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PokerStars is the biggest poker room in the world. It is also one of the only rooms where your can play Badugi. Pokerstars Badugi games have traffic 24/7 and at peak times over 100 players playing Badugi.
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Badugi Starting Hands
Badugi hasn’t been around in the online world for long and as a result there aren’t any really great Badugi strategy resources to reference when it comes to Badugi starting hands. There are hundreds of Holdem and even omaha starting hand charts out there but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Badugi starting hand chart published online. One of the main reasons for this is the fact there are many different combinations of hands you can play even from early position. In this article I will try to display a Badugi starting hands chart and give you some general Badugi tips which should put you in a position to understand the pre draw game and have an edge over un educated opponents.
There are 6 main groups of Badugi hands which you can consider playing:
Group 1
Any 3 card hands 6 high or lower with the best possible holding in group 1 being A-2-3-x and the least strong A-5-6-x.
Group 2
3 card hands 7 high or lower which contain two wheel cards (A-2-3-4-5).
Group 3
Any 3 card hands 7 high or lower. A-2-3-x to 5-6-7-x
Group 4
Any 3 card hands 8 high or lower. A-2-3-x to 6-7-8-x
Group 5
Any 2 card hands below 5 which contain an A or 2.
Group 6
Any 2 card hands below 5.
You will notice when looking at the hand groups above that some hands feature in more than one group. The reason for this is that we will now provide you will a Badugi starting hand chart which shows which hands you should play from which positions at the table.
Note: Assume of all the starting hands above are rainbow hands.
Badugi Starting Hand Chart
*Right click then select view image to see an enlarged version.
Obviously the Badugi starting hands chart above is just a rough guide. It is really aimed at beginners and as you gain more experience playing Badugi you may well find yourself opening wider ranges especially in late position. Learning to adapt to the tenancies of your opponents is also important and as you do this more your starting hand requirements will change.
The starting hand requirements chart was made using a PokerStars.com table in the background because PokerStars is the only site which has enough traffic to support and run Badugi games throughout the day.