OFC History
Discover the origins of Chinese and Open Face Chinese Poker, its ancestor "Pai Gow", its online growth and boom in Asia.
Read MoreOFC Complete Guide
Learn all you need to know about Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC), its rules and different variants, and how it took the poker industry by storm.
Read MoreOFC Strategies
Find out how to improve your game skills with these 10 simple Open Face Chinese Poker Strategies and become the best !
Read MoreWhere to Play OFC Online ?
Join the Best Open Face Chinese Poker Games !
Join the Open Face Chinese Poker Craze !
Invented sometime around 2011, Open-face Chinese poker (OFC) is a turn-based card game, which has become increasingly popular in the poker community. Even though its rules vastly differ from other variants of Poker, OFC definitely has found its fanbase, especially among high-stakes gamblers.
In this game mixing luck and skill, no bets are involved. In OFC Poker, points are made based on combination of cards. In its most popular format, the Pineapple OFC, where 2 to 3 players compete against one another, you are given several cards at the same time. Each turn, you need to combine your cards and place them in 3 rows.
The rules are quite simple: your bottom hand must be at least as good as the middle hand, and your middle hand must be at least as good as the top hand. They are divided as the following : 5 at the bottom, 5 in the middle, and 3 at the top.
Pineapple Open Face Chinese Poker Rules
We’ll teach you how to play open face chinese poker in no time ! First, Pineapple Open Face Chinese, also called OFC/p, can be played by 2 or 3 players. Then, this is how an OFC game is played:
- During the course of the hand, players will arrange their hole cards on the layout in rows to make 3 poker hands, arranged in order of ascending rank. These hands are called the top, middle, and bottom:
- Top hand: A 3-card poker hand, which can only rank as a high card, a pair, or three of a kind.
- Middle hand: A standard 5-card poker hand. It must rank higher than the top hand.
- Bottom hand: A standard 5-card poker hand. It must rank the highest of the 3 hands.
- Any hand breaking these rules will be considered a fouled hand, and the game will be lost.
- For the first turn, each player is dealt 5 face-down hole cards. Clockwise from the dealer, players in turn set the positions of these 5 cards on the table, face-up. Once placed and confirmed, these cards become visible to all players and cannot be moved anymore.
- For the remaining turns, each player is dealt 3 cards at once, and must place 2 of the cards into available positions on the table while discarding the third one.
- Once all players have completed their layouts of 13 cards, hands are then compared and scored.
OFC Pineapple Scoring System
Players’ top, middle and bottom rows are compared, with each row having a value of 1 point. For example, if a player wins 2 of 3 rows, they will obtain 1 point (1+1-1). From there, additional points (open face chinese poker royalties) are awarded depending on the combination made.
The royalty chart below shows the point values per poker hand made. Typical royalties can be +4 for a back row flush, or +7 for a front row pair of Queens.
| Bottom Row Royalties
2 Straight |
Middle Row Royalties
2 Three of a Kind |
|
Top Row Royalties (66+) 1 66 |
10 222 |
Open Face Chinese Pineapple Poker with Fantasyland
In many online and live OFC games, Fantasyland is an essential ‘bonus’ component to the game. You qualify to “Fantasyland” if you successfully place QQ or better on the top row.
Once a player is in Fantasyland, he is dealt all his cards at once (plus some additionnal ones, making it 14, 15 or 16 depending on the gaming platform). This gives time to the player to think of the best combinations while remaining hidden from the other players. Meanwhile, other OFC players play a normal hand.
To remain in Fantasyland, rules change a bit. Now, you will need Quads or better in the bottom row, a Full House or better in the middle, or Trips in the top row.