Play Open Face Chinese Poker Online
Table Of Contents
- Play Open Face Chinese Poker online, free
- Play Open Face Chinese Poker Online Game
- Open Face Chinese Poker App
- Play Open Face Chinese Poker online, free Play
Introduction
Open Face Chinese is one of the newest games that is really starting to take off. It's vastly different from other forms of poker, such as Texas Hold'em, and can be played with 2-4 players. Players set their hands and play for points - it's important to declare how much points are worth prior to starting! For example, maybe you play for $1.
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.
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- Introducing Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) Chinese poker is a beginner-friendly poker game, where players don’t need to bet or bluff, and only play with points. Instead of holding just one hand, however, players hold 3; a bottom and middle hand with a total of 5 cards, and a top hand with a total of 3. These hands are arranged like a pyramid.
- Chinese Poker has long been the choice for poker pros whiling away some time in the lobbies of hotels in-between levels at major poker tournaments. But there's a new kid on the block: Open Face.
Like other poker games, OFC players take turns drawing cards from a single deck, trying to make the best possible hand, while their competitors do the same. Unlike other poker games, however, there are no bets placed during the rounds of play. Instead, the players agree to play “per point” and the game is scored in points, similar to card games like hearts or gin rummy.
After all card-placement rounds are complete, each player will have arranged 13 cards into three hands, called the “top,” the “middle,” and the “bottom.”
Each player’s top hand is compared to his or her opponents’ top hand, the middle to the middle, and the bottom to the bottom. A player will win or lose points, based on how his or her hand measures up.
The three hands are scored and compared as regular poker hands. The bottom and middle are regular five-card hands. The top only contains three cards, but is scored the same way, thus the best possible hand on top would be three-of-a-kind, while most top hands are high-card hands.
Since each player need 13 cards from the deck, OFC is played with a maximum of four players. Most commonly, the game is played heads-up between just two opponents.
Objective
The first objective of OFC is to make a “qualifying” hand. There is a strict rule that the bottom hand must be at least as good as the middle hand, and that the middle hand must be at least as good as the top hand. Since a player is arranging his cards one at a time, this isn’t always possible. If he or she has already played a pair of kings in middle, and has a straight draw on the bottom using cards all lower than a king, he or she must complete the straight.
Otherwise, if you can’t make a qualifying hand, the entire hand is “foul.”
In OFC, as in bowling, if you hand has fouled (failed to qualify), then you get a zero for the frame. There is no fine and no penalty box, but your top, middle, and bottom are all marked as zero. As long as your opponent makes a qualifying hand, he or she will beat your top, middle, and bottom.
First Round & Subsequent Rounds
Like hold’em games, OFC is played with a dealer button. The player to the left of the button acts first on every street, the action moves clockwise, and the button moves after every hand.
At the start, players get five cards to play in turn, playing each card top, middle, or bottom. The cards are arranged face-up on the table, hence “open-face” Chinese poker. Once a player arranges the cards and indicates that his or her turn is complete, the next player flips over all five cards and starts their own arrangement.
After the first turn, players get cards one at a time, and play them face up, in turn.
Once you play a card top, middle, or bottom, you can’t move it to a different row later. There are no take backs.
If you have read this far, and are familiar with the basics of poker hands (a flush beats a straight, quads beat a full house, etc.), then you are ready to play OFC. As long as you trust your opponent, or an impartial judge, to score the hands, go ahead and get a game started.
Scoring
The basics of scoring are simple, but there are a number of detailed cases to account for. Don’t get overwhelmed. Like casino slots or Candy Crush, you can start playing the game without knowing all of the scoring details right away and learn as you go.
OFC is played per point, so scoring of the final hands (after all 13 cards are placed) is done on a point basis.
Each row, (top, middle, and bottom), is worth one point to the winner. So if you have a pair of jacks in the middle and your opponent has king high, then you win one point in the middle.
In this hand, 'moscow25' wins the bottom and top rows, but loses the middle row. Therefore, he wins one point overall.
If playing OFC three- or four-handed, each player scores against each player independently. Thus, unlike in hold’em, where the best hand that doesn’t fold gets everything and everyone else gets nothing, there is no folding. For example, if Bob beats Ted but loses to Joe, Bob still wins points from Ted.
But wait, there’s more!
In addition to the +1/-1 points per row, there are a myriad of scoring bonuses that can be worth a lot more than one point.
Scoring Bonuses
The most common OFC scoring bonus is the “scoop bonus.” If you beat an opponent's top, middle, and bottom, you win an additional three points. This is sometimes referred to as the “1-6” scoring system. If you beat your opponent two out of three rows, you win one point overall. If you scoop him, it’s worth six points overall.
To encourage players to take chances for big hands, OFC rewards good hands in every row with different point bonuses. These bonuses are given, as long as a player makes a qualifying hand, regardless of whether the hand wins or loses.
Here, 'moscow25' makes a straight on the bottom, but loses to a his opponent’s bigger straight on the bottom. His opponent gets one point for winning the row, plus a two-point bonus for the straight. However, 'moscow25' still gets two points for his straight. Therefore, the straight bonuses cancel each other out, and 'moscow25' loses just one point on the bottom row.
Bonuses for bottom-row hands range from +2 for a straight to +25 for a royal flush. Middle bonuses start with +2 for three-of-a-kind, going up to +50 for a royal flush. Bonuses for the top hand start with +1 for a pair of sixes and then increase from there. The full list is below.
OFC Bonus Scoring System
| Bottom Hand | Bonus | Middle Hand | Bonus | Top Hand | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | -- | Three of a Kind | +2 | 6x6x | +1 |
| Straight | +2 | Straight | +4 | 7x7x | +2 |
| Flush | +4 | Flush | +8 | 8x8x | +3 |
| Full House | +6 | Full House | +12 | 9x9x | +4 |
| Quads | +10 | Quads | +20 | 10x10x | +5 |
| Straight Flush | +15 | Straight Flush | +30 | JxJx | +6 |
| Royal Flush | +25 | Royal Flush | +50 | QxQx | +7 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | KxKx | +8 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | AxAx | +9 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 2x2x2x | +10 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 3x3x3x | +11 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 4x4x4x | +12 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 5x5x5x | +13 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 6x6x6x | +14 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 7x7x7x | +15 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 8x8x8x | +16 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 9x9x9x | +17 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 10x10x10x | +18 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | JxJxJx | +19 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | QxQxQx | +20 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | KxKxKx | +21 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | AxAxAx | +22 |
In addition to the bonuses for big hands, there’s a special rule, which started out as another way to add drama to the game, but has since become a standard, big part of OFC strategy.
Playing with 'Fantasyland” is optional, and must be agreed to before an OFC game begins. Most OFC games played online and in public casinos are played with the Fantasyland option. Make sure you know whether you’re playing with or without Fantasyland before you join.
Fantasyland
This rule is simple: If you make a qualifying hand with QxQx or better on top, then your next hand will be “in Fantasyland.”
Fantasyland is treated as a bonus round of OFC. It’s common for the button not to move, and a player is not allowed to quit or get dealt out of the hand during his opponent’s Fantasyland round.
The player in Fantasyland has a big advantage because he or she is dealt all 13 cards at once, instead of the starting five and then one at a time. The player then sets the cards face down in turn, and then waits for his opponents to play their hands according to standard OFC rules.
Once all players are finished setting, the Fantasyland hand is revealed and scored like a regular OFC hand. Thus, a player in Fantasyland, after rounds and rounds of setting his hand imperfectly because he doesn’t know what’s coming, is able to set his hand perfectly.
Staying in Fantasyland
It is too easy to make QxQx or better on top while in Fantasyland, which you can see all 13 cards at once, so the rules for remaining in Fantasyland are a bit stricter.
A player in Fantasyland gets to “stay in Fantasyland” if he makes quads or better on the bottom, a full house or better in the middle, or three-of-a-kind on top. The full list of hands qualifying to stay in Fantasyland are below:
Play Open Face Chinese Poker online, free
| Bottom hand | Stay in FL? | Middle hand | Stay in FL? | Top Hand | Stay in FL? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | -- | Full House | YES | Three-of-a-kind 2x2x2x | YES |
| Quads | YES | Quads | YES | 3x3x3x | YES |
| Straight Flush | YES | Straight Flush | YES | 4x4x4x | YES |
| Royal Flush | YES | Royal Flush | YES | 5x5x5x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 6x6x6x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 7x7x7x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 8x8x8x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 9x9x9x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | 10x10x10x | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | JxJxJx | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | QxQxQx | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | KxKxKx | YES |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | AxAxAx | YES |
Rules and Ethics
While it’s OK to quit the game or to get dealt out to take a smoke or a phone call at the beginning of an OFC hand, any hand started must be completed until scoring.
Since Fantasyland is treated as the extension of a previous hand, and the player in Fantasyland has a clear advantage, players at the table are not allowed to quit or skip the Fantasyland hand, if they played the hand that led to it. There is also a common-courtesy rule that asks the player in Fantasyland to announce that he or she is “staying” in Fantasyland.
House rules vary, but it’s also common for the Fantasyland player to set the hand face-down, and not change it before the other players start their round.
Variants
OFC is still a new game, however, the common rules for “standard OFC with Fantasyland” described above are nearly universal, both online and in the casinos that increasingly spread OFC whenever the poker tournament circuit comes to town.
There are also a few variants of the game that have caught a bit of steam in the poker community. One well-known variant is “criss-cross OFC,” which simply consists of two player playing two hands each, to form a four-handed OFC game. The hottest new variant of OFC that actually changes some rules is called 'pineapple OFC.'
Like other “pineapple” variants of poker games like Omaha and Texas hold’em, pineapple OFC deals each player three cards instead of one card per round, and that player must play two cards in turn, while discarding one.
Conclusion
Open-face Chinese poker is a new and exciting form of poker. It combines simple rules and the drama of drawing for big hands, as in Texas hold’em and seven-card stud, with the high variance of games like blackjack.
The game is easy to learn and intuitive to play (don’t be scared by the table of bonuses), and like any good poker game, a beginner can win right away. Even better, unlike hearts, gin rummy, or even Texas hold’em (without the hole-card camera), you can learn the game by watching top players play. The game is played face up, so at every point in time, the player and the spectators have the same exact information.
Since the beginning of 2013, OFC has taken off as a mobile game. The screenshots used above to illustrate OFC rules are from the ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker App, available for the iPhone and iPad. There are several other good apps for playing OFC on mobile, against friends, against strangers, or against a computer opponent.
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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When Sergey “gipsy” Rybachenko saw a hand of Open-Face Chinese, his first thought was “I am going to make millions of dollars in this game, just like I did in regular Chinese.” Open-Face Chinese hooks quickly and inspires strong initial reactions. Jason Mercier live-tweeted a 34-hour session at the European Poker Tour stop in San Remo, while Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth are also major advocates. Daniel tweeted soon after the WSOP that “It’s been a while since I’ve been addicted to a card game but I am completely addicted to Open Faced Chinese Poker.”
Despite shared nomenclature, skills in regular Chinese don’t transfer directly to Open-Face. “It’s like checkers and chess”, said poker pro and WPT final tablist Daniel Buzgon. Michael Casella, a chess master and high stakes mixed-game pro who has found regular Chinese to be one of his most profitable games, made the same checkers and chess analogy. Although it’s a fallacy that regular Chinese is too easy and intuitive to profit from consistently, the game still pales in complexity when compared to Open-Face.
Like regular Chinese (high), Open-Face Chinese is structured into three hands of descending value, 1. A five-card hand in the back (the strongest) 2. A five-card hand in the middle and 3. A three-card hand “up top.” If your middle is stronger than your back hand or your top is stronger than your middle, you “foul.” Open-Face Chinese can be played with two to four players and begins with five cards dealt to each player. The player left of the button places the five cards anywhere in the back, middle and top (not to be moved at any other point in the hand). Afterwards, each player is dealt one card at a time, starting from the left of the button, until 13 cards are dealt to each player. The goal is to make the strongest possible hand, accumulate as many royalties as possible without fouling.
The widespread royalty system gives 20 points in the back for a royal flush, 10 points for a straight flush, eight for quads, six for a full boat, four for a flush, and two for a straight. If any of those hands are achieved in the middle, the royalties are doubled. On top, you get one point in royalty for every pair over sixes up to nine points for aces. Without steep royalties, Open-Face Chinese would quickly become a game of not fouling. The incentives to earn royalties seduce many players away from a simple strategy of trying not to foul, and add mathematical complexity and tension to the game, so that it’s often not obvious whether for instance, you should go for a flush or play it safe and make pairs. Chinese expert Robert Mizrachi said, “If you’re nitty in poker, you’re going to try not to foul, if you have more gamble, you’re going to go for royalties.”
If you foul or get swept against an opponent, you lose six points plus any royalties. You win one point for beating an opponent (winning two of the three hands). Your own royalties only count if you have a legal hand, in which case they count even if your opponent has a higher royalty.
Variations of Open-Face have been played for years in Baltic countries, but it’s only recently become widely popular and the rules are not yet codified. Many players have suggested tweaks. After playing a number of long high-stakes sessions in San Remo with Shaun Deeb, Scott Seiver and Daniel Negreanu , Jason Mercier tweeted:
“New official royalty scoring for Open-Face Chinese. Str8- 2, flush 4, boat 6, quads 10, str8 flush 15, royal 25 #hadtobedone please retweet.” Chinese expert Mizrachi, on the other hand, said that he wasn’t sure about the current royalties, because they add so much variance to the game.
Bryan Devonshire, who got hooked on Open-Face at the Los Angeles Poker Classic thinks the game is addictive because even though there is a huge skill gap, “it’s easy for anyone to pick up and it flows well.
Devonshire thinks the game will remain popular for a while. “The higher stakes are trend-setters. Chinese poker has been the cocaine of after hours poker parties for a while, and Open-Face is even awesomer.” Devonshire has even put money on it — he scooped up a number of URLs related to Open-Face Chinese, though he is not sure yet how he will use them.
Rybachenko, backer of 2008 WSOP runner-up Ivan Demidov, said that he built much of his roll at a swank private club in Moscow, where rich businessmen played Chinese (high) for a US equivalent of almost $5,000 a point. Since then, he lost much of it in mixed games on Full Tilt and Bellagio to the likes of Phil Ivey and Patrick Antonius. As he told me, almost proudly “you can find my screen name, ‘mrcall912’ as one of the top online losers of all time.” “I think I’ll be back though,” he said.
Rybachenko sees Open-Face Chinese as a serious contender for bankroll builder, so much that he has inquired into creating programs to solve the game. The first person to do it well, he thinks, will have an edge in high stakes games, which can play for hundreds of dollars a point. Multiple programmers he’s approached, however, claim the task is too complicated. He’ll keep trying though — he intends to come to the 2013 World Series of Poker prepared for action.
Several pros interviewed did offer light Open-Face Chinese poker strategy tips. If you don’t have friends to practice with, play solitaire. Become comfortable with counting cards and outs. “Stud skills and Open-Face tend to cross over quite well,” Devonshire stated. Remember that position is vital in Open-Face Chinese poker.
Sergei gave one example of his strategy from a four-handed game “Let’s say you’re dealt 8-8-J-3-5 with three clubs. If I’m in first position, I’ll probably only go for the flush if the jack is a club and otherwise I’ll play 8-8-J in the back. I’ve seen some players would make the mistake of placing the jack in the middle (if they don’t get another jack they don’t know where to put it). If I’m in second position, I would definitely go for the flush if no clubs are out, if I’m in third position I’d go for it with one dead club.” Buzgon said that too many players underestimate the importance of adjusting based on the number of players: “If you were playing no limit hold’em, you wouldn’t play the same way heads-up as you would four-handed.” Most players interviewed preferred the three-handed game, due to the balance of available information.
Devonshire said, “The number one strategy rule of the game is ‘Don’t Foul.’ And that starts with the first five and how you lay the foundation for your hand. You always want to have equity for a big hand, but it’s so important not to foul.” Robert Mizrachi related the story of a high-stakes San Diego cash game player, who entered a $200 a point game and started by putting aces up top. While this would be worth a royalty of 9 points if achieved, it requires too much luck to create a legal hand. In a four-handed game (in which all other three opponents create legal hands), this mistake will cost a minimum of $3,600 (200 a point times six), not counting any royalties.
Open Face Chinese Poker App
Rob Mizrachi, cited by many players as one of the most skilled Open-Face players, was attracted initially “because I thought it had more skill than regular Chinese.” However, he is concerned with the hourly, “every hand takes so long, five to eight minutes as opposed to around two for regular Chinese.” He proposed using clocks set at around 30 minutes for each player. Whenever a player thinks, his clock runs down, and after placing his card, the clock would transfer to the next player — just like in chess. Whoever runs out of time first pays all the other players. There would be a penalty for quitting a session prior to the end of a cycle. “It would be awesome, (in addition to making the game a lot faster), a lot of people might make mistakes hoping the clock doesn’t go off.” Devonshire agrees that maintaining a reasonable pace is key: “When you get down to card eleven or twelve, you’re thinking you have 40 pieces of information to review. I think there should be some sort of shot clock because (over-thinking) blows the flow of the game.”
Because Chinese poker and Open-Face tend toward late hours, combined with drinking and tournament bust-out blues, careful account management often evaporates as rolls are decimated or bloated. One big error newbies make is assuming that they can play for similar stakes as they would play a regular Chinese game. Because of royalties, the game plays much bigger (the more players, the more variance). So if you normally play Chinese poker for $5 a point, you’ll probably want to play Open-Face for about $2 a point.
Tournament poker helps many players with bankroll management, creating a stop loss and adding glamorous incentives. Though Chinese forms don’t lend as well to tourney play, it is certainly possible (I played in a combination high-low Chinese tourney at the Palms this year) and could hasten the game’s popularity. Daniel Negreanu tweeted, “We need an Open Face Chinese Poker tourney at PCA.” In a tournament — every time a hand concludes, players could exchange chips, multiplying the royalties by the number of chips you get for each point, which escalate as the tournament progress. This would also create some interesting strategy differences — as players become short-stacked, they may not have enough chips to fully cash in if they hit a big royalty.
As Open-Face Chinese replaces other Chinese forms as the after-hours game of choice, there is no telling how far it can go. “That it’s become so popular at the high end and at low stakes is a good sign for its staying power,” said Devonshire. One thing is for sure: bankrolls will be bolstered and demolished as thousands are seduced by the delicate balance between gambling and just creating a legal hand. ´
Jennifer Shahade is an author, two-time US Women’s chess champ & editor at uschess.org. She is also a member of the Grindettes and a writer for PokerStars Women. Read her Poker Player’s Guide To Chess Gambling.