Open-Face Chinese Poker Basics

You may have heard of a little game spreading around the casinos like wildfire called Open-Face Chinese Poker — OFC for short. Maybe you have seen two or three players in the corner putting a bunch of cards down in some sort of nonsensical tiered way, then exchanging some money afterwards. This game is a complex improvement and variant to the game Chinese Poker called “open-face.” It combines strategy concepts from poker, Chinese Poker, and even board games like chess, backgammon, or go. And yes, pineapple-OFC (the 3-card draw variant) is the newer, cooler version, but I am going to start off with some traditional OFC rules and strategies before diving into pineapple in a later article.

Here are some of the basic rules to traditional open-face to get you started:

• There is a button that keeps track of position.
• Each player is dealt a five-card starting hand.
• Play starts to the left of the button. Each player must set each of their first five cards face up in either the front (three spots open), middle (five spots open), or back (five spots open).
• Each player is dealt one card and must place it down in the front, middle, or back until all 13 spots are filled.
• Hands are checked for fouling — the middle hand must be stronger (using traditional poker rankings) than the front, and the back must be stronger than the middle — in order for any part of the hand to be valid for scoring and royalty opportunities.
• The hands are scored against each other by tallying up royalties, win/loss points, and scoop points.
• The winning players are paid out by the losing players according to the point score determined at the end of each hand.
• Also, there is this thing called “FantasyLand,” where if you don’t foul and have queens plus up top, you get your next hand all at once face down. This is a distinct, and fun, advantage to hold over your opponent.

For more detailed instructions on how to play the game please visit the Open-Face Wikipedia page.

After a few rounds of play, you can start to see why the game is so captivating. While you only have three choices (maximum) for each card, you have a lot of information to process to make each decision. You need to know what cards are live (and dead), how likely you are to win each of the three hands, and how likely you or your opponent are to hitting royalties. You have to decide when to set your hand “all-in” — where you have to improve in either the middle or back to avoid a foul — and when to play it safe. This defines the crux of OFC and the battle that each player fights in the game: you have to decide when to gamble and when to play it safe in order to make the strongest hands possible, on average, against your opponent. Sometimes you will get lucky and have an overwhelmingly strong hand; other times you will miss a big draw and find yourself foul. While you can’t control the cards that are dealt to you, you can control where you place each card, and therefore there is a reason to study the game and develop strategies that improve your average hand strength.

Unlike most poker games, this is a game where nearly all of your decisions can be completely broken down mathematically — through combinatorics and enumeration — and there is almost always one clearly correct option. While sometimes you need to adjust to your opponent’s playing style, you mostly can just rely on making the choice that improves your board the most versus your opponent’s board. After familiarizing yourself with some basic strategy and getting a feel for the game, you will have to dive into the math behind the game to truly master it. We will get more into the math in future articles, but for now here are some basic guidelines to get you started:

Build From the Bottom Up

It’s best to start by placing your strongest hand on bottom and build upward. This will help to avoid the risk of fouling and to ensure overall hand strength on the bottom. While there will be times to gamble by pairing the top or middle before you have much of a hand on the bottom, always try and start from the bottom up. Most of the money to be made in OFC comes from people making risky gambles too early without a developed middle or bottom board.

Avoid Runner-Runner Outs

This is known as conditional probability — where you need two events to occur in order to reach your goal. If you are thinking, “Hey I am going to make two pair in the middle and complete my flush on the bottom,” think again. The odds of doing each one individually may be OK, but the combined odds of hitting one then the other makes the gamble much less attractive. This is especially true in the late game.

Count Your Outs

This may seem like a simple one, but it’s easy to forget. Double check to see how many pair outs, flush outs, or straight outs, you have before setting a card. This will also keep you sharp, with a good game sense, so that you can be prepared for the next card and not have to mull over decisions all day. After all, the faster you play, the more hands you will get.

It Is Not Hold‘em

Do not count your outs and treat your odds like its hold‘em. There are often significantly more dead/known cards in this game, and also significantly more streets. In order to properly familiarize yourself with equities in OFC, you can download and study OFC and pineapple-OFC charts for free from my website: http://www.solvingofc.com/.

Gamble When You Are Behind, Not When You Are Ahead

In general, when you are behind you have a lot less to lose. If your opponent is set to scoop you already, then any kind of risk you can take to get out of losing the maximum is a good risk. Furthermore, if you think a close decision could go either way, you should gamble when you are behind, and probably not gamble if you are slightly ahead. This leads us to a very straightforward risk/reward calculation that can help you further define the value of a gamble:

Reward * Chance of Hitting – Risk * (1- Chance of Hitting) >? Play it Safe Board Value
If the left side of the equation is greater than the right, you should gamble, and if it is not, you should play it safe.

Avoid Gutshot-Straight Draws

This advice is admittedly very “soft” advice. You should in general avoid setting a four-out straight in the back, but there are times where your hand is so bad that it is your best option. In general, I would recommend setting either high cards, a three-flush, or a three-straight with live cards, in order to avoid setting yourself all-in on a gutshot.
That is it for now. In my next article, I will discuss some common problem spots and address them using expected value (EV) and risk/reward calculations. ♠

Derric “SixPeppers” Haynie is the author of Quantum Poker and owner of solvingofc.com For more articles, EV calculation apps, and information on Open-Face Chinese Poker, check out his website: www.solvingofc.com, dedicated to your open-face education.