The $1,500 Badugi Is the Best Fantasy Event Nobody Drafted For

Seven rostered players cashed in the $1,500 Badugi across five different fantasy teams — and the combined $136,409 in prize money makes a format most players can't even spell the single most impactful fantasy event of the summer.

That's not a typo. Event #8 — a $1,500 buy-in game where half the field has to Google the rules before registering — just outperformed every big-field No-Limit Hold'em event on the 25kfantasy.com sweat board.

Seven rostered players cashed in the $1,500 Badugi across five different fantasy teams — and the combined $136,409 in prize money makes a format most players can't even spell the single most impactful fantasy event of the summer.

The Blez/NGNF Heist

The biggest winner here isn't close. Blez/NGNF (Hanks) had two players cash in the same Badugi event: Matthew Schreiber finished runner-up for $100,137, and Justin Liberto took ninth for $12,436. That's $112,573 in fantasy scoring from a single event on one roster. From Badugi.

The other five cashes spread across four more teams. Allan Le (20th, $6,116) scored for Blades & Shades. Christopher Vitch (21st, $6,116) hit for Glue Factory. Tomasz Gluszko (25th, $5,094) delivered for Chocolate Factory. Dylan Smith (45th, $3,495) cashed for Spitework. And Valentin Vornicu (68th, $3,015) added a quiet score for Fleyshman's squad.

Seven cashes. Five teams. One weird little event.

Why This Matters for Your Roster

The counter-argument writes itself: Badugi fields are tiny, so a single deep run inflates the numbers — Schreiber's $100K is doing all the heavy lifting. Fine. But that's exactly the point. Small fields mean fewer entrants chasing the same prize pool, and mixed-game specialists face thinner competition. Schreiber didn't have to beat 8,000 runners to take second. He had to beat a fraction of that.

Most fantasy players load up on NLH volume — guys who fire every open event. That makes sense on paper. But it also means you're drafting into the same variance pool as everyone else. The managers who rostered Badugi specialists got differentiated scoring from an event that most of the field wasn't even sweating.

I'm not saying you should build your entire roster around lowball draw games. But if your ODB projections flag a mixed-game grinder at a low draft price, the Badugi results just handed you the math to justify the pick. Seven cashes from one event is concentration you almost never see.

The edge in fantasy poker isn't always in the biggest field. Sometimes it's in the game nobody else is watching.