This is a favourite among the Asian poker communities, and is fast becoming popular all around the world in live casinos, and also becoming suitable for online poker software. Chinese Poker is a powerful game of multiple-handed play with a maximum of four opponents per deck. For this reason, new players often find Chinese Poker very accessible.
Draw Poker is the most basic game of using five cards to form a poker hand. Texas Hold'em and Omaha add extra community cards to make stronger hands more statistically possible. Chinese Poker adds an even greater number of cards in play, dealing 13 individual cards to each player and no community cards. This is the reason for a four-player maximum table, as four players holding 13 cards each will comprise an entire 52 card deck.
The goal of Chinese Poker is simple - arrange the 13 cards to form the three most powerful standard poker hands. Two hands will consist of five cards each, while the third will only be three cards. In an online poker game, this process can be automated based on strongest hands, but high level strategy would require manual hand construction.
The first step is to pick five cards from 13 which form the strongest hand. Of the remaining eight cards, five are ordered to comprise the second strongest hand, and the remaining cards will be allocated to the three card hand. The hands are labelled as the "back" (strongest), "middle" and "front" (weakest) hands.
While it is simple to choose the strongest possible cards to build the back hand, and use the remaining cards for the front two hands, an element of strategy is still involved. When three hands are completed, they are revealed against the hands of opponents. The back hands only compete against other back hands, and the middle and front hands also only compete against their corresponding opponents. For this reason, strategy may be involved when building a hand.
For example, a player may be dealt cards which can build a straight flush. An opponent is highly unlikely to possess the cards able to beat this hand. However, the player may choose to split up the straight flush and build other possible hands, including a full house or flush. The choice of which hands to build is entirely up to the player, and largely depends on which opponents a player thinks they can beat with certain hands. Why build an unnecessarily powerful straight flush in the back hand when an ordinary flush will emerge victorious, while simultaneously leaving cards spare to build another powerful middle hand?
Chinese Poker is becoming more popular in casinos and online poker communities around the world, and is easily accessible for new players. In addition to being easy to learn, the element of luck is higher when compared to many other forms of poker, meaning beginners can still have some degree of success against advanced players. Similarly, players who lose hands can easily attribute their loss to a bad set of cards rather than their level of skill and strategy.
Hands must always be built in rank order. For example, the back hand must always be the strongest hand, while the front hand must always be the weakest. Failure to arrange hands correctly will result in a player penalty. In the front three-card hand, straights and flushes do not count, therefore the strongest hand possible is three-of-a-kind.
Payments to the winning players are based on a "points" or "units" system. This is a pre-determined amount, similar to normal table stakes in a Texas Holdem game. For example, four players agree to play for $1 points. Therefore, every time a player wins a point, they win $1. In an online poker situation, the unit cost would be outlined in the table description.
When every player has assembled their three poker hands, they are revealed on the table in front of all opponents. Each player then systematically compares their hand to each of their opponent's hands, and wins or loses a point.
For example:
Four Players - Jared, Shane, Phil, Liam
Jared will compare his three hands against his opponent's hands one by one.
Jared
Back Hand - Four of a Kind
Queens
Middle Hand - Two Pair
Front Hand - One Pair Fours
Shane
Back
Hand - Flush
Middle Hand - Straight
Front Hand - One Pair Sevens
In this example, Jared's back hand beats Shane's, but both his middle and front hand are weaker. So, in this case Shane wins two out of three hands, and Jared then pays him two points ($2). Shane lost one hand, and pays Jared 1 point ($1). Overall, Shane is up by $1 and Jared is down by $1.
Play continues in this fashion until all points have been paid.
The use of bonus points in Chinese Poker is extremely varied, and any number of different systems may be used in local casinos or professional play. These conditions are agreed upon by the players before the game begins.
In this method of scoring, players are paid two points if they win two hands, in the same way as general scoring. However, if they win all the three hands, players are awarded four points instead of three.
In this method of scoring, a player who wins two out of three hands will win one point. However, if the player wins all three hands, a total of six points will be awarded. This advanced scoring method is suitable for players who attempt to build strategy across all three hands beyond simply creating one or two of the strongest hands by default.
Players may also decide to award bonus points to special hands and hand combinations. This creates an even hgiher level of strategy when considering four players may also be attempting to build hands to earn bonus points. These are a few examples of standard bonus hands and typical point structures:
Straight
Flush in back/middle hand: 4 points
Four-of-a-kind in back/middle hand: 3 points
Full
House in middle hand: 1 point
Three-of-a-kind in front hand: 2 points
Certain hands may be agreed upon as automatic winners or "naturals". For example, three flushes or six pairs across all three hands can be considered naturals. However, this conditions must be agreed upon by all players before the game begins, or a casino or online poker software will outline the rules before players buy in. Realistically, players can invent any manner of bonus hands and point systems for their own games, and this level of customisation is another reason for the growing popularity of Chinese Poker.
If a player has lost confidence in their final hands, they may have the option to simply surrender their hand and pay a pre-determined amount to each other player in a move to minimise their losses.
