Badugi High Drawmaha

Drawmaha, except the draw half is a four-suited “dugi” ranked high

Start with Drawmaha: five hole cards, a flop, one draw, a turn, a river, and a pot split in half. The Omaha half is unchanged: Omaha high, exactly two of your cards plus exactly three from the board.

The other half is a twist on Badugi Drawmaha. Four of your cards must still be four different suits, but now ranks can repeat, and the hand is judged as an ordinary high hand with aces high. A four-suited pair is good. Trips are great. The nuts is not A-K-Q-J of four suits; it’s A♣ A♠ A♦ A♥. Kevin Haney in Card Player flags that as the common surprise.

This four-suited hand is called a dugi. The game goes by Badugi High, Drawmaha Hi-Dugi, High-Dugi, or Dramaha Hi-Dugi.

30-second cheat sheet

• Five hole cards, betting, three-card flop, betting.
• One draw (1 to 3 cards at the WSOP, or stand pat), then turn, betting, river, betting.
• Half the pot: best Omaha high hand, exactly 2 hole cards + exactly 3 board cards.
• Half the pot: best dugi from your five final cards, board ignored.
• A dugi is four cards of four different suits. Ranks may repeat.
• Ranked like a normal high hand, aces high: four of a kind, then trips, two pair, one pair, then four different ranks (the weakest kind of dugi).
• Any four-card dugi beats any hand that isn’t one.
• Usually limit. The WSOP also allows pot-limit and no-limit.
• This one is a niche game, and Haney rated it 3/10.

Full rules

The deal and first round

Button and blinds. Everybody gets five cards face down. Betting begins left of the big blind.

The flop

The dealer burns a card and deals three face-up cards. Betting round, starting left of the button.

The draw

Each player, starting left of the button, announces how many cards to replace and can’t change it. The WSOP says 1 to 3, or stand pat. The dealer burns, deals the turn, then deals the replacements, and there’s a betting round.

Only your final five cards count. Anything you throw is gone from both halves.

The turn, river, and showdown

Turn, betting, river, final betting. One player can scoop, ties split their half, and the WSOP gives the odd chip to the first tied player clockwise from the button.

Omaha half. Exactly two hole cards plus exactly three board cards, best high hand.

Dugi half. The board doesn’t play. Pick four of your five cards that are all different suits, and rank them as a normal high hand of four cards:

1. Four of a kind (one of each suit, so A♣ A♠ A♦ A♥ is the nuts).
2. Three of a kind plus a card of the fourth suit.
3. Two pair.
4. One pair.
5. Four different ranks, the weakest dugi (there’s no pair, but it’s still a dugi).

Hands that aren’t four-suited come after all of those. Within a category, the sources just say “normal high hand ranking” (higher pair beats lower pair, and so on); they don’t spell out kicker details.

Rooms disagree

• What the WSOP actually says. Its text says only that Badugi “can also be played in a high variation,” with the best hand A♠ A♥ A♦ A♣. The category order above is from Card Player writers, not the WSOP. It never spells out how non-dugi hands rank against each other, and this page doesn’t either.
• Name. WSOP: “Badugi High”. Resorts World’s mixed game: “Drawmaha High-Dugi”. Card Player Lifestyle: “Drawmaha Hi-dugi”. Haney: “Dramaha High-Dugi”. Same game.
• Draw cap and turn order. Same as Drawmaha: this page follows the WSOP.
• Not the same as Badugi Hi-Lo. That’s a separate game where the pot is split between the lowest badugi and a “high badugi”. It has nothing to do with Drawmaha.

Worked examples

Picking the dugi out of five cards

Say three players each have five final cards after the draw:

• Ada holds K♣ K♠ K♦ 10♦ 4♥. Kings use three suits, and the 4♥ adds the fourth: K♣ K♠ K♦ 4♥ is a trips dugi. The 10♦ shares a suit with the K♦, so she leaves it out.
• Ben holds A♥ A♦ 9♣ 9♠ 5♥. A♥ A♦ 9♣ 9♠ is a four-suited two pair, aces and nines. The 5♥ is left out.
• Cleo holds Q♣ Q♠ J♦ 7♥ 7♣. Q♣ Q♠ J♦ 7♥ is a four-suited pair of queens. The 7♣ can’t join because it shares a suit with a queen.

Ada’s trips dugi beats Ben’s two pair dugi, which beats Cleo’s pair dugi, so Ada wins the dugi half. Who wins the Omaha half depends on the board. Haney’s warning applies to Ada’s hand, though: a trips dugi has little Omaha value and is hard to scoop with.

What isn’t a dugi

K♣ K♠ 10♦ 4♦ is a pair of kings, but it has two diamonds, so it is not a dugi. Even a plain no-pair hand in four suits (say K♣ 10♦ 7♥ 4♠) beats it, because any dugi beats any non-dugi.

How you’ll embarrass yourself

• Thinking the nuts is A-K-Q-J rainbow. It’s four aces, one of each suit.
• Forgetting the dugi needs four different suits. K♣ K♠ 10♦ 4♦ has a pair, but with two diamonds it isn’t a dugi.
• Getting excited about trips. A trips dugi like 7♦ 7♥ 7♣ 3♠ is hard to scoop with, and it has little Omaha value.
• Chasing the Omaha half with no dugi. Haney says players are “appropriately fearful” of running into a better draw hand. In practice the winning dugi is usually a single high pair, like K♣ K♠ 10♦ 4♥, so assume that’s what your opponent has unless the betting says otherwise.
• Playing it like Badugi Drawmaha. Low rainbow cards are the worst dugi here.

Lore and reputation

Kevin Haney in Card Player rates Dramaha High-Dugi 3 out of 10: “many detractors,” new players have trouble grasping what wins in the draw half, and there’s less action. He still includes it as a real variant. The Coach’s $8-$16 mix at Resorts World spread it in 2023, and it’s on Card Player Lifestyle’s Mixed Game Festival rule sheet.

Haney also mentions a Minnesota home-game cousin, “Dramaha Dugi 2.0”, a three-way split (Omaha high, low dugi, high dugi). It’s home-only and isn’t in any room’s rule sheet.