However, all agree that once a card has been set in a row it cannot be moved. Some sources claim it is not necessary to immediately form rows during the deal, others claim that you must put a card in a row befoe receiving the next. The deal starts to the left of the dealer and passes clockwise. All cards are dealt face-up to the players. The dealer deals each player 5 cards ‘in the hole,’ then one at a time, until each player has 13 cards. Open Face Chinese Poker approaches the deal slightly different. In traditional Chinese poker, players receive all thirteen cards at once.

The goal of OFC is to gain more units (or points) than opponents by beating their rows (or hands), using classic Poker Hand Rankings, while not fouling (discussed below). The back hand should be a higher ranking hand than the middle, and the middle higher ranking than the front. Players in OFC have 13 cards- 3 cards in their front hand, 5 cards in their middle hand, and the remaining five in their back hand. These games typically have large buy-ins and are predominantly played in hotel casinos in Las Vegas. This is a high-stakes poker game played alongside larger poker tournaments. Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) is a variant on Chinese poker- both employ 13 cards to construct 3 separate hands. This variant of poker was developed in Finland 2011, spread to Russia, and finally made it’s way to the United States in 2012. OBJECTIVE OF OPEN FACE CHINESE POKER: Collect more points than other players by winning more rows (hands) and collecting royalties.

Play open face chinese poker online