Badougi: 2-card draws?

[monroe]

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My real reason for tossing two here is that if a rough T-badougi can win, I think a Q can too. In other words, I'm either way ahead or way behind. I need to hit an offsuit low on this draw to continue, and I only need one of those cards to do so. So, I'm looking at any ace, deuce, or four (maybe a five?) in two suits, or six outs. I'd like two shots at that. Standing pat and calling down (potentially with capping pre-draw) is also another option, but tossing only the Q seems like trying to play both ends.

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From the BB, I just might 3-bet with anything if I thought you’d throw in the towel with rough badugis like QT and I could drive the betting. Actually, I’d probably be more willing to do it with something like A4JQ (not badugi). A4J won’t beat any three-card hands in a showdown, and drawing two will let my opponent drive the betting with position—I’ll never know where I’m at while I’m drawing. If I 3-bet and stand pat, I might be able to win after the first draw without a showdown. If you cap predraw (which you should, and then stand pat, against someone of my profile) I’ll just have to pay another small bet, ditch the QJ, and see what happens. If you just call my 3-bet predraw, draw one, and raise my second round bet then, again, I’ll have to just pay another small bet (getting 9.5 to 1 at this point) and go for a hail mary with my A4 draw.

Okay, I wouldn’t really make the play above from the BB. But this brings up a new situation. Ac4dJhQh is our hand in the BB. A late position player who loves to steal in all games (not just badugi) opens with a raise. The conservative (and probably best) play for us is to just call and draw two. The daring play is the one above where we 3-bet planning to stand pat unless it’s capped. Does the daring play have any merit at all here?

Anyway, let’s make your last paragraph the final word on the QT64b hand. If we think the BB is legit, we’ll want to draw smooth. Also, the BB will be betting into us on every round so if we hit we’ll win an extra (big) bet somewhere, for whatever that is worth.

I think if we decide to ditch the QT and hit just one good card on the first draw then we could raise. There might be a small chance that if he has a very rough hand he’ll check-call to avoid getting raised on a big betting round—in which case he’ll know we’ve hit and he must either fold or pay another two big bets to show down his junk. That scenario would have him putting in three big bets with a losing hand. If he check-calls (the third betting round), and then we stand pat on the final draw, he can check-fold, losing only one big bet on the hand. If he check-calls (the third betting round), and we draw one on the final draw, he can check-call, losing two big bets on the hand.

From the BB’s perspective, I don’t like the lines he would have to take with a rough badugi because if we (the late position player) miss on the final draw it will get checked through and the BB won’t win another big bet from us. This situation, I think, demonstrates why playing a rough badgui (with a mediocre two-card draw like 25 or 26) out of position is a bad idea. You’ll lose the maximum or win the minimum against a good player.

Getting back to the idea of raising after the first draw even if we hit only one card (say we improve our draw to 643), if we raise on the second betting round and we get 3-bet we’ll know (most of the time) that his hand really is strong and we can simply call (getting 9.5 to 1) and draw one planning to fold if we miss.