I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now: Badeucey and Badacey

These mysterious Asian games that spawned forth from badugi have become a staple in live mixed games. Blending elements of triple draw lowball, badugi, and stud high-lo regular, badeucey and badacey are extremely complex games. They are not played online anywhere, they are not solved, and not much is written about them. Training videos do not exist on the games, although I’ve seen some content discussing theory out there. These games first showed up in Vegas around 2007. Where they came from is unknown to this guy or the internet. Since badeucey, like deuce-to-seven, is more common than badacey and ace-to-five, I’ll be discussing badeucey for this column, but the principles are interchangeable.

Badeucey is dealt like deuce-to-seven triple draw. I’ve only ever seen the game played limit, and it needs to be dealt six-handed or less. The betting and drawing structure is identical to deuce, with small bets going in pre-draw and after the first draw, and big bets happening after the second and third draws. Like any draw game, position is extra important, but since badeucey is a split pot game and hand rankings are skewed such that a player drawing fewer cards is not always ahead, like they are in deuce, position is less important in badeucey than it is in deuce.

The pot is split between the best badugi hand and the best five-card deuce hand, with the nut-nut hand being 2-3-4-5 rainbow with any 7. If a player has 2 3 4 5 7, then they have the nut deuce hand, but they only have a two-card badugi hand with the 2 7. Therefore, if a player is drawing three cards to 2 3 against the pat wheel with only a two card badugi, the player drawing three is freerolling the player with a pat nut one-way hand. This makes a holding like 2 3 4 5 7 better than rolled up kings in stud hi-lo, but still a hand that can only win half the pot at showdown. Obviously the pat deuce hand is better than kings in stud hi-lo since all opponents know about the deuce hand is that it’s pat, while they can see the kings in stud hi-lo and likely aren’t ever going to fold.

Starting hand selection and choosing what to draw are key aspects of badeucey and where most players have their leaks. Like any split pot game, we need to be playing to scoop. If we cannot scoop, then we want to make our half of the pot as big as possible rather than playing a pot that we’re going to split at showdown heads-up. The key to this game is to make a winning badugi and then freeroll the deuce side. Therefore we want to start with small suited cards and build from there.

In early position, I’m opening for a raise any solid three card hand or better. I don’t like limping in most games and this is one of them. Hands like 2-3-4, 2-3-5, and 2-4-5 rainbow are absolute premiums and can often win half the pot at showdown unimproved. Hands like 2-3-7, 2-4-8, and 3-4-8 rainbow are good and usually worthy of a raise, but they are not nearly as strong as the smaller hands, because a three card seven is usually not going to win anything at showdown. Made badugis are awesome, and I’m happily opening any eight badugi or better, even sometimes a hand as rough as 8-7-6-5 rainbow. Obviously the lower and smoother the better with your badugi hands, and in close cases I prefer the smoother hand. 2-3-4-7 rainbow is a much better hand than 3-4-5-6 rainbow in most cases. If my fifth card makes me a nine or better than I’m pat, otherwise I’m drawing one at the badugi.

Pat hands get dicier, and many errors are made here. There are players who chronically play pat deuce hands with little or no badugi holding and put themselves in spots where they are getting freerolled. I’m only keeping a pat deuce hand if it’s super strong or contains a strong badugi holding. I don’t see myself folding 2 3 4 5 7, but I’m happily mucking 3 4 5 7 8.

In later position, my range is often dictated by the players behind me. If there’s a weak player in the big blind, then I’m opening with two card hands as bad as 3-4, nine badugis, and various other weak holdings. If my left hand opponents are studs, then I’m not widening up as much, but am still opening wider than I am in early position.

From here on out knowing your opponent is key. The key to knowing your opponent is paying attention and seeing showdowns. You can learn a lot about a players’ ability by the hands that they show up at showdown with. Against some opponents I’ll call three cold on the button and then draw three, knowing that I’m likely freerolling them if I improve to a strong three-card hand. Against competent opponents I’m folding many strong hands, because my ability to freeroll them is diminished since they are drawing optimally. Each player has a language of badeucey, and with enough observation you can determine what every bet, raise, two-card draw, one-card draw, and pat hand means from each opponent.

Through the draws I’m trying to make a badugi that’s going to win half the pot, then I try to make a deuce hand that will win the other half. If I have a strong three-card hand and improve to a solid one-card draw but not to the badugi, I’ll keep it and draw one if I think my three-card badugi is good enough to win a reasonable amount of the time. If not, I’ll pitch it and draw two again and then probably fold on the second draw unimproved since my opponent has to be pretty strong for me to pitch a seven and draw two to 2-3-5 rainbow. If an opponent consistently shows up at showdown with deuce hands containing rough three card badugis, then I’m gladly going to showdown with my unimproved strong three-card hand.

Freeroll them, don’t get freerolled. Put more money in the pot when you’re ahead, less when you’re behind, learn your opponents’ tendencies, and profit. The game is a bunch of fun and edges are greater in it than most other games these days.
Peace and good luck. ♠

Bryan Devonshire has been a professional poker player for nearly a decade. With over $2m in tournament earnings, he also plays high stakes mixed games against the best players in the world. Follow him on Twitter @devopoker.