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. Since a player is arranging his cards one at a time, this isn’t always possible. 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. The first objective of OFC is to make a “qualifying” hand. Most commonly, the game is played heads-up between just two opponents. Since each player need 13 cards from the deck, OFC is played with a maximum of four players. 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.

The bottom and middle are regular five-card hands. The three hands are scored and compared as regular poker hands. A player will win or lose points, based on how his or her hand measures up. Instead, the players agree to play “per point” and the game is scored in points, similar to card games like hearts or gin rummy.Īfter all card-placement rounds are complete, each player will have arranged 13 cards into three hands, called the “top,” the “middle,” and the “bottom.”Įach player’s top hand is compared to his or her opponents’ top hand, the middle to the middle, and the bottom to the bottom. Unlike other poker games, however, there are no bets placed during the rounds of play. 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. 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.

5 card poker scoring