Open Chinese Poker Rules
OBJECTIVE OF CHINESE POKER: Construct three poker hands which will beat your opponent’s hands.
- Open-face-Chinese is a variant of Chinese poker which originated during the mid 2000's in Finland. It spread to Russia a few years later where professional poker player Alex Kravchenko is credited with introducing the game to the high-stakes Russian community.
- Open-face Chinese poker (OFC) evolved from closed-face (“regular”) Chinese poker, but it is not necessary to know the rules or strategies of regular Chinese poker in order to enjoy OFC.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 4 players
NUMBER OF CARDS: standard 52-card
RANK OF CARDS: A (high), K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Chinese Poker uses a 13 card hand which is arranged into three smaller hands: 2 hands of five cards and 1 hand of three cards. This game spawned the more popular Open Face Chinese Poker, which is an open card poker game after the first five cards have been dealt. Prior to starting the game, players must agree on the stakes. Open Face Chinese Poker Rules OFC is usually played 3-handed Most Open Face Chinese poker games consist of 2-4 players with the standard game online consisting of three-handed tables. A dealer button is used for the sake of determining order of action and moves after each hand. Open Face Chinese Poker – Progressive (Pineapple OH) – in OFC Pineapple OH a match lasts only 1 hand. Compared to the regular OFC Pineapple Progressive, in which the number of hands in a match equals the number of players (2 or 3). In both variations, fantasy extends a match at least by one hand.
TYPE OF GAME: Casino
AUDIENCE: Adult
INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE POKER
Chinese Poker is a Chinese gambling game that is most popular in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Recently, it has made its way to the United States where it is played, however, much less commonly. Chinese Poker uses a 13 card hand which is arranged into three smaller hands: 2 hands of five cards and 1 hand of three cards. This game spawned the more popular Open Face Chinese Poker, which is an open card poker game after the first five cards have been dealt.
THE DEAL
Prior to starting the game, players must agree on the stakes. For example, what is one unit of a bet? $10, $100, $1000? This should be mutually agreed upon.
The dealer shuffles, cuts, and deals out each player 13 cards, face-down, and one at a time.
ARRANGING THE CARDS
Players divide their 13 cards into three hands: a backhand of five cards, a middlehand of five cards, and a fronthand of three cards. The backhand must beat the middle hand, and the middle hand must beat the front hand. Standard poker hand rankings are used, which can be found in detail here. Wild cards are not observed.
Due to the fact the front hand has only three cards, there are only three possible hands: three of a kind, pair, or high card. Straights and flushes do not count.
After the hands are organized, players place their hands face-down in front of them.
THE SHOWDOWN AND SCORING
Once all the players are ready, players reveal their hands. Players compare their corresponding hands in pairs. You win a single unit per the corresponding hand that you beat and lose one unit for a hand that beats yours. If the hands are of equal value, neither player loses or wins.
Players assume the titles North, South, East, and West. North and South sit across from each other, and East and West across from each other, following the compass directly.
Hands are compared as follows:
North V. East, North V. South, North V. West, East V. South, East V. West, South V. West
Players lose or earn units of bets per hand and per player.
SPECIAL HANDS
The game can be played simply as described above, or, players could add another two features to increase payouts on certain hands. Some full 13-card hands allow you to automatically take the win. If playing with special hands, this should be agreed upon prior to arranging cards.
- Front hand won with a 3 of a kind, you earn 3 units.
- Middle hand won with a Full House, you earn 2 units.
- Back or Middlehand won with a 4 of a kind, you earn 4 units.
- Back or Middlehand won with a Royal Flush or Straight Flush, you earn 5 units.
Below, these 13 card hands win against any other “ordinary” hand. However, it must be declared prior to showdown.
- Six pairs. 6 pairs + 1 odd card. 3 units.
- Three Straights. 2 five card straights and 1 three card straight. 3 units.
- Three Flushes. Middle and backhands are flushes. Front hand is a three card flush. 3 units.
- Complete Straight. A hand with a single card of each rank (A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K). 13 units.
REFERENCES:
https://www.pagat.com/partition/pusoy.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_poker
http://www.thesmolens.com/chinese/
Poker Rules To Print
Table Of Contents
Introduction
Pineapple OFC is a derivative of standard open-face Chinese poker with Fantasyland, the rules for which can be found here.
Just as in regular OFC, the players get several cards in turn, and place them face-up until they make a 13-card hand, consisting of a 'top,' 'middle,' and 'bottom' row of three, five, and five cards, respectively. The players start by placing their first five cards each, but then the “crazy pineapple” part kicks in.
Objective
The first five cards are placed just as in regular OFC, but then players get dealt three cards instead of just one. In turn, each player then places two of the three cards in any of his or her available rows before discarding the third one face down. The procedure is repeated until players have completed their 13-card hands.
It is customary not to show the third card to opponents when discarding, but it should be remembered for your own information. Some players use this hidden information to discard cards purposefully that their opponents need to make their hands. Discarded cards are not shuffled back in the deck.
Scoring
Scoring is the same in Pineapple OFC as it is in regular OFC. You can view the complete scoring rules on our regular OFC rules page.
Fantasyland Changes
The rules for making it to Fantasyland are the same as in regular OFC. You need QxQx or better on top to qualify, and since the players see 50% more cards in Pineapple OFC than in regular OFC, players make it to Fantasyland much more often.
To compensate for the fact that hands are now much stronger than in regular OFC, players who make it to Fantasyland in Pineapple OFC are dealt 14 cards and get to play any 13 of them, discarding one.
Adding that 14th card may not seem like much, but it nearly doubles the chance for a player to stay in Fantasyland by making a big hand in the top, middle, or bottom. See our regular OFC rules for a complete list of hands that allow you to stay in Fantasyland.
Conclusion
There you have it. Welcome to Pineapple OFC, the version of Open Face Chinese Poker in which players make hands that are twice as big in half the rounds, where Fantasyland is not just possible but standard, and where you get a 14th chance at quads or a straight flush.
We'll see you in Fantasyland!
OFC rules have been contributed by Nikolai Yakovenko. Known as 'Googles,' Yakovenko is originally from Moscow, Russia and is now a poker player and software developer residing in Brooklyn, New York. Yakovenko has made both World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour final tables. Meanwhile after several years at Google New York working on ranking algorithms, he's been developing independent software projects ever since. He also helped create the ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker iPhone App. You can follow Yakovenko on Twittter at @ivan_bezdomny.
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