Rules of Poker · Chapter 63 · 2026 edition
Badugi is a four-card triple-draw lowball game with its own way of reading hands. You want four cards that are all different ranks and all different suits, as low as possible. A hand like that is called a badugi, and any badugi beats any hand that isn't one. The game's origins are disputed (pagat.com records Korean, Canadian and American accounts), and it became known in the United States around 2004.
The procedure is close to 2-7 Triple Draw (2-7 Single and Triple Draw), so this chapter points there for what is shared. The Badugi ranking is covered in full in Hand rankings; the rules here give the parts that settle most table arguments.
Badugi uses one 52-card deck with no joker. pagat.com gives two to eight players. Because each hand holds only four cards, a full table uses fewer cards than a five-card draw game, but with three draws the discards may still need reshuffling (63.7).
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Players, cards and hand ranking".
Badugi is dealt with a button and blinds: the player to the button's left posts the small blind and the next player the big blind, normally twice the small blind. Heads-up, the button posts the small blind (Blinds, antes and bring-ins).
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Deal and blinds"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Forced Money".
The dealer deals four cards to each player, one at a time, face down, clockwise, starting left of the button. Misdeals follow The deal and misdeals.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Deal and blinds".
Badugi goes bet, draw, bet, draw, bet, draw, bet, then the showdown, the same shape as triple draw (61.6). The first betting round starts with the player to the left of the big blind; every later round starts with the first player still in to the left of the button.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Betting structure"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Dealing Procedure".
pagat.com lists three structures:
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Betting structure"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Dealing Procedure"; PokerNews, Badugi rules.
At each draw, starting with the first player still in to the left of the button, each player throws away any number of cards from none to four and is dealt the same number. Keeping all four is standing pat. Stating and changing your number, and asking how many an opponent took, work as in 60.9 and 61.18.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Drawing and discards"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Dealing Procedure".
pagat.com's Badugi page says nothing about the deck running out, and no Badugi-specific rule was found. Card rooms reshuffle the discards as in other triple-draw games (61.12).
Source: pagat.com, Badugi; N.J.A.C. 13:69F-14.12B(f), Triple draw low ball, applied by common practice.
Your hand is the largest group of your cards with no two of the same suit and no two of the same rank. A four-card hand beats any three-card hand, a three-card hand beats any two-card hand, and so on, whatever the ranks. K-Q-J-10 in four suits beats A-2-3 in three suits.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Players, cards and hand ranking"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Evaluating the Showdown".
Between two hands with the same number of cards, the one with the lower highest card wins; if those tie, compare the next card down, and so on. The ace is low. So 8-7-5-4 beats 9-4-3-2, and the three-card 7-4-2 beats 7-5-A. Suits never break a tie: hands of the same ranks split the pot.
Some beginner guides get this backward. PokerNews' Badugi page tells readers to compare the lowest card first, which would make 9-7-6-2 beat 6-5-4-3; under pagat.com, BARGE and card-room practice, 6-5-4-3 wins, because 6 is lower than 9.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Players, cards and hand ranking"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Evaluating the Showdown"; PokerNews, Badugi rules.
Cards that repeat a suit or a rank can't all play; you drop enough of them to leave a legal group. What counts is the best group the four cards allow, not simply dropping the higher duplicate. With the ten of hearts, eight of spades, ten of diamonds and queen of hearts, dropping the queen (the higher heart) and one ten leaves only 10-8. Keeping the queen of hearts, ten of diamonds and eight of spades makes the three-card Q-10-8, which is the hand, because three cards beat two.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Players, cards and hand ranking"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Evaluating the Showdown".
The best possible Badugi hand is ace, 2, 3 and 4, one of each suit; pagat.com notes it is sometimes called the wheel. The worst is four kings, which play as a single king.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Players, cards and hand ranking"; BARGE rulebook, Badugi, "Evaluating the Showdown".
At the showdown each player shows all four cards, even if only two or three of them play, so everyone can see which group counts. The last player to bet or raise shows first; if everyone checked, the first player still in to the left of the button does. The general showdown rules are Showdown.
Source: pagat.com, Badugi, "Showdown".
No Badugi rulebook we found deals with a wrong number of cards. The usual answer comes from lowball: a hand with the wrong number of cards before any action may be corrected, but after the last draw a hand with more or fewer than four cards is fouled and can't win.
Source: common card-room practice, by analogy with Robert's Rules of Poker v11, Section 11, "Lowball" rule 12.
Both are five-card triple-draw games where the pot is split between a five-card lowball hand and the best four-card badugi chosen from the same five cards:
Spellings vary. BARGE writes "Badeucy" and "Badacey"; Maryland's draft regulation and pagat.com write "Badeucey"; PokerNews' account of the WSOP's 2014 list gives "badacy."
Source: BARGE rulebook, Badeucy; BARGE rulebook, Badacey; COMAR 36.05.06.21 L (Maryland, 2015 draft); pagat.com, Triple Draw; PokerNews, Your guide to the inaugural WSOP Dealer's Choice event (2014).
A home variant pagat.com records: before the deal, the players set a qualifying hand, for example a badugi with no card above 9. If nobody qualifies at the showdown, the pot stays and the cards are dealt again, sometimes with the qualifier loosened.
Source: pagat.com, Progressive Badugi.
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