WCOOP Fixed-Limit Baaaddddduuuuugggiiii

Well done in both hands. I'm to much of a badugi fish to know if you could play it better

Cheers,
SDK1987

I am not experienced in Badugi at all but really want to get a discussion going.

The second hand seems like a completely standard calldown. You threw away 2 key cards.

But I don't like the first hand.
Firstly, you are out of position and snowing is best done in position because you can get enough information in order to give up on the snow and realize the little equity you still got left. Plus, you have implied odds (extra bet) in position in case you hit your miracle cards.
Secondly, you caught the 2 worst cards. Not only no blockers, but you block the cards you want your opponent to catch.
Any particular reasons why you decided to bluff? Were you near the money? Was that player playing scared money or extremely tight overall?

I normally play Badugi exclusively in the pot limit format, but now that we got a discussion going, I'll try to chime in.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I rarely snow myself -- I normally play pot limit, and to snow effectively you need to bet big enough that people will believe you have a real hand -- and it is extremely hard to get anyone that actually has one to fold. So snowing is limited to those with deep stacks.

Since you mentioned pot limit, I'm not sure if I agree about the need to have a big stack to snow. It's true that a too shallow stack may force you into a position where you have to go all-in, in which case the bounty (the PL tournaments we're talking about are exclusively PKOs) may give your opponent the equity they need to make a call worthwhile. Also, it's possible that you or your opponent may face an all-in before the final draw, meaning that they would get at least one draw "for free", improving their odds. If they are the shortstacked ones, they may also feel the need for a desperation shove with a hand that might be able to beat your snow hand even unimproved.

But apart from that, implied odds and reverse implied odds are quite important in PL Badugi, so you might set yourself up for a costly check-raise by your opponent if they do hit a good hand when you snow in deep stack situations.

Not sure to what degree the same concepts apply in fixed limit, apart from the bit about free draws in an early all-in situation. I don't think the stack sizes should matter too much.

I would add that snowing on the 2nd draw (as you did), especially in FL, is probably the best choice. Snowing on the last draw might tempt your opponent to bluff catch, while snowing from the beginning might give them the idea that they have plenty of chances to catch up.

Whether or not the snow made sense in that spot is hard to tell without having watched your opponent's tendencies before that.

Personally (in pot limit), I never really snow until the later parts of the final table, ideally in the heads-up phase. The reason is that you can't often afford to wait for the really good hands in that situation anymore, while in the earlier stages, you usually have plenty of opportunities to get ahead even while playing straightforward, so I consider snowing an unnecessary risk. That doesn't mean that it can't be done, though.

Originally posted by nsavov
Firstly, you are out of position and snowing is best done in position because you can get enough information in order to give up on the snow and realize the little equity you still got left. Plus, you have implied odds (extra bet) in position in case you hit your miracle cards.

I generally agree, but snowing out of position is also quite doable. I wouldn't consider this a mistake.

Originally posted by nsavov
Secondly, you caught the 2 worst cards. Not only no blockers, but you block the cards you want your opponent to catch.

The concept of blockers doesn't really apply in Badugi (or only to a minimal degree), because you never know which suit your opponent is drawing to. This isn't like in lowball where everyone is looking for the same cards, or community card games where you could put your opponent on certain outs based on the board. It's also not like in lowball where every hand higher than a 9 is a mere bluffcatcher, even the worst possible Badugi is a favorite against the best 3-card hand on anything but the first draw, and even then it's basically a coinflip. So the cards you draw don't matter too much in a snowing situation.

Originally posted by nsavov
The second hand seems like a completely standard calldown. You threw away 2 key cards.

Again, people aren't looking exclusively for the few best possible Badugis similar to how they do it in lowball. Any drawn Badugi is usually playable, preferably in position to check behind on the last draw. As for high pat Badugis, I personally prefer to avoid them in the early positions in many situations, due to the bad reverse implied odds, in PL at least.

So I wouldn't necessarily call this standard, but I think it's a justifiable move with that many chips in the pot. What I'm less sure about is BBs decision to bluff catch. While they have the 2nd best possible 3-card hand and it's conceivable that a player in your position could have tried to bluff catch with a worse hand, I still wouldn't usually do this kind of move in position against two players. It's just too likely that one of them has hit a genuine Badugi, I believe, even if the pot odds are good in this spot.

Thanks guys. Some great insights for someone like me who likes Badugi but isn't strategically solid.