Analyzing New Poker Games

The World Series of Poker is always an inspiration to me to play more non-hold‘em games. Since I mostly write about hold‘em, I mostly play hold‘em as well, and as a result, I don’t have the experience in non-hold’em games I wish I had.

Trying out a new game can be fun, but it can also be a little intimidating, since it can seem like your opponents all have more experience and knowledge than you do. But doing a little away-from-the-table analysis can go a long way to alleviate fears that you are outclassed.

Poker games run the gamut, from draw to stud to games with community cards. They have two, four, or five betting rounds. They are limit, pot-limit, or no-limit. They are played for high, for low, or as split-pot games.

Despite all these variations, there’s one thing that’s constant throughout all poker games—the math behind pot odds. If someone bets $100 into a $100 pot on the river, that bet represents even money on a bluff (betting $100 to win $100 on a fold) and 2-to-1 on a call (calling $100 to win $200), no matter the game variation (add an asterisk to this statement for split-pot games).

Because these odds are a constant through all games, they represent a great starting point to analyze any new game. In this article, I’ll show you some quick back-of-the-envelope analysis of the sort I do before I play a new game.

Let’s take badugi, for example. Badugi is a draw game usually played with blinds, limit betting, and four betting rounds. It’s a lowball game, but it uses unique hand rankings. Instead of five cards, each player gets only four. The best class of hands are called badugis, where a badugi is a hand that contains a card from each suit with no pairs. For example, K J 4 3 and J 10 9 4 are badugis, but K J 4 3 is not because it repeats clubs, and J 10 4 4 is not because the four is paired.

Any hand that is a badugi beats any non-badugi hand. Within badugis, the hands are ranked using ace-to-five lowball rankings. Thus, an A-2-3-4 badugi is the nuts. A J-10-9-4 badugi would beat a K-J-4-3 badugi, since the high-card jack is better than the high-card king.

If no one has a badugi, you look at the best three-card badugi hand that can be made from a player’s four cards. The lowest three unpaired cards of different suits count here. If you hold K J 4 3, then the best three cards are K J 3, so this hand is a K-J-3 three-card. If you hold A 3 5 6, then the best three cards are A 3 6, so this hand is an A-6-3 three-card.

Players can draw any number of cards after each of the first three betting rounds, so badugi is a triple-draw game.

How does one start to find strategic insights in a game like this one that is so different from no-limit hold’em?

I start on the final betting round. This is the round where all poker games are essentially the same. Everyone has a final hand, and now it’s all about betting and pot odds. Let’s analyze a common badugi scenario.

Say we’re playing $10-$20 with $5 and $10 blinds. Someone open-raises, and another player calls from the big blind. The big blind draws two cards, and the raiser stands pat. Standing pat represents a dealt badugi hand, and let’s assume for now that’s what the raiser has. There’s $45 in the pot.

The big blind checks, the in position player bets $10, and the blind calls. The blind draws one, and the in position player stands pat. There’s $65 in the pot.

Next round, the big blind checks, the in position player bets $20, and the big blind calls. The blind draws one, and the in position player stands pat a final time. There’s $105 in the pot.

The big blind likely is drawing to a good three-card badugi like, perhaps, A 3 5. If he makes a badugi on the final draw, he will likely have the best hand (except possibly if he catches the king). There are ten diamonds the player could catch to make the hand, out of 45 unknown cards. Say the big blind bets each of the ten times he makes his hand. He’s betting $20 into a $105 pot, so the pat player is getting $125-to-$20 odds to call. If he catches the big blind bluffing (or betting a badugi he can beat) 20/145 or about 14 percent of the time, he should call.

Therefore, when the big blind bets, he should be bluffing about that often. Thus, for every ten times he bets with a made badugi, he should probably bluff a little less than two times. In this example, he could decide to bluff every time he catches either the 5 or 3 — that would get close.

The player with the pat hand should call often enough to discourage the big blind from further bluffing. The big blind is getting $105-to-$20 on a bluff bet, so the player with the pat hand should call about 85 percent of the time. If the player with the pat hand folded more than roughly 15 percent of the time, the big blind would have an incentive to bluff every time.

This is a simple, first-order analysis. If you are drawing in this common badugi scenario, you should bet whenever you make your hand and bluff another roughly two other cards. If you are defending against a bluff, you should call about 85 percent of the time.

The next step is to identify the complicating factors. First, the player with the pat hand could have an unusually strong holding. Due to the raw math, most pat badugi hands will be either king- or queen-high. But of course it’s possible to be dealt an 8-4-2-A badugi. When this happens, the player with the pat hand will make a value raise on the river, which complicates the math.

Second, there’s an incentive for the player with the pat hand to snow—or pretend a bad hand is actually a pat hand—a small percentage of the time. The goal of this strategy is to win the pot with a bet when the big blind misses his draw and elects not to bluff. So the player drawing should probably check and call with an uncompleted three-card hand some percentage of the time.

Final Thoughts

Trying out a new poker game quite different from the games you’re used to can be daunting. But even though hand valuation and drawing rules can vary widely among games, the math of betting and pot odds remains constant. Before you play a new game, you should try out some analysis like I did above to get a sense for how to handle some common scenarios. Once you have an idea of how to play the final betting round, you can often work backwards to derive some basic strategy guidelines. ♠

Ed’s newest book, The Course: Serious Hold ‘Em Strategy For Smart Players is available now at his website edmillerpoker.com. You can also find original articles and instructional videos by Ed at the training site redchippoker.com.