in a 6 max table

if you are on the button and get dealt KQ95

would you open up if no one has entered?

If you do should you stay pat and pay attention to the number of draws and act accordingly?

aim for a smaller spade?

Of course you open any dealt badugi on the button.

You have to be aware though that your hand can't take any heat. You can't break though as any hand that draws and gets there was drawing to a better hand than you, discarding 2 and drawing to the 95 in the face of aggression may well have you drawing dead.

I play every game : FOLD!

I hate K high badugis, which lead to the following horrible error in live 40 mix game.

BarryG opens in HJ, I 3b K532 badugi, Barry calls. He takes 2 and late in session and tired, I break out of habit.

Normally I would draw to a strong 3 card rather than pat a very weak badugi vs. 1 card draws, especially if against more than one opponent. I want to make a big hand and win extra bets, and probably can even win unimproved with my 3 card. But in this hand a K high is a strong favorite over any 2 card draw, and have good redraw if I'm forced to break after first draw.

So play your hands as appropriate for your situation, sometimes K badugis are playable, even if many times they aren't.

If you open KQ95 on button, the BB defends and draws 2, you are in good shape. If they draw 1, you are still roughly 50-50 with position on your side. If instead the SB 3b and BB 4b, strongly consider folding, if you call and it goes pat-pat, draw 3.

In my hand, my terrible mistake leads to BarryG making 123 and torturing me.

Yeah you lost the hand that time but it doesn't seem like a terrible mistake to me. You obviously know the odds better than I do but 235 should be a strong favorite over two card A2 as well, right?

But now you have better implied odds and playability. Your tri is probably too good to snow, but he would respect the strength of your badugi more after drawing one as opposed to the one you are initially dealt. (He knows that over half of initial badugis are K or Q high)

He could have ended up winning with a Q badugi and you would be talking about your terrible mistake to not break...

This is kind of like breaking a 97 in TDL, right?

IMO you open 100% of time and stand pat. Keep on betting and stand pat.

The only time you will draw is if someone stands pat. In that case, I would draw two. I think you are drawing live most of the time as I think most would c/r with an 94 or better badugi.

yah im just now learning its best to open and bet any badugi and just bet bet bet. maybe its the players im against but they can never seem to get a badugi at showdown even after drawing only 1.

Here is a test i did where i raised pre and bluffed to the very end against 4 other people...maybe i just got lucky though? although after consideration one player probably had the others card and that player had the other ones card and so on and so on: they were all drawing dead i suppose lol


81565460-51 - Suva
Badugi Limit $0.25/$0.50 Badugi
Monday 23 Feb 2015 2:59:33 PM
1: xx
2: xxx
3: xxx
4: xxxx
5: hero (Dealer)
*** BLINDS ***
xx Posts Small Blind $0.10
xxx Posts Big Blind $0.25
*** PRE FIRST DRAW ***
hero Hole Cards: 5c,2d,2h,6c
xxx Raises $0.50
xx Folds
hero Raises $0.75
xxx Raises $1.00
xxx Calls $0.75
xxx Calls $0.50
hero Calls $0.25
*** FIRST DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 5c,2d,2h,6c
xxx Draws (1)
xxx Draws (2)
xxx Draws (1)
hero Draws (0)
*** POST FIRST DRAW ***
xx Checks
xx Checks
xx Checks
hero Bet $0.25
xx Calls $0.25
xx Calls $0.25
xx Calls $0.25
*** SECOND DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 5c,2d,2h,6c
xx Draws (1)
xx Draws (1)
xx Draws (1)
hero Draws (0)
*** POST SECOND DRAW ***
xx Checks
xx Checks
xx Checks
hero Bet $0.50
xx Calls $0.50
xx Calls $0.50
xx Calls $0.50
*** THIRD DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 5c,2d,2h,6c
xx Draws (1)
xx Draws (1)
xx Draws (1)
hero Draws (0)
*** POST THIRD DRAW ***
xx Checks
xx Checks
xx Checks
hero Bet $0.50
xx Folds
xx Folds
xx Folds
*** END OF FOLDED GAME ***
HERO won $6.84 from Pot 1
HERO had $0.50 returned from uncalled Pot 2
*** END OF GAME ***

in this hand we capped all the way to showdown...against a random i was thinking well maybe he just has a 7 or something similar. didnt think it was the nuts

81565460-76 - Suva
Badugi Limit $0.25/$0.50 Badugi
Monday 23 Feb 2015 3:17:14 PM
1: xx
2: villain
3: xx
4: xx(Dealer)
5: xx(sitting out)
6: hero
*** BLINDS ***
hero Posts Small Blind $0.10
villain Posts Big Blind $0.25
*** PRE FIRST DRAW ***
hero Hole Cards: 6c,Ac,6s,2d
villain Raises $0.50
xx Folds
xx Folds
hero Calls $0.40
xx Calls $0.25
*** FIRST DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 4h,Ac,6s,2d
hero Draws (1)
xx Draws (3)
villain Draws (1)
*** POST FIRST DRAW ***
hero Bet $0.25
xx Folds
villain Raises $0.50
hero Raises $0.75
villain Raises $1.00
hero Calls $0.25
*** SECOND DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 4h,Ac,6s,2d
hero Draws (0)
villain Draws (1)
*** POST SECOND DRAW ***
hero Bet $0.50
villain Raises $1.00
hero Raises $1.50
villain Raises $2.00
hero Calls $0.50
*** THIRD DRAW ***
hero Drawn Cards: 4h,Ac,6s,2d
hero Draws (0)
villain Draws (0)
*** POST THIRD DRAW ***
hero Bet $0.50
xxx: eek
villain Raises $1.00
hero Raises $1.50
villain Raises $2.00
hero Calls $0.50
*** SHOWDOWN ***
hero Mucked 4h,Ac,6s,2d
villain Shows 3d,2c,4s,Ah
*** END OF GAME ***
villain won $11.34 from Pot 1 with Badugi, 4-3-2-A

this game is the nuts.. that hand is no big deal i got back to profit land like 5 minutes after that hand

fold pre, yes you got lucky...all 3 missing badugis is probably around 12.5%. But your play will work more than that as somewhere along the line someone may have tossed a bad badugi. And on the river someone can also fold bad badugis.

But still don't think this play works nearly as often.

Target one for a snow. And it's normally more believable if you do it after drawing 1. On average your badugis will be stronger

yah i guess that play was just the inner degen in me im amazed no one called the last bet since they were getting good odds

Yes I think you should open KQ95 on the button, but if anyone has entered (even limping) it's best to fold it. The nice thing about the hand is that it's really easy to play. Pat and bet the whole way, and fold instantly to any aggression. You don't have to worry about being bluffed off your terrible badugis. (By the way, if you get check-raised, does anybody 3-bet with this hand?)
Occasionally he'll just call and pat in front of you. He's probably got something like a jack in that case, so go for the Hail Mary and draw two then, as pipes said.

DesertCat - I can't believe breaking K532 is a terrible mistake, or indeed a mistake at all. I agree totally with pipes. But if you're playing mixed games with Barry Greenstein, I guess you know what you're doing.

Khrage: for the snow hand, it was good that you picked low cards (i.e. blockers) to snow with. They aren't nearly as important as in triple draw, but they still have some value. But four-way... yeah you got lucky here. What site is this? It's not often in the Stars micro game that you see someone cap pre without a badugi (even though it's sometimes correct), so I'd be making a note of that. As soon as it goes four-way, I'm drawing two here.

Seeing bunch of people fold on the end getting double-figure odds is a common occurrence (I'd say it's a feature of badugi). After all, they only beat a bluff, and your bluff line is reasonably unusual.

With the 642A hand you might want to consider slowing down on the river. As soon as he caps the turn, his hand is looking kind of sixy at worst, maybe like a good seven. Two bets on the river are probably enough. It's extremely opponent dependent though.

I'd stop right here, if not one raise earlier. Villain probably broke a mediocre badugi on the 2nd draw, so you're in trouble when he pats a hand and wants to raise a bunch. The only reason I'd consider betting the river is that bad badugi players put in way too much action with 6's 7's and even 8's and you beat almost all of them.

I'd also 3-bet pre.

I don't think this is that bad. By default I think I'd break K532 but probably pat K543. My vague recollection is that Barry plays a notch or two tighter than most so I would be more inclined to pat against him specifically and see if he'll make a nitty fold.

I wasn't being results oriented. K532 is about a 62%/48% favorite to A2 over 3 draws. That's a lot of raw equity in itself, but think about what happens after first draw. Either he calls and takes 1 or 2 cards, or checkraise pats.

About 22% of time he takes 2, I'm now roughly a 77% favorite over 2 draws.

About 70% of time he takes 1, I'm still over 60% favorite.

About 9% of time he can checkraise-pat, and assuming the average hand he'd do that with is a Ten Badugi (mathematically a Jack but assume he's not checkraise patting Kings), I'm a 25% - 75% dog breaking and drawing twice.

So after one draw my blended (raw) equity patting the King is still over 60%. Obviously I lose 1 extra small bet in the 9% scenario, and an extra big bet on after 2 draws when he makes his hand there, and face a tough river bet occasionally. But while i haven't calculated the rest of the decision tree, I don't think my RIO is enough to eliminate the equity edge I'm building along the way.

In the actual hand he was able to draw 2 twice, then checkraise me with a naked A23 because I was drawing 1, so drawing 1 has its RIO as well. But given my clean draw underneath Galts Motor tells me I was a slightly bigger favorite (64%) breaking than patting over 3 draws so maybe my break was good in this specific hand. But my Tri isn't a "snow able" hand in this spot or even bet for value vs. another Tri, it's far too easy for opponent to make a better 3 card since they almost always start with better 2 card (A2 makes better 3 card about 25% over 3 draws).

Running more sims tells me that

632 & K632 vs. A2 have similar equity, but it's easy for him to make better 3 card so it's not clear to me that patting is worse. I think I have to run the decision trees and see how often he makes a 3 card he can play aggressively.

The worse his 3 card is the better our equity, that should be obvious but it may not be obvious how much it helps. K532 vs A4 is 66% over three draws, 4% is a lot, breaking is still higher tho, 67%. Using A2-A4,32, both patting/breaking come in at 65%.

Running the trees for unbreakable Kings is far simpler, I think they should have good equity HU vs 2 cards cause of their easy playability and paradoxical lack of RIO. For example, you don't have to pay off 2 big bets when checkraised after first draw and opponent pats. So if your predraw raw equity is over 50-50, 20% of your opponents equity gets them only 2 big bets out of you (1.5 if you can fold to flop raise) instead of 2.5 big bets.

you'r actually much better than 77% when accounting for times he check folds in pat-2 spot (vs folding 0% in 2-1 spot)

I'm so hungover right now so I can't go through all of this now. But a few follow-ups here.

What is hot/cold 532 vs A2?

Yes, In the actually hand he hit one of his 6 outs to go ahead of your tri while you missed your 9 for a badugi. That was unlucky. As this shows he could have easily c/r'd you when you had him crushed. That's implied odds too.

Right.

Also right.

Yea, I think the answer is a bit more complex than I thought. Unfortunately I just don't have time to do it right now.

I think he's saying it's 64/36, as opposed to 62/38 when you keep the king.

He has 6 outs twice though, so it's basically 12.

Empirically you're quite likely to end up with a strong tri when you start with A2, and that's one reason why you might consider keeping the king. The other reason is fold equity.

I still prefer breaking though, mainly because of all those times you make a strong, 3-bettable badugi. And you'll back into a better 3-card sometimes too.