For example in Badeucy:

If I have a hand like 9 7 5 3 2

do I get rid of the 9 which ruins my badeucy for a potential scoop and improvement or brick?

Basically Im wondering what is best line in these games....

I'm pretty sure it depends completely on the situation.

your best line is probably to raise pre

Against most opponents IME keeping the 9 is a good way to get freerolled

Ditching both the 9 and the 7 seems the most reasonable option vs many opponents.

its not easy to make an 8/8

Care to clarify this ambiguity?

This is a split pot game, we want to wn with both the best low AND the best Badugi. 7 5 3 2 gives us a really good 2-7 draw, but what do we do if we catch the 8? Our hand is pretty weak, we will frequently be calling down for 1/2 the pot - and sometimes still lose that half. Our Badugi draw is really solid, but a one card draw to a 7 Badugi gives us only 3 outs to catch - but then we still need to draw for the 2-7 side if we catch the 7, or to an 8 there are only 4 outs (same 2-7 issue with the 7 here of course). Luckily we will sometimes win the Badugi 1/2 with just 235x, but to be safe lets assume we need to make that Badugi to win. An 8 gives us a rough 2-7 hand and also a rough Badugi, and there are only 3 outs to catch the 86or the 4. Knowing that both our Badugi and 2-7 draws have issues, there is actually great merit to drawing two cards on multiple streets instead of drawing 1 - drawing two increases variance, but it also increases probability we will catch the gin cards needed to scoop.

The ambiguity was in the phrase 'many opponents'.

Does this mean against several opponents? (in this case, would you draw two cards vs 3 opponents? 4 opponents? 5+?)
Or does this mean that against many opponent types, we should draw 2. Against some specific opponent types, we keep the pat 7/9.

Preflop, HU a 9/9 is a favorite to scoop vs a 2cd but only breaks even vs two 2cd opponents. Your effort on the first two streets should be to get the pot HU. I would not play this hand passively from any position.

Once you see what draws you're against you can decide how to play the next streets, but your intention should be to get the pot HU, not get to showdown. Drawing two reflexively preflop would be setting fire to your scoop equity if you're HU or villains are drawing more than one card.

I wouldn't consider the second nut 2 card and #11 a pretty weak hand. Its gonna scoop far more than you think. Obviously we're not crazy about it if somebody is jamming versus us, but its still pretty strong.

I’m keeping 7532 with the 532 badugi and drawing one regardless of the action. Let’s say you keep 532 and draws 2, if you drew a non badugi 7 on the first draw you’re gonna keep it. I’m not saying that’s why you keep the 7 pre draw, but it’s still a premium hand with 1 out to nut nut.

A couple months ago in a game, I was UTG or BB with 7532 (or 7432), but my hand was inferior where I had like a 732 badugi, pre draw it got 4 bet back to me, and I was deciding between 5b or flatting. I ended up flatting and it was 5 or 6 handed before first draw. I ended up making a wheel (no badugi) after second draw and raised it to 5 bets vs. 85432 no badugi (he made no sense imo to push back like that). A bad badugi was along for the 3 – way pot at that point (I wouldn't have raised HU), and ended up chopping with me.

tldr: 7532 with 532 badugi is a premium starting hand imo, and I see no reason to ditch the 7 to draw 2.

I just realized my post was a bit off topic.. Regarding the 9, I think it should be ditched, especially oop in multiway pots. HU in position is the only situation where I can see myself patting. Even then, I tend to draw 1 with 7532, maybe even if my opponent draws 2, not sure though. I did pat an 8, 8 pre draw in badacey once, 3 handed, where I was oop. Ended up chopping, but I should've drew 2 that time.

If these are true then my opponents have been running VERY hot over a pretty large sample.

As for chucking the seven... I honestly wonder if it's not read dependent. I think in a multi-way pot I would keep it, but I'm not holding an 8 i catch unless it's the 8 I need for dugi. But I'm not sure that's right.

Really? Looks like I've been playing it wrong. But seems like ditching both 9 and 7 is like throwing away gold though....

Anyone else wanna chime.... Badeucy and Badacey ringers and long time players?

I almost always keep the 7. There's more to consider than just the hands you can make. The amount of cards you draw influences your fold equity and how much it can cost to see the hand through.

Say drawing one as opposed to 2 increases your fold equity by 20-40%. Seems worth it.

Heads up I think I keep the 9.

The following is very obvious, but just thought I’d mention it. One more comment about drawing 1 vs. drawing 2. A read can be made usually as follows for drawing 1. If someone draws 1 and never stops betting / raising, then he likely already has a badugi made (maybe a good one if he's raising), and just trying to back into a low by drawing 1. If he stops betting / raising, say after first or second draw, then he likely didn’t have a badugi to start and was just trying to make either a badugi or low by drawing 1 (e.g. started with something like 7256, with 3 card badugi, and never improved to a badugi or low).

Oh, and there’s another way to potentially play the hand. Keep the 9532 badugi and ditch the 7. The 95 bagudi is a stronger badugi hand than the 97 low low hand most of the time, and you can potentially back into a better badugi / low combo than 9 9 (e.g. 9 low 6 badugi). And say you make 96532 with a 6532 badugi after first draw, you could then ditch the 9 to draw to a better low twice. Whether you keep the 9 low 6 bagudi or ditch the 9 to draw to a better low is situation dependent of course. But say you make 98532 with a 8 badugi, then of cource you ditch the 9 to draw to an 8.

I’m not sure if the above approach has merits over ditching both 97 and just draw with 532.

You could also argue that the above approach has no advantage to keeping 7532 and ditching the 9, because if you draw a 6 or 8 badugi after keeping 9532, then you obviously wish that you kept 7532 instead. But the flip side is, if you miss all your draws with 7532, you’re left with nothing, whereas if you missed all your draws with 9532, you at least have a badugi (albeit a susceptible one).

Point is, there are really four ways to play the hand:
1. Pat and bet / raise.
2. Ditch the 97.
3. Ditch the 9.
4. Ditch the 7.

I think in a vacuum, I tend to ditch the 9 and keep the 7532 as I stated in my first post, but it’s certainly an interesting scenario that comes up sometimes, and because of the ambiguous nature of hands in split - pot draw games, it’s a scenario where winning players can make better decisions than the rest.

Yes, the first point, I meant in multiway points.

What. Why do you have it that way round? Seems the opposite to me. You have a greater chance of getting scooped like that in a multiway pot.

In straight Badugi and Triple Draw you would be correct. In split pot game where the goal is to hog the pot, you need to make adjustments. I've done excessive amounts of equity runs, I know the mathematics of this game fairly well but there is still room for improvement (my memory for figures isn't the greatest). Its true that my post was not instinctual, but it is founded in maths.

Isn't it kind of awesome that not a single person in this thread has discussed equity and has instead shot from the hip? Everyone thinks their play is right even though they have no data to back up their instincts, yet so frequently its actually not a mathematically sound strategy. Thats precisely why this is such a great game to include in a mix. Those who spend the time to work on the complex problems and think heavily about ranges in draw games have a significant edge.

For what its worth, the early 2+2 Other Poker regs (most of which have left this forum long ago) broke down this game years ago, its not a new subject matter. Anyone willing to do the research can dig up these old topics to find the gold. I'm sure that would help quite a few of you reading this thread, the game really hasn't evolved that much so there is still great value in those old posts if you can find them.

Oh and I had meant to say in the OP that it is down to 2 or 1 draw what do you do? Not right away in the hand with 3 draws.

That seems pretty unfairly critical of everyone. Especially when your post showed no more maths than anyone else's post did.
All your post stated was basically that we have 3-4 outs at a strong badugi, and said that there is merit to drawing 2, as that gives us a greater chance of scooping, all of which was either obvious, or already said or implied.
Some proper maths would be welcomed. I would be very interested if you are actually able to show the actual likelihood of scooping, getting scooped and getting half, when discarding either 0, 1 or 2 cards, and against 1-3 opponents. I don't know of any programs that would produce any good badeucey/badacey sims.

Ken Lo did some simulations in his book that shows that keeping the 7 is a few points higher in EV.

Not sure how it was done but I don't care because it matches what I thought was instinctually correct.

The object of the game is to scoop. That is correct. But it also follows that a close second goal is to avoid being scooped. Keeping the 7 dramatically increases the odds against being scooped.

Also keeping the 7 helps out in situations that are not as easy to simulate using hot and cold. It dramatically increases fold equity and you can often bluff out bad badugis on the river.

As I said, these calculations were debated and discussed ages ago in the Other Poker forum, probably back in 2006-2008 but the exact time frame is a blur in my mind now. Your free to find the old posts and review them, or do the calls yourself - either way I'm sure a student of the game such as yourself would benefit. Back then nobody new what to do, I did my research and shared my assumptions, and in the process got schooled by others who corrected my mistakes - which I am grateful for. I used to shoot from the hip, then others who were more knowledgeable than me made me realize that what I think instinctually does't matter unless I can back it up with facts and figures... this was a a real awaking for me, and I certainly appreciated the hard lesson I learned from that experience.

So long story short, the goal of my post was to help others to stop assuming (and there were numerous assortative beliefs in this thread, none of which matched each other's assumptions on how to play the hand) - and instead start doing the research to back up your assumptions so you can state without a doubt what the correct default line to take is. Its not being critical, in reality I am doing nothing more than helping others to help themselves. The answers are available to anyone who is willing to devote the time and effort with some knowledge of combinatorics from scratch as I had to do it, or with the use of tools such as Troutulator or Galt's Motor and a spreadsheet to combine high and low equities of specific hand vs hand situations to aim for general results faster.


Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, combined extensive use of range simulation tools for Badugi and Triple Draw can accomplish this goal quicker than any other tool I can think of... or Perhaps Desert Cat will someday add this into Galt's Motor so the less mathematically inclined can run sims on their iPhones while sitting at the table. And then there is the old school way, the method I had to use to break down Badugi, running pure combinatorics across the spreadsheets without the use of a third party tool. Of course if your really good, and I am not, you could always code your own sims in Objective C - but thats getting a little silly ;-) Hope my post helps, for modern draw games it still feels like 1995 when modern hold'em theory was known but just a handful of players while everyone else followed each other's uneducated assumptions. Break the mold! Beat the game! Work hard!

PS: I have never heard of Ken Lo until this thread, I'll check his work out someday and review it here if I get the chance.

Maybee I'm just shooting from the hip or Maybe I have done lots of equity calculations but decide not to get to detailed in badeuxy discussion as basically half of my online action is heads up badeucy, and the vast majority of it is all against people that post/lurk here.

My claims that 2-3-5/#11 is going to scoop a lot is only based on how often I see it scoop after playing the game basically everyday for a few years. I'm sure different games have different results but Can only comment on the mid-hi stakes games I've played in.


Also while the advise you give for figuring out baduecy is great and helpful, the other way is to simply play as much badeucy as possible and figure out what works and what wins. I'm sure there are lots of people better at the game than myself, but I would be shocked if there is many/ if any people that have played more hands of it than I have in the last year.

So while excel can only get you so far it can't tell you how to adjust for opponents tendancies and mistakes and what exploitive adjustments you can make to have the highest profit against that.

For example: Maybee we have slightly higher EV drawing 2 than patting 9-9 but this so based on assumptions vs our opponents. If they quick pat J and ten badugis for example, our excel calculations won't account for this while experience will


Take this hand for example. Maybee if we decide to break we figure out the average hand we make is slightly better than a 9/9, that doesn't mean we should necessarily break. When we fast lay here people generally assign us a range of made deuce hands and 3 cards and play accordingly. If they will call the last draw with a three card 6 or 7 (which they do at s high frequency) and pay off on the end with any 3 card 6 or better then it's extremely liekly that patting 9-9 will have a higher expectation than drawing to a slightly better 8-8