as well as passing up on a chance to make a monster badugi, or catch snows or bluffs from missed draws, etc. Someone was like "I'll explain it to you when we're not at the table" even though we weren't playing badugi at all. Admittedly I'm far from a badugi expert, so is there something I'm missing here?

Makes no sense to me

But lol, "I'll explain it away from the table" but you guys weren't playing badugi. I wish you pressed for that explanation. Maybe get inside the mind of a tourney donk?

Maybe he's thinking that it's good as a bluff play with the A23 blockers in order to get weak made Badugis to break?

Admittedly I'm stretching here to understand the logic.

First of all, whatever you're missing, I'm missing too (because I would draw). Second, I'm not a badugi expert either.

Suppose you have
A23 and discard the T. You can think of three separate one-card draws as one three-card draw, needing any one of ten clubs to make a four-carder. The probability you'll catch a favorable club is:
P=1-C(38,3)/C(48,3)
P=1-38*37*36/48/47/46
P=.512.

That is, you're favored 51.2 to 48.8 to make a four card badugi in three draws. If you draw one card three times and miss each time, other decent three card badugis will probably pay you off at the showdown.

My apologies to all the mathematicians reading this. (I'm obviously not a mathematician... I cannot prove it, but I think my method works).

Buzz

Perhaps (I'm guessing) the downside is when you miss, you're more or less stuck paying off anyone who makes a four card badugi, whereas if you patted, maybe nobody would draw, trying to make a four card badugi.

Buzz

Let's say that you raise coming in and then I reraise(my image is tight/solid) and we both draw 1. Well, if both of us are still drawing after the second draw, you might just decide to stay pat and sell your hand as a Badugi because you know that your tri will never win a showdown. But, because I am aware that players routinely use this play, a near perfect to perfect tri is rarely folding in this spot.

But, let's say you have a nut tri and you patted--why wouldn't your opponent want to draw? The only time he wouldn't draw is if he somehow had this strong read and knew that you were patting w/just a tri...then he decides to pat his tri...and if/when you bet? Then he raises. And if you check(cause you think he's pat)? then he bets; reason being, he knows his tri is no good on its own and thinks he'll stand a greater chance to win the pot by patting/bluffing vs. drawing and...

As to the question from the OP: I'm always drawing here. Don't listen to them.

I can think of a situation where I want to pat ABC vs a loose player who pats often and a third man. If he's patting hands like K9 badugi and the third man is drawing, then by patting and repping I can get the King to fold (or break to worse) and then I have manufactured the best showdown hand.

That's a specific utility and doesn't come up often enough to be a standard line, but I can imagine doing it. In a normal d1 v d1 scenario I can't see a reason not to draw. Maybe you stop a few bluffs by patting. It's not like your hand gets any weaker by drawing, so if you have to show down your hand will be at least as good as if you had patted.

Yes, though this is only when you pat on 2nd, and only after that player sees you patting that street, to then break on 3rd if oop, or after you if on 2nd.
Otherwise you could just raise it anyway, trying to get the to break/fold, with the intention to still draw the subsequent streets, which ofc isn't the same as actually patting it.

On 3rd, if your opponent draws and you pat, you won't get any river action.

So a fun thing to do with position, is to pat twice, bet twice, and then break on third. To some opponents, this is equivalent to catnip and they will always bet or check raise when they see you break.

there was no 8 game

uh oh, things just got a little more interesting

Yes, there was; unless you consider hold 'em a game -- then it was 10-game.

idk wtf this is lol

This was last year. I never thought to make a thread about it at the time but the recent Badugi threads here reminded me.

Is this serious? I can never tell anymore with you. Ofc it was 10-game.

My bad. I wasn't serious. I thought I'd convert the 10-game into 8-game by disenfranchising NLHE and LHE, and then everybody would be happy.

I don't imagine pulling this off unless people view you as an idiot.

That's strange, for some unknown reason I always pull it off.