I strongly believe that in badugi one should play raise or fold preflop. Exception would only be in the BB, or if there are already cold callers / limpers.

Reasoning:

1. Knock out other players, play HU IP. Badugi isn't a game where you want to invite additional players. Most of the time, you will not hit your draw. Best to play isolate, play IP, create dead money. This is in contrast to TD2-7, where hands values run closer and draws are easier to hit.

2.Balance. If you have a strong pat hand, you will usually want to 3b to knock out other players. If you have a VERY strong pat, it can make sense to invite others in. But this would be unbalanced, and it's a lot easier to 3b all your pat hands.

If you have a strong tri, you will also want to 3b to knock others out. If you now decide to flat inferior tris, your hand becomes face up and you lose aggression. This means less bluff equity. You could flat some strong tris... but this is unideal. Now other players behind get better odds to draw out on you. Disguising the strength of your tri also does not illicit many more mistakes from villains. The better option is to just 3b all the tris you want to play. Remember: you still have position (except in the SB), and having aggression is very useful in badugi. One downside is that you've opened yourself up to a 4b. Still, the benefits of 3bing outweigh the cons.

Agree with some of this.
Although you said: "Disguising the strength of your tri also does not illicit many more mistakes from villains. The better option is to just 3b all the tris you want to play." Which is kind of contradictory imo. When part of the reason you are also 3betting your weaker tris is to disguise its strength.

Yup

But this is basically how I feel about all draw games

Why?

What is the point of 3-betting and possibly facing a 4-bet if you are drawing the most cards you are likely given position?

Depending on the lineup -- perceived starting ranges, aggression, positional awareness -- flatting all three-card hands can be as useful as three-betting them, is just as inscrutable, and costs less when we're against a pat open. In Badugi it is much more difficult to outdraw even a weak pat hand than other lowball games, making this a bigger consideration. After one draw we'll have a better idea if we can isolate or if it's even necessary.

Sometimes re-raising is warranted but I'm not convinced it is a sound general strategy against all potential lineups.

I don't see what we gain by 3-betting a tri OTB against a solid UTG opener. If you were to play A2 OTB against a CO raise or in the SB against a BTN raise, it seems like calling would be better than 3-betting.

Everyone has gone for always doing one thing, like with sizings in NLHE MTTs and always 3-betting in LHE, except always flatting in the BB. However, it is possible to have different plays and mix it up and not be totally readable.

UTG opens, let's say he opens all 3 cards 8s or better (which isn't to unusual). You have A27, A57, 457, 456... You?

Good player opens UTG we have, 345, 236, 256, 456.....

Tilty player opens utg, pretty much any 2 card 5 or better (fairly common), somehow folded to us on button with A2, 567, A68, A27, AA33???

If either of the blinds will suffer all action with the same range as us, plus better 2-cards (also pretty common) 3-betting does nothing but give opener the chance to get value from the top of his range. This is a perfect spot to flat because the blinds will check their 2cd and weak 1cd post into the opener, who will bet almost all 1cds and we can isolate/value raise with the better part of our range and draw very live at a great price UI with the rest.

It's so hard to improve that flatting protects our whole range from villains who hand read well (ie good players) and induces incorrect continuation bets from most of his range. I can see isolating to knock-out 23, A3, A4 type 2cds but not sure that makes us more than letting villain barrel a likely weaker hand and picking a later spot to isolate and capture some dead money.

Seems like a good spot to 3bet as per OP's logic. We have a loosely-polarized range since we never have pure nothing here (we can't expect tilty loose opponent to fold), but we could have anything North of pure nothing.

For 1 and 2: My thinking is that a PF3b will knock out 2cd draws, smooth 8s/9s, 7s, and maybe even rough 6s. Get the dead money now rather than letting these hands improve.

Can see how that is contradictory.

My thinking is that slowplaying a tri has massive consequences, but overrepping a weaker tri is only slightly negative.

Overrepping a bad tri means we put in 1 or 2 extra bets when facing a pat. Keep in mind pats are rare. If we manage to go HU where both draw 1, we can always free card and commit the same number of small bets as if PFR led and we called. But we now gain a huge advantage of knocking out other 2cd draws, weak tris, and create dead money. at worst slightly negative.

If we flat a good/vulnerable tri like 345 or even A23, its a disaster when we had the best hand and let someone else in the pot outdraw on us.

Getting 4 bet by a pat really is not that big of a deal. You are only a slight dog to most of them and have position.

If someone believes that they are holding a "magical" two card like A2 and does not fold than that certainly is not a bad thing.

A2 (18%) vs A56 (36%) vs J986 (46%)

I see no reason to let a big blind holding something like 864 in for just one bet and let him spike a hand that we are drawing very slim to

I'm not sure about the games you play in, but as far as 25/50c on stars, I don't think raise/fold pre-draw with tris is optimal unless you plan on playing tight and are 3 betting for value, mostly. Light aggression in the early streets kills a lot your fold equity on later streets (imo) and investing more bets forces you to try to take down a bloated pot vs. opponents that will take your early street aggression as an indication to bluff catch the river and chase on the turn.

Actually I think the opposite is probably the case.

Well, I may just be wrong or projecting my tendencies on the 25/50c player pool, but it seems to me that, unless the player is noticeably tighter than most, light aggression encourages loose calls more often than it does tight folds. That being said, many players in these games seem to focus on making hands over making reads or plays.

When I notice that somebody seems to be playing raise/fold pre-draw, I assume they are also capable of making plays and I tend to call them down more often than the more passive/straight forward players.

Hero seems to be saying that if you get aggressive with a tri and it is believed by your opponent that you do in fact have a strong one that there is less of on incentive to call you down. Which seems correct.

But you seem to be saying that too much light aggression can ruin your image to where they don't believe you and then call you down more. Which also seems correct.

The answer seems to be that you should be aggressive but judicious in your reraises. If you are a favorite over their range you should reraise though imo

I think you need to know stuff like, if you have 236 what is the % chance you have the best hand vs a cutoff raise of someone playing any badugi, 3 card 8, or A2. And it might be more than you think. But even if you get repopped it's not so bad.

But there is a difference between playing raise/fold vs playing like a maniac. As in all games you should tighten your range vs a raise. Maybe there is less gap in this game than others but there is a gap.

Well put Scotch, thank you.

Yep


Yeah, I've actually not thought about that aspect that much, but yes I think Badugi is one of the games where that gap is smallest, if the game is short handed, like 4-5 players. As with other lowball draw games too.