How To Play Padooki

So let's have a look at the game Padooki, not to be confused with the game Badugi which you can see in some variations around the world. Padooki's a 4-card game, and it's not really a poker game even though it's played in casinos and you'll see it in online card rooms and stuff like this. It's a 4-card variant, and it's not a 5-card game, just like most poker games and you've got to make the lowest possible hand that is not matching in cards.

Now, I'll explain how that is the best possible hand in Padooki, and we'll take it from there. It's called a royal. Now, a royal is 4 cards of all different suits of the lowest denomination.

So you're looking for ace, deuce, 3, 4 - 1, 2, 3, 4 - in all different suits. We've got the ace of diamonds, 2 of spades, 3 of clubs, 4 of hearts, okay? Now, if this 4 of hearts would be the 4 of diamonds, that's a flush. That's not good.

We're not looking for that; we're looking for a royal and any 4-card hand with 4 different suits is a Padooki. So even this, this is a Jack Padooki. We've got 4 cards, all different suits.

It's a Jack Padooki.quite strong, quite hard to get. But again, it's a Padooki. If this now turns into a spade, you've now got a flush.

That's not strong. So let's quickly deal a few hands out. It's a triple draw game whereby you draw 4 cards out to each player.

3 hands here, so let's try and run through the hands. Not great starting hands here, but we'll go for it. This guy here, he's got 3 cards of medium strength and they're obviously unsuited.

So we'd get rid of the queen and take one draw. This one here's got 2 cards that are not suited, 3 actually. We'll take the 10 away and we'll take, again, one draw and here, we've got a pair and a flush, and we're not really looking for that so we'd probably keep just the deuce of diamonds.

The reason I kept the deuce of diamonds out with a deuce of clubs is we're throwing away a diamond, which means we've got less chance of hitting another diamond. So we're going to throw that away and he's going to draw a 3. So that's the first draw, okay? Second draw round, this guy's made a pair.

Again, we're going to lose the heart, 8 of hearts, and draw another hand. This guy's drawing a 9 of diamonds. We're going to throw the 10 of diamonds, because he's hiding the 9 of diamonds, that's another draw and we've now got a really strong hand.

Even though we've got a pair of aces in our hand, we've now got 3 to a royal. So, it's really a decision what we've made, we know we've only thrown a diamond. I can't remember what the other card was but let's throw the ace of hearts away, so we're looking for any heart now.

The king of diamonds, okay…now, last draw. Again, this guy's got a flashing hand. He's got the 8 of diamonds.

We're going to throw that away and go for a large draw. He's now made a flush, no good. Sometimes, a flush can be good, but last draw here.

We're going to throw the king away, no good. We're going to throw the king of diamonds away. Now, he's made a Padooki.

At last, we got there. So in 3 hands with 3 draws, we finally made a 7 Padooki which is a very strong hand, 3-handed, and unlikely someone's going to make it their hand. So, there you go, 4 cards.

You're looking for razz, basically, in poker parlors, but that's Padooki. .