However, there are variants that fall into more than one of these categories or none of them, and there are other useful but overlapping categories. However, the improvements for the other hands must be very strong to justify breaking up a boat. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Each player is dealt 13 cards. How Do Normal People Get Roped Into Marathon Poker Sessions? A variation of Chinese Poker called Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) has been spreading wildly across the world. IN some variants of Chinese poker, bonus points are awarded to players who win 2-3 hand. Pineapple Open Face Chinese Poker is one of the most popular types. Some combinations of hands or hands that are awarded royalties are: Three of a kind in the top; Full house or better in the middle; Four of a kind ; Straight flush. The following table shows how the back hand ranks are distributed in detail if you set your hand optimally: The most striking aspect of this distribution is that the quality of the flushes is very important. This raises the question of whether the two pairs should go into the middle hand as a whole, or whether they should be split between the front and middle hand. I explore the topic when to surrender in much more detail further below. The cards cannot be rearranged later. Main article: Open-face Chinese poker. Poker Rules. Blog. Some poker games don't fit neatly into the above categories, and some have features of more than one of these categories. Otherwise add the percentiles for your three hands. There are a few variations dough, so let’s take a look at a couple of them, that I think are the most fun… Basic chinese poker. You should only surrender hands that are in the bottom 7% of all Chinese Poker hands. Accordingly, you should always assign the lowest available pair to it.A small full house (fives full or smaller) in the backhand is rarely worth more than a good flush. A player must declare his loyalties before revealing his hand. A variation of Chinese Poker called Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) has been spreading wildly across the world. We offer 3 main variations with or without Wildcards. This Chinese gambling game is popular in Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia and is also played to some extent in the USA. You can also add royalties to your Chinese Poker game. The question is: Should you play two pair in the middle and a weak ace high in the front (option A) or split the two pairs and play a pair of eights in the front (Option B)? Additionally, the format allows for frequent unexpected outcomes, so there is a large element of luck involved, therefore a beginner has a good chance of winning in the short term, even against experienced opponents. 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. The points per royalty can differ, depending on which Chinese poker variation you play. It’s fast-paced and tremendous enjoyable with a variety of motion and twists for everybody! Those are points that are awarded automatically if you set particularly strong hands. Thus a 3-0 will give you 6 points, your opponent loses 6 points. An analysis of 100,000 Chinese Poker games played by a computer using optimal strategies shows the following distribution of hand ranks for the individual hands: This distribution initially shows some points that are probably obvious to an avid Chinese Poker player: Only three different ranks (trips, pair, high card) are possible in the front hand. The following table shows how they are distributed in detail: If you manage to set trips in the middle hand you can expect to win at least two thirds of the time on average. These cookies do not store any personal information. Then the players receive a single card at a time for the remaining 8 cards. The most common mistake is to overlook the best solution. With a 2-1 you get 1 point; the opponent loses 1 point. 3. But this hand is almost always playable if the highest pair is somewhat decent. For example, Player X can bet with Player Y for $100 per unit whereas other players can play for $10 per unit. The hands are then placed face down in order in front of the player. It only takes about 5 minutes to learn this amazing game. Hand D: (K Q J) — (8 8 8 9 2) — (7 6 5 4 3). It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. 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Each player arranges those 13 cards into three hands, two five-card hands and one three-card hand up top. The number of cards you get at the start of the game defines the type of Chinese poker. A-K-Q wins 25% more often on average than A-6-3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0H4yz7soU, Nice tips to know as they really can prove a major hit If implemented as stated. If it is not possible for you to set at least a pair of eights or better in the front hand or a flush in the back hand, it is often correct to give up the hand. Televised … If both hands are equally strong, nobody gets a point. The cards cannot be rearranged later. The regular Texas Hold’em showdown hand values are used for comparison. These cards are arranged faceup on the table to the back, middle, and front hands. In this variation the players are dealt five cards in the beginning. Usually Chinese Poker is played with the option to surrender. Chinese Poker is a card game that is played between 2-4 players and it is one of the variations of poker. April 19, 2013. Thus this hand should always be played. Small full houses are also possible candidates not to be built if breaking them up strengthens front and middle hand. The current king of all poker variations is a must appear in the top slot. In Pineapple you always get your cards in groups of at least 3. Thanks for sharing this information. Days of Poker only offers Pineapple versions of Chinese Poker games. The other difference is that there are no bets to be placed during the various rounds of play. In the USA it is often known as Chinese Pok… There are also variations in hands and rules in the game: Scooping: When a player scoops (wins all three hands against one player), typically this player will win a bonus. No re-draws are possible. Full houses and flushes each make up roughly one third of all possible. In this variation the players are dealt five cards in the beginning. The lower pair is rather high (eights or better). The loose form of the game does however force us to think at some moments, converting and building hands in order to avoid the scrutiny of opponents at every moment. After setting the hands, each player has to show the hands. The Importance of Not Fouling. Planning on playing Chinese poker online and so this guide really helped. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Open Face Chinese (OFC) Poker is derived from Chinese Poker, a point-based poker game where players compete with three hands at a time instead of just one. Those are hands were the combined probability of winning at least one hand (front, middle or back) is below 40%. Optimal solution: The strength of 4 pair hands is determined by the strength of the 2nd highest pair. 1-6-rule in Chinese Poker The most common scoring system is the 1-6-rule, where a player gets 3 extra points for a 3-0, called a “scoop”. Other Variations of Chinese Poker. You only have a realistic chance to win the front hand as one pair in the middle and two (low) pair in the back are almost always too weak to win a hand. Thus a 4 pair hand is only as good as the 2nd highest pair. 4 Pair without straight or flush options is significantly worse than 5 Pair. In Chinese, it is also sometimes called Luosong Pai Jiu (羅宋牌九), which I think means Russian Pai Gow. Here is a quick guide explaining how to play Chinese poker and a few strategy tips for new players. With these cards each player must set three hands: Since the front hand consists of only three cards, the possible combinations are reduced to three of a kind, a pair and high card. This scoring system is the best one as it rewards trying to scoop your opponents and usually spices up the game. These cards are arranged faceup on the table to the back, middle, and front hands. When you begin taking part in OFC poker, there may be actually no going again as a result of it’s thrilling to the core. 7 Card Stud is the third most popular variations of poker and is played in almost all the … 1. With poker pros and newbies all trying their hand at Open Face Chinese poker for real money, you need to get a hang of it to enjoy latest promotions! It provides a lot more fun than any other poker variation, in which dozens of strategies have been developed with the aim of gaining an advantage over opponents. The reason for this is that high pairs in the front hand are very valuable, but two pairs in the middle hand are only of average quality. Pineapple Open Face Chinese poker is in the take-off stage in the Indian poker industry. By: chinesepokerfaq Big 2: The game Big 2 is similar to Chinese Poker because you get dealt 13 cards. There are exactly 72,072 possible arrangements for 13 cards over front, middle and back hand, but most hands (over 90%) have only one good solution and usually this solution is rather obvious. Also the percentiles for the hands are 20%, 70% and 15%, adding up 105%, further indicating this hand should be played. For all the following tips I assume the following scoring rules: When you’re playing Chinese Poker with the 6-1-rule, the loss of all three hands costs six times as much as the loss of only two hands in one game. In OFC the basic gameplay is as follows: Each player is dealt five cards initially. To do that the individual hands (front/middle/back) for each player are compared with those of the opponents, each hand against each other – front hand against front hand, middle hand against middle hand and back hand against back hand. Chinese Poker Basic Chinese Poker is the simplest variation, and definitely the one to start with if you've never played before. Chinese Poker’s standard playing style does not allow the player to fold his cards. In this section I’ll provide tips and tricks how to play certain hand types. Then the players receive a single card at a time for the remaining 8 cards. with Cyndy Violette, The "S" in H.O.R.S.E. Question, remarks, suggestions, bugs? Statistically option B wins more often than option A and should be the default option. One variation of the game has three-of-a-kind awarded 20 points (see Scoring chart). A common hand in Chinese Poker is a 5 pair hand without any straight or flush opportunity. If you can set a flush in the backhand by breaking up a small full house, it is often worth doing so and placing the pairs and trips in the other hands. All you need to know is the poker hand rankings to get started with it. regular Texas Hold’em showdown hand values, Play Chinese Poker against my AI in your browser, ProPokerTools (Powerful Equity Calculator). In Cantonese it is called Sap Sam Cheung (十三張), which means 13 cards, and in Vietnamese it is known by the similar name Xập Xám Chướng. Texas Hold'em. Simple math shows surrendering is worthwhile if you think you will be scooped in at least 40% of the cases. It has a lot of action when compared to some other poker variants. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Even the lowest full house wins about 60% in the back hand and is a pretty safe bank. This hand should always be surrendered. It is the simplest variation and people who want to start playing Chinese poker need to start with this variant. If the sum of  your hand percentiles is below 70% surrender. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The sum of the percentiles is only 55% and this hand should be surrendered. In our last blog in the OFC 101 series, we discussed about the basic strategies and tips to play Open Face Chinese poker. I Can Never Win At Blackjack … Once each player has set his hands, the scores for each player are determined. While there are several variations of the Chinese poker scoring system, the most commonly used is known as the 1-6 method, and it is this that we will look at today. You cannot put a good high card in the front hand. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. The following scoring systems are the most commonly found ones: The most common scoring system is the 1-6-rule, where a player gets 3 extra points for a 3-0, called a “scoop”. The End of a Dream, and the Birth of Another. There are several hand types which occur very frequently when playing Chinese Poker and many of them have one and only one optimal solution. This hand should always be surrendered. Most Chinese Poker strategy tips only help in the few borderline cases where there are several valid building options. If there are one or more tied hands, the combinations 2-0, 1-0, 1-1 are also possible. Simple Open-face Chinese Poker Strategy. For example: If you beat your opponent in the front hand and the middle hand but lose in the back hand, you get two points and your opponent gets 1 point (2-1). 2. Home-game hotshot Aaron Todd was an editor/writer at Casino City for nearly eight years, and is currently the Assistant Director of Athletics for Communications and Marketing at St. Lawrence University, his alma mater. When evaluating A-high hands the kickers play a vital role. The following table shows how those are distributed in detail: This table shows how often you can expect to win with each hand. So, thanks for posting…. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Variations Open-face Chinese poker. Thanks for sharing this informative post. Generally, the low flushes are not worth very much. Putting all tables together allows you to evaluate Chinese Poker hands. One of the major differences for Chinese Poker game is experienced right at the start of the game -when you receive 13 cards instead of the maximum four cards that are possibly dealt with other poker variants. Instead of being its own separate variant of poker, HORSE is an acronym that includes 5 different poker variants: Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz (Stud Lo), Stud (Stud Hi), and Eight-or … Perhaps this is why Chinese poker has such a hypnotic draw. Chinese "Long Cards" A rummy-like game played with long cards with Chinese number characters … As you can see, pairs are quite evenly distributed, but high card hands consist almost only of A-high or K-high combinations. Both even include a legendary element to the game called “Fantasy Land”! Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This hand is weak in front and back, but the middle hand (trips) is in the green area. tournament brings new games to poker fans, A work in progress - Part three of our interview with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, Toughest field in poker? title, The "E" in H.O.R.S.E. A Q-high flush wins about 25% less often than an A-K-high flush. All hands are in the red area and their percentiles are 25%, 5% and 20% (sum: 50%). The most popular one is Open-face Chinese Poker (OFCP). Thus a 3-0 will give you 6 points, your opponent loses 6 points. If at least one of your three hands is strong, the risk of being scooped is very low: a high pair in the front hand, trips in the middle hand, or an ace-high flush in the back hand are good indicators that a scoop is unlikely. A constellation that occurs rather frequently is the following: You have a flush, straight or a full house in the backhand and only two pairs left for the other two hands. If the sum of  your hand percentiles is above 70% don’t surrender. He always surrenders against all players and if your playing with the 6-1-rule, a surrender costs you 3 points against each opponent. A simulation of 100,000 Chinese Poker games showed that 6.7% of all hands were so bad that a surrender was mathematically superior than playing the hand. This means it is possible to make an illegal hand. © 2013 - 2021 Primedope / Pokerdope / Footballdope | Contact: info (at) primedope.com | Privacy Policy | IP Location Finder by KeyCDN. It is intended a beginner-friendly game, as only a basic knowledge of poker hand rankings is needed to get started. Mathematically it’s correct to surrender if you think the likelihood of being scooped is at least 40%. These variants are most often played in home games, usually as part of a dealer's choice format. Although Chinese Poker is much more luck-dependent than most other variants of poker, there are still strategic concepts that will help beginning players have the best chance of being profitable. Chinese poker is a card game based on poker hand rankings. With a 2-1 you get 2 points; your opponent loses 2 points. poker hand ranking. Another common scoring system is the 2-4-rule. In the non-Pineapple version of Open Face Chinese poker players get their cards one by one. Playing with the 6-1-rule surrendering costs 3 points and is therefore three times as expensive as a simple loss, but only half as expensive as a scoop. Those are some good indicators that it’s better to split two pairs between front and middle than to set two pair for the middle hand: Take a look at those two variants of how to set a hand with two pairs for front and middle hand: Option A: (A 7 3) — (Q Q 8 8 2) — (K J 9 4 3), Option B: (A 8 8) — (Q Q 7 3 2) — (K J 9 4 3). Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. If you are better in one hand than your opponent, you get one point, if you are worse, your opponent gets one point. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. I used a computer to simulate thousands of Chinese Poker games against itself to derive statistical hand distributions. But the middle and back hand are only in the 5% and 0% percentile. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. In this article, you’ll learn about the history of the game, Rules for the game, Common Terminologies used in the game and some popular FAQ’s. A-K-3 is much better than A-7-3 and thus option A is preferable in this example. Kickers or the lower pair (when holding two pair) are irrelevant though. Now we will talk about the two variations of Chinese poker – Open Face vs Standard Chinese poker. In Chinese poker, most hands are set almost automatically. Depending on the type of poker, you can see a different number of cards at play. Chinese Poker . And nothing is more annoying than finding out too late that instead of setting  (high card)—(pair)—(baby flush) you could have set (pair)—(straight)—(straight). Classification of Variations Poker variants are traditionally classified as draw games, stud games and shared card (community card) games, mainly according to the way the cards are dealt. In OFC the basic gameplay is as follows: Each player is dealt five cards initially. Please leave a comment below! Chinese Poker, the quick poker game for in between, has long been a popular variation of poker. It's still based on the ranking poker hands, but instead of a pot you're playing for points that are worth cash, and you have three hands to contend with. Would love your thoughts, please comment. If breaking up a small flush allows room for significantly stronger hands in the middle and front, this should usually be done. It can be played either heads-up, or with three or four players. For example, holding a single Ace yourself, reduces the probability that one of your opponents has a pair of Aces (and can possibly build it into the front hand) by 50%. Those hands are usually worthless unless all three pairs happen to be decent. Variations of Chinese Poker  As we have mentioned earlier in the article, there are a couple of variations of Chinese poker. The game is indeed related to Pai Gow. There are other variations of Open Face Chinese Poker. Great blog post! RANKING: Poker hands in chinese poker are ranked the same as in regular poker, high. For two pair and one pair combinations the quality of the top (or single) pair is of paramount importance. Poker Strategies. For the following part of my Chinese Poker strategy guide I’ll dig a bit deeper. The front hand (pair of deuces) is in the 50% percentile. A pair in the front hand gains a lot of value if you hold many higher cards yourself.