Chinese Poker Strategy Guide
Ultimate Guide to Asian Online Poker Rooms. Online poker is a bit like this jock guy who peaked in high school around 2010. He used to be handsome, gigantic and ripped to the bone, he could throw a mean ball and he used to get all the girls. Unfortunately, he never got to play for an A-list team, now he's pushing thirty, he's starting to.
- Open-face Chinese poker, OFCP, commonly known as Open Face Chinese or OFC, is a variant of Chinese poker where players receive five cards to start and then one card at a time until each player has a 13 card hand legal or not. The game originated in Finland during the mid-2000s and spread to Russia a few years later. Professional poker player Alex Kravchenko, who is credited with introducing.
- The slots machine, often known as the “one armed bandit”, became an icon of Chinese Poker Strategy Guidemodern online gaming. At Slotomania, you can start playing your favorite slot games with crazy graphics, top of the line sound effects, and hundreds of variations to choose from. Join the amazing free slots experience played by millions on the web, Facebook, iPhone, iPad, Android, Amazon.
- Since Chinese Poker is pretty easy to solve, a variant was created that takes a lot of skill, luck, and gamble. Instead of being dealt all 13 cards face down, each player is dealt 5 cards, face down. The player to the left of the button sets their hand first, face up. Once your hand is set it can never be changed.
There are hundreds of sites all over the Internet that explain the rules of different types of Chinese Poker and give little tips and tricks that can turn you into a competent player of the game. In this post we’ll try to combine as many of these as possible into a comprehensive guide to playing Chinese Poker.
Chinese Poker Rules
To play regular Chinese Poker, you’ll need a standard deck of 52 cards (without jokers). The maximum number of players is four. Each player receives 13 cards face down at the start of the hand. The cards are then split into three rows – the front/top, the middle, and the back/bottom. The front has three cards while the other two rows consist of five cards each. Hand strength in Chinese Poker is the same as in all other poker games. That said, the front only has three cards and trip Aces is the best possible hand for this row.
Open Face Chinese Poker
Open Face Chinese Poker is a more dynamic and skill-oriented variation of regular Chinese Poker. Open Face provides players with some information about their opponents’ holding (this feature is absent in the regular variation), giving more attentive players better chances at winning.
The main difference between Open Face Chinese Poker and regular Chinese Poker is that in the first round only 5 cards are dealt for each player, face down. The first player to the left of the dealer speaks first, turning his/her cards over and arranging them in the same three rows – the front, the middle and the back. Play goes on in a clockwise direction until all players have their cards arranged in three rows face up. In subsequent rounds each player receives one card at a time and adds it to one of the rows, as desired. Play then continues until all players have received 13 cards in total.
Fouling Your Hand
There is one critical thing to worry about when playing Open Face Chinese Poker and that’s fouling your hand. There is a simple rule that you have to observe when distributing cards into three rows: the bottom has to be stronger than the middle row, which, in turn, has to be stronger than the top. If this rule is broken, you have fouled your hand, which means that you will not get any points for your rows nor any extra points.
Keeping Score
Open Face Chinese Poker (and all other variations of Chinese Poker) is played for units, unlike most other types of poker, which are normally played for chips. Units usually have monetary/chip value and the aim is, of course, to win as many units as possible.
Chinese Poker Strategy Guide For Dummies
Basically, one row is worth one point. So if you beat all three of your opponents in the front row, you get one point from each player; that’s three units in total. If you manage to beat other players in all three rows, you get a scoop, and your units get doubled from three to six. But the game gets a little more complicated once royalties are factored into the picture.
Royalties
On a very basic level, royalties are bonuses awarded for strong hands. The royalties differ depending on the row.
For the front row, royalties are awarded for all pairs from 66 to AA. Sixes give you one bonus unit, sevens equal two bonus units, eights mean you get three extra units, and so on. A pair of aces gets you nine extra units. Trips also give royalty units, while deuces give you 10 units, threes – 11 units; all the way up to aces awarding 22 points.
For the middle row: any trips – 2 units, straight – 4 units, flush – 8 units, full house – 12 units, quads – 20 units, straight flush – 30 units, royal flush – 25 units.
For the back row: straight – 2 units, flush – 4 units, full house – 6 units, quads – 10 units, straight flush – 15 units, royal flush – 25 units.
Example
Player A receives one point for winning the front row with a pair of threes. There are no additional royalties for this player.
Player B wins the middle row with his flush against Player A’s straight.
Both player A and player B receive bonus units for their hands. So player A receives two units for his straight minus one unit for losing the row. Player B receives one unit for winning the row, 8 units for his flush minus 2 units player A has received for his combination in the middle, 7 units in total.
Player A wins the back row, with full house against player B’s straight. One unit for winning the row plus 6 units for a full house minus 2 units player B gets for his royalty – 5 units for player A.
Player B receives 2 units for his straight minus one unit for losing the row. Once the hand is over, player A wins 1 + 1 + 5 = the total of 7 units for the hand, and player B gets -1 + 7 + 1 = also 7 units for the hand.
Fantasy Land
Fantasy Land is another rule unique to Open Face Chinese Poker. To enter Fantasy Land you need to have a hand that doesn’t foul, with the top row containing a pair of Queens or better. If you manage to finish your hand in Fantasy Land, you receive all 13 cards face down at once in the next deal, and you will be able to arrange your cards without revealing any information about them. To continue playing in Fantasy Land, you will need a stronger hand having the minimum of quads in the bottom row, full house in the middle row or trips in the front row.
Other Variations of Chinese Poker
There are other variations of Open Face Chinese Poker. Pineapple Open Face Chinese Poker is one of the most popular types. The difference is that after the first round in which players get 5 cards each, they receive three cards at a time in every subsequent round. Out of these three cards, one has to be discarded without revealing the information about it to other players. Pineapple adds a new strategic element with the knowledge about discarded cards.
There are plenty of more detailed rule descriptions about the variations of Chinese poker, as well as instructional videos. If this blog post has piqued your curiosity, don’t hesitate to dive deeper into the game of Chinese Poker.
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Chinese Poker (a.k.a. Pusoy) is a great game for long flights and when waiting around in a hotel lobby or at the pool side. You don't need any chips, you don't need any cash and you don't even need a table.
All you need is a deck of cards (you should never leave home without a deck of cards, anyway), a way to keep score (iPhone notes or Chinese Poker apps are great) and some Chinese Poker strategy basics to keep you from getting wiped out.
The rules of Chinese Poker are pretty simple and you can figure out how to play very quickly; Chinese Poker Strategy, however, is a slightly different story.
Chinese Poker Strategy - A Game You Can Solve
Contrary to normal poker, Chinese Poker is a game that can be 'solved'. Even if you can't actually solve it mathematically, as an equation, you can use a computer to calculate the mathematically best way to play a hand.
All you need to do is take into account all possible hands that your opponent can hold and find the hand that scores as high as possible on average against all these hands.
This fact may prevent Chinese Poker from becoming really big as an online poker entity, but on a bus trip or train ride most people don't carry their parallel computers along.
Chinese Poker Strategy - Adjusting to Your Opponent
The mathematically correct play in Chinese Poker may not always be the best play since it doesn't take into account the style of play of your opponent.
Just as a simple example:
If your opponent systematically neglects the Front Hand, thinking that it's the least important hand, you'll be able to exploit this by moving strength from the Back and Middle hands to the Front as you see fit and score easy points.
Good players often use a scoring system that simulates the mathematically correct play and then adjust for the tendencies of the opponent.
Of course, the exact strategy depends heavily on the scoring system that you're using. A hand that's optimal in a 2-4 system may have to be modified in a game that gives bonus points for special hands, such as trips in Front or Three Straights.
There's no standard scoring system in Chinese Poker.
No Betting in Chinese Poker!
Chinese Poker, or just Chinese, is a poker game with no actual betting involved. That is there's no betting during the play of a hand. Instead, you play for points just as in many other card games like Bridge and Gin Rummy.
However, players will often agree on a monetary value for the points such as 10c or $1 for each point. If you're a really sick gambler - and there are a lot of them out there on the professional circuit - $1,000 a point isn't a stretch at all.
If you want to come out ahead in a Chinese Poker game, regardless of the stakes, try to keep these 5 simple tips in mind to help optimize your play:
1. Avoid Invalid Hands
Chinese Poker Strategy Guide
Avoiding putting down invalid hands may sound evident, and it should be. Nevertheless it's a common mistake and a costly one since it awards each of your opponents a scoop against you.
After all you have to handle 13 cards without making it too obvious to your opponent what you're doing, possibly in a narrow flight seat or on a shaky bus.
Save yourself some huge unnecessary losses by always double-checking that your Back Hand beats your Middle Hand and your Middle Hand beats your Front hand.
2. Scoop or Prevent Scooping
Most popular scoring systems in Chinese Poker award scooping (winning all three hands). As a consequence your primary focus should be to scoop since it's so profitable.
And if you can't scoop yourself, you should prevent others from scooping since it's so costly. For this reason, rather than building three decent hands, you usually want to make one hand that is really strong. This will make it hard for opponents to scoop.
- Try to make a top hand in one position rather than three hands of even strength.
The definition of a top hand depends on the segment. Three-of-a-kind will rarely score in Back but it's definitely a top hand in Front.
Against three players a low full house is about average in Back but very strong in the Middle.
3. How to Play Four Pairs in Chinese Poker
If your hand contains four pairs you can always put the second best pair in Front. Just put the bottom two pairs in Back and the best pair in Middle.
For example, if your four pairs are:
- 22
- 44
- AA
you can put
- 2244x in Back
- AAxxx in Middle
- QQ in front
The pair of queens is good protection against an opponent scooping. With 13 cards you'll have four pairs quite often. In the lack of a better hand, putting the second best pair in Front may be your best option.
4. How to Split Pairs
If you have a straight and two pairs, should you put two pair in the Middle or one of the pairs in the Front?
Most of time it's better to split the pairs since a pair in the Front is quite strong while two pair in the Middle is quite weak.
But if the three remaining cards are good, such as AK9 or AQJ or something like that, you may want to go with these in Front and use the two pair in Middle.
5. Splitting a Full House
Is it better to have a full house in Back or break it up and put the pair in Front?
It depends on the value of the pair and on the rest of your cards. If the full house is 333KK, the full is often not good enough in Back, while KK is very strong in the Front.
(Remember that when comparing full houses, you first compare the trips, so 333KK is beaten by 44422.)
On the contrary, a full house like KKK22 is very strong in Back. Meanwhile, putting 22 in Front wouldn't give you much protection against an opponent scooping, and KKK in Back won't give you many pints on average. You'd probably want to keep this full house in Back.
Then again, if you have a full house like 333KK, a flush in the Middle and AQJ in Front, you may very well choose to keep the boat in Back since your Front is decent as it is.
(Remember that you always need to have a hand in the Middle that beats whatever hand you're thinking of putting in Front.)
Sample Chinese Poker Hands
Here are a few Chinese Poker hands to illustrate some of the strategy points made above.
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In this hand, I split AAQQ to put a strong QQ in Front.
Player BrulAAp also chose to split his two pair, but it was a measly 4433, which gave a weak pair in Front and a weak pair in the Middle for two lost points. He would have done better by keeping the two pair in the Middle, as we explained above.
(This is also an example of the special hand Three Straights that's part of the Eastern variation of Chinese Poker on the Action Poker network.)
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This is a hand where it would have been better to split up the weak Back hand and put a pair in the Front, even if it's a puny pair. The low full house in Back gets beaten two ways.
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A pair in Front can be surprisingly strong even in a four-player game. In this hand, a pair of nines in the Front wins three ways. Meanwhile, two pair in the Middle would have been a net loser here.