Chinese Poker Sites
Posted : admin On 4/4/2022
Table Of Contents
The Chinese poker market is designed to cater for China-based players, and access for European and Rest of the World players can be extremely difficult. In most cases, you can not even register on the poker site and they won’t accept your credit card. GGPoker is the GGNetwork flagship brand which initially started as one of the largest in the Asian poker market. Now, the site is also open to European and Canadian players and ranks among the highest-traffic sites. Notably, the rake is a bit higher compared to many European competitors.
Introduction
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.
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:
| 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.
Play Chinese Poker Free Online
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.
Must Have Rooms
Home to the biggest tournaments online, these rooms also have the largest player base, great bonuses, tons of action and the best software. If you don't have accounts here, you are missing out on the best that online poker has to offer.
PartyPokerplatinum
Up to $30 of Free Play
RATING
9.9 ★
Key features
- Excellent mobile poker games
- Lots of free and real-money action
- One of the most trusted brands in online gaming
Usually, the Chinese poker rooms are associated only with cash games involving wealthy local recreational players; but these rooms have been actively offering MTT action since last year. Even specific MTT applications such as PokerClans were created, where players can find tournaments of any kind. Today we talk about poker tournament grids at the main Chinese poker rooms and their main features.
MTT on GG Good Game Network
When the GG network surfaced from the Asian market to the European one, had a very limited MTT grid. Only small tournaments with GTD prizes up to $3,000 and buy-ins up to $55 were played, and the Sunday main tournament had a $10kUSD GTD with a $250 buy-in. Knowing this, it is clear that the network has made a great effort as today over a hundred different tournaments are held at the GG rooms every day, and several millionaire tournament series are constantly announced:
- Blade: Hold'em and Omaha high-roller tournaments with $8,000,000 in GTD prizes. 9 daily events and 14 Sunday tournaments are scheduled with buy-ins ranging from $200 up to $10,000. In the lobby, the Blade tournaments can be identified in a silver panel with stars;
- Daily Guarantees: daily tournaments divided into 4 categories according to the blind structure: Red Series (hyper turbo), Blue Series (turbo), Green Series (standard), Yellow Series (slow). In the client, each category is identified with the corresponding color. The highest buy-in is $120 and the GTD prizes up to $3,000. Also, Daily Main Events are scheduled among the Daily Guarantees, with buy-ins from $22 up to $88 and GTD prizes from $3,000 to $20,000. In the tournament lobby, the Daily Guarantees stand out on a golden panel with stars;
- Bounty Hunters;
- T$ Builder: The prizes of these events are paid with tournament dollars;
- Omaholic: 16 daily PLO tournaments with buy-ins up to $22 and GTD prizes from $50 to $400;
- Phoenix Rebuy: a GG particular format for tournaments; players can make additional purchases of three types:
- 1x until the end of late registration (80 minutes)
- 3x after late registration and until the end of the rebuy period
- 6x as an addon
- MBP (Macau Billionaire Poker): the 'most Chinese' format of tournaments on GG. The buy-ins and guaranteed prizes are both in Chinese Renminbi RMB (CNY).
Most of the regular tournaments on GG network have satellites.
By the end of the year before, the first tournament series — Good Game Series (GS) — was announced with a total GTD prize of $3,500,000 and 129 events.
Despite the traffic increase on the network, often the tournaments don't fulfill the guaranteed prizes, therefore, these are played with overlays. The largest overlay we ever found was over 20% (following image).
Also, GG is one of the few modern poker networks where an MTT leaderboard is held every month: $100,000 are awarded into the TOP-100 players.
MTT at J88 Poker
J88 Poker is a small poker room from Hong Kong; it has been operating only for a year and a half, but already has an interesting tournament grid which can draw the attention of MTT players (events with up to 100 participants) due to an extremely soft field. About two dozen tournaments are scheduled daily, being the largest ones the Red Series and Micro Madness.
- Red Series: the most expensive Hold'em tournaments with buy-in from ₵1,100-₵8,800 (₵100=$1) and GTD prizes up to ₵800,000. Every day two events are held.
- Micro Madness: the low stakes series with buy-ins up to ₵500 and guaranteed prizes up to ₵30,000.
The J88 Poker tournament grid is composed not only by NLH tournaments but also Omaha, 6+ Hold'em and Golden Dragon Hold'em, which are played every day. The largest one is the Short-Deck Red Hot ₵88,000 GTD for ₵1,100. The main tournament is played the last Sunday of each month — Burning Red Monster with ₵2,000,000 GTD and buy-in of ₵8,800.
The J88 Poker tour is a live poker series sponsored by the poker room. The next stop will be on March 29 in Taipei.
Multi-table tournaments at Red Dragon Poker and PokerClans
The Chinese poker applications didn't stay behind the classic poker rooms, and recently an MTT development occurred. In the beginning, only PPPoker offered at least 1-2 Sunday tournaments per club, but now there are two Asian applications with a tournament lobby and a full MTT grid.
PokerClans is a unique Chinese application because it is the only one that offers MTT action. More than a dozen events are played daily in the app. The number of participants is 500-1,000 on average, and the buy-ins range from 10 to 500 CNY (almost $72).
About 10 tournaments are played at Red Dragon Poker daily, but the number of participants is a little less compared to PokerClans. The buy-ins start from $3 up to $33.
You can read detailed reviews of PokerClans and Red Dragon Poker in our blog.
Conclusion
A common feature to almost all MTTs at Chinese poker rooms is the remarkably weak field and that the structure almost always allows re-buys and re-entries. Usually, the rake is 10% and there still are some events with overlays.
This year we will see an evolution in the MTT action at all Chinese poker rooms, which are of course great news for professional players looking for softer fields to play.
GGPokerOK| Deposit bonus | до $600 |
| Rakeback | 50%+ |
| Deposit bonus | n/a |
| Rakeback | n/a |
| Deposit bonus | 1200€ |
| Rakeback | 35% |
| Deposit bonus | - |
| Rakeback | up to 50% |
Open Face Chinese Poker
Stay tuned on our Telegram channel for more EV+ news