badugi, hi 4 card vs. draw

[chopchoi]

I have k,8,5,2 rainbow, 4 handed. 2 of my opponents have drawn a card. 1 opponent is left to act. Do I keep my high badugi, or draw to a lower one?

[DeathDonkey]

Definitely keep it.

-DeathDonkey

[palman]

How did the betting go, any chance the player behind you is pat? If you bet, you can safely assume the guy behind you is drawing because it'd be silly for him not to raise most hands in his spot, unless he made something like a 5. That being the case, your K badgui is gona hold up around half the time, and you'll win the pot by drawing less than 25% of the time, so the decision seems obvious.

[MarkGritter]

Keep it (assuming the action makes it likely that the last player is not pat.)

You're not a favorite to win. (Against three people you probably need a Q or better; a while back I calculated that in the worst case JT98 is still a favorite.) But patting is still better than breaking. Especially because your three-card hand is so poor that it cannot win on the end.

[chopchoi]

so if it were AK52, I should break it?

[MarkGritter]

If it were K32A, I think you should break, because nearly any badugi they make beats yours, while you beat any missed draw. The times you make a better badugi outweigh the times one of your opponents will make a rougher K badugi that you would have beaten by patting.

Not so sure about K52A. I've played a 5 strongly in the past only to be shown a 4 draw or a three-card 4 made on the last draw. It would be nice to figure out where the dividing line is.

[palman]

The dividing line generally is if your opponnent went from 2 to 1, or if they were drawing 1 pre-draw. You can safely assume if an opponnent is overly aggressive after drawing 2 that they made at least a 5 card draw. luckily, enough opponnents will dark bet with the 4 and 3 here to give you an idea of where you stand. If your opponnent was drawing 1 right off the bat....odds are A25 notches him.