If you feel like you’ve played Texas Hold’em poker online a few too many times, why not take a break and spice up your poker gaming with something new, like Badugi Poker? This four card game is a variation of triple draw lowball poker, and needs some slightly different poker strategies to succeed.

In Badugi Poker, you use the usual traditional betting structure, but the hand rankings differ from those of regular poker.

Badugi Poker starts with each player being given four cards face down. The betting starts to the left of the big blind, and is followed by three consecutive drawing rounds, with a betting round between each. After the final betting round, if there are two or more players left, a showdown determines who wins the pot.

In this game of Poker, hands are called “rainbow hands” because they always consist of cards of different suits and different ranks. When the drawing rounds are finished, each player discards any paired or suited cards from his hand, leaving only cards of different suits and ranks. Any four card hand beats any three card hand, any three card hand beats any two card hand, and so on. A four card hand is referred to as “A Badugi”.

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If two or more players have the same number of cards remaining the winner is determined to be the person who has the lowest card, with aces being low. If the lowest cards in each hand are equal value, the next lowest card is compared, and so on. The best possible hand is 4-3-2-Ace.

Badugi is a game for people who are patient and level headed. A good understanding of the rules and of Badugi’s hand probabilities is essential if you want to be a winning player.