How to Play Badeucy

The rules in seven ideas

Two games at once, and you need both pages to read this one: Badugi for the four-card half and 2-7 Triple Draw for the five-card one. The twist is the ace, and it is worth reading twice.

1. One pot, two games. Half goes to the best badugi and half to the best deuce-to-seven low. Winning both is a scoop, and it is worth twice as much as taking one.

2. Five cards, two hands out of them. The 2-7 half uses all five. The badugi half uses the best four — four different ranks in four different suits, exactly as in Badugi.

3. There is no qualifier on the badugi half. You do not need a four-card badugi to win it. The best badugi at the table takes that half even if it only plays three cards — which, with everyone drawing at the same four suits, happens more often than you would think.

4. Aces are high in both halves. This is the whole game. The 2-7 half treats the ace as high because deuce-to-seven always does — and in Badeucy the badugi half follows it, so the ace is the worst card on the table twice over.

5. So the best badugi is 2-3-4-5, not A-2-3-4. If you have played Badugi, this is the single thing most likely to cost you a pot. The ace does not help either half.

6. The best 2-7 hand is 7-5-4-3-2. Same as always: no straight, no flush, no pair, and it skips the six because 7-6-5-4-3 would be a straight.

7. Three draws. Deal, then three chances to swap, with a betting round before the first and after each one. Taking none is standing pat — and here it can mean you are pat in one half and drawing dead in the other.

Try it — which hand wins the badugi half?

How the betting works

The same structure as 2-7 Triple Draw: blinds, three draws, and four betting rounds — one on the deal and one after each draw. Played fixed limit, so bets come in two sizes with raises capped.

Frequently asked questions

Terms to know