Rules
Open Face Chinese: the rules and the scoring
Chinese poker with your cards on the table: you set them face up, a few at a time, without knowing what comes next. How a hand goes, how to count it, the royalties and Fantasyland.
Also known as OFC, or Open Face Chinese poker. Pineapple is its best-known variant.
In short
- Two to four players with one deck of 52 cards; Pineapple is for two or three.
- Five cards to start, then one at a time. In Pineapple, three at a time: keep two, discard one.
- Every card goes face up into one of your three rows, and stays there.
- The same order as in Chinese poker: the back at least as strong as the middle, the middle at least as strong as the front. If not, you're foul.
- The 1-6 count plus royalties, and a pair of queens or better in the front takes you to Fantasyland.
How a hand goes
Open Face Chinese (OFC) has the same three rows as classic Chinese poker: five cards in the back, five in the middle and three in the front. The difference: you don't get your thirteen cards at once, and you set them face up, for everybody to see.
- The dealer gives every player five cards. Starting left of the dealer, everybody sets theirs face up in their rows, any way they like.
- Then, in the same order, everybody gets one card at a time, and sets it before the next player gets theirs.
- A card stays where you put it. You go on until all thirteen places are filled.
The dealer sets last and so sees the most cards before deciding, which is why the deal moves one seat on after every hand. Up to four can play: four times thirteen cards is exactly one deck.
Pineapple
The most popular variant today. After the first five cards you get three at a time instead of one: you set two and discard one, face down. After four rounds like that your thirteen places are filled, and you've seen seventeen cards. That's why Pineapple is for two or three players.
A foul hand
The same rule as in Chinese poker: the back must be at least as strong as the middle, and the middle at least as strong as the front, where straights and flushes don't count. Only here, you decide where every card goes before you see the next one, so a foul is never far away.
A foul hand loses all three rows to every player who isn't foul, earns no royalties, and pays the other players theirs. Two players who are both foul score nothing against each other.
Scoring
You settle up with every other player separately, with the 1-6 count: a point for every row you win, and 3 more when you win all three (a scoop), so 6 in all. Royalties come on top: bonus points for a strong hand in a row, which every other player pays you, whether you won that row or not.
Between two players, their royalties cancel out: if Anna has 6 points in royalties and Bram 2, Bram pays Anna 4. Royalties included, the points of a hand always add up to zero.
Royalties
The usual table. Some tables play their own amounts, so agree on them beforehand.
| Hand | Back | Middle |
|---|---|---|
| Three of a kind | – | 2 |
| Straight | 2 | 4 |
| Flush | 4 | 8 |
| Full house | 6 | 12 |
| Four of a kind | 10 | 20 |
| Straight flush | 15 | 30 |
| Royal flush | 25 | 50 |
| Rank | Pair | Three of a kind |
|---|---|---|
| Twos | – | 10 |
| Threes | – | 11 |
| Fours | – | 12 |
| Fives | – | 13 |
| Sixes | 1 | 14 |
| Sevens | 2 | 15 |
| Eights | 3 | 16 |
| Nines | 4 | 17 |
| Tens | 5 | 18 |
| Jacks | 6 | 19 |
| Queens | 7 | 20 |
| Kings | 8 | 21 |
| Aces | 9 | 22 |
Anything lower, in any row, earns nothing. Take this hand:
| Front | Q♥ Q♣ 3♦ a pair of queens: 7 |
|---|---|
| Middle | 10♠ J♠ Q♦ K♣ A♥ a straight: 4 |
| Back | 7♦ 7♣ 7♠ 2♥ 2♠ a full house: 6 |
That's 7 + 4 + 6 = 17 points in royalties from every other player, less their own royalties. And the pair of queens in the front takes you to Fantasyland.
Fantasyland
Finish a hand with a pair of queens or better in the front, without being foul, and you play the next hand in Fantasyland: you get all your cards at once, face down, and set them in peace while the others play as usual. In regular OFC that's thirteen cards; in Pineapple it's fourteen, and you discard one.
You stay in Fantasyland for another hand if you set three of a kind in the front, a full house or better in the middle, or four of a kind or better in the back.
Some tables play Pineapple with progressive Fantasyland: the better your front, the more cards you get. Fourteen for queens, fifteen for kings, sixteen for aces and seventeen for three of a kind, for instance.
Play OFC at the table, and keep score on your phone.
OFC Board doesn't read your cards: you count every hand at the table as you always do, royalties included. Everyone enters their own total, the round goes through once the totals add up to zero, the deal moves on by itself, and at the end of the night you see who pays whom. Swapping isn't part of OFC, so just skip that part.
Sign-up opens soon. Until then, you join through an invitation link from a member of a group.