Badugi

Popular in South Korea, Badugi is a version of triple draw, lowball poker with four cards. The goal is to have one card in each suit, with no pairs. If you happen to hold four different cards of four different suits, then congrats! You are holding a Badugi!

Badugi uses essentially the same blind structure as other poker games offered at iHoldem.

The game begins once each player has been dealt four cards. Action starts with player left of the big blind, and then continuing clockwise.

At this point, players have 3 options: fold their hand, call the big blind, or raise. Once all the players have made their plays, the remaining players can then discard any number of cards for an equal number of new cards. Alternatively, a player can keep all the cards they have.

There are then a second and third rounds of betting, each of which are followed by a draw.

Players can still draw cards in later rounds in an attempt to improve their hands. Should the deck run out of cards during any round of drawing, then the previously discarded cards from the prior drawing rounds will be shuffled and used for future draws.

Once the final draw is complete, there is a fourth final round of betting. This is in turn followed by the showdown.

Whichever player has the lowest badugi at the showdown wins the pot. The best possible hand is A-2-3-4 of all different suits.

Should no player have a badugi (meaning they have a pair or they have 2 cards of the same suit) then one card of their pair or same suit no longer counts, so the player with the best three or two card hand wins. So 4-6-10-K beats A-4-5-5 and 5-7-7-9 beats A-A-4-4.