I'm totally new to Badugi. One question I have thought of is based around the following situation:

I am in the big blind, I have something like 3 9 Q K. I have got two of a different suit there. But the question is, do I want to discard 3 and try to catch lucky and keep my lowest card, or do I keep my dodgy card of the other suit? In this situation, what is the highest second card I should be keeping?

In 5 card draw, I once read an article related to drawing for free in the big blind. If the game is no limit or pot limit, you will tend to be better off drawing at the best possible hand you can make from your starting hand. For example, you have a baby pair and three to a straight flush, not even connected, such as 44KQ9. The article suggests that the optimal drawing strategy would be to dump the lowly fours and go for something with those 3 other cards which have potential for a big hand however unlikely it is to make it. It said this was the best thing to do because you have the implied odds to do it. If it was fixed limit, it said you would keep your low pair and either ditch the other three, or perhaps keep your top card and try to make the highest two pair with that.

How does this relate to Badugi? Well I am wondering that like in 5 card draw, does the drawing strategy when checking for free before all the draws change based on whether the game is pot limit, no limit or fixed limit? If so, how?

TIA.

My amateur guess is that I'd draw three in every situation. If you draw to 39, you are only winning if you both 1) make a badugi and 2) have it hold up. I don't think your odds of making a badugi are much worse if you just draw to the 3, and you may not even have to make one to win. I'm not sure what my cutoff on keeping 3X is; it depends on my mood.

I definitely don't know enough to give a good answer to the more general question.

The more shorthanded it is, the more likely you should be to draw fewer cards, because it increases the chance of getting a free second draw. As it gets more multiway, tend to draw at sevens or better, but in some cases you should draw one rough rather than three smooth. (e.g. draw 1 to 983x)

even HU (vs a BTN limper for example) you'd be drawing to the naked 3 here. You would possibly be drawing to 83 if you had an 8 instead of a 9 HU. If you get to play your hand as 983, you're probably better off raising predraw and playing it strongly with the intent of snowing on 2nd or 3rd draw if you miss, to mix with your strong 3-card hands.

The point of drawing smooth at badugi is not so much that you fear that a rough badugi would not hold, but much more that drawing smooth dramatically increases your chance to make the best 3-card hand. Your odds to hit a badugi drawing 3 to a 3 are seriously worse than drawing 1 to say, to a rough hand btw.

It's only when you are up against a strong 3-card or a bad badugi that drawing 1 to a mediocre hand is a lot better than drawing 3 smooth.