I'm completely new to Badugi coming from texas hold'em and I'm trying to get my head around key concepts from a 1st principles approach.
The first concept I've decided to focus on is made vs drawing hands. I've put together a post 1st betting round fake example to focus my thoughts. Obviously 1st betting round is not realistic but is the logic thereafter correct?
And the general take home message being to bet made hands every street when you know villain is drawing?
...and mostly call if draw has equity to call?
I imagine you can both get additional value when you hit and some % of time turn the hand into a semi-bluff but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Finally (not really part of post but just in case anyone want to point me in the right direction / provide roadmap) what key strategy ideas form part of badugi play?
Quote:
Drawing Hands Versus Made Hands
How does a made hand like K♥J♦8♣7♠ fair against a good draw like A♥2♦3♣3♠ in a heads up situation?
Well if we discard 3♠ then we are looking to draw one of the following spade cards: 4♠, 5♠, 6♠, 7♠, 8♠, 9♠, T♠, J♠, Q♠, K♠. So with 10 outs over 3 streets we have 51% chance to make our draw and win. Of course if the king high badugi bets we need to make sure we have the right odds to call.
Suppose for the sake of argument we have A♥2♦3♣3♠ on the button and raise to 2BB and the big blind calls with K♥J♦8♣7♠. There’s 4.5BB in the pot and the big blind pats and we draw 1. If we hit, which we do 21% of the time, we have won the hand and any bets made will be ours.
Strategy 0: Made hand checks down, as does we (draw)
In this scenario we expect to win 10% of a big blind on average:
(0.51)(+4.5BB) +(0.49)(-4.5BB) =2.30BB -2.21BB = 0.09BB
Strategy 1: Made hand bets every street, we (draw) call or fold
Suppose the big blind bets every time on this second round of betting after the first draw. We face a bet of 1BB with a pot of 4.5BB. So we require 18.2% direct equity to call.
0.182 =1/(1+4.5)
With 10 outs and 48 cards remaining in the deck our chance to hit on the next draw is 21%. More than enough equity to call. The pot is now 6.5BB. The big blind pats and if we missed previously we would again draw 1. If the big blind bets our pot odds are now 23.5%.
0.235 =2/(2+6.5)
Ah! Now we’re behind and do not have direct equity to call. Note however we expect another bet so we have implied odds of 19.0%. So we call
0.190 =2/(2+8.5)
The fourth betting round is the easiest. We call (in reality we would normally raise) if we hit and fold otherwise.
It’s more complicated but let’s calculate our EV
(0.21)(+5.5BB) +(0.79)((0.21)(+8.5BB) +(0.79)((0.21)(+12.5BB) +(0.79)(-10.5BB))) =
(0.21)(+5.5BB) +(0.166)(+8.5BB) +(0.131)(+12.5BB) +(0.493)(-10.5BB) =
1.16BB +1.41BB +1.64BB -5.18BB =
-1.21BB
So we’re losing in this scenario by 1.2BB but not as much as giving up and folding (losing the pot of 4.5BB).
