Open Face Chinese Poker is without a doubt the most fun poker game full of action that every player would enjoy. So why don‘t they? The answer is simple – lack of information and knowledge of how to play it and what strategies to use to beat the opponents.
That‘s why we‘re ready to help you discover this awesome poker variant and have fun while playing with your friends, at the live cash tables or online. We have recently discovered that the best place to do it is on the biggest online OFC poker site Tonybet Poker, where you can find all the limits and encounter lots of rather weak opponents.
In general Open Face Chinese is a very simple game to learn – you need to complete three poker hands of five cards in the bottom, another five in the middle and three cards up top. The key is for your bottom hand to be stronger than the middle one and the top hand of three cards to be the weakest of them all in order to complete a full OFC hand. If your hand is stronger than your opponent‘s then your good. Pretty simple, huh?
Position, position, position
Like in Hold’em, position is the key to victory in OFC. However OFC offers you way more information on your opponents than the regular poker games and by now you should know that it’s the most important factor in winning a hand. When you have the position you’ll always see what cards and where your rivals have placed. That will help you a lot – since you’ll see how many outs you have left for each of your hands and you can decide whether to take a more passive or an aggressive approach in the hand.
It is very important to note that on average more than 20% of your hands will be fouled while trying to reach that Fantasy Land. Position is your friend once again, when you see that the villain is aggressive playing out of position and has QQ up top after placing their first five cards. The chances of them fouling are pretty high so the best approach would be to play safe and try to score some royalties while your main goal should be not to foul. If you complete this task you have good chances of scooping your opponent for a nice payday.
Fantasy Land
Fantasy Land is the fun factor of the game since you get all 14 cards at once and can place them in one turn while discarding just one. In the most common and popular OFC Pineapple variation FL is reached by placing QQ+ as your top hand which means you need to have something stronger in the middle and at the bottom. However, it doesn’t mean you have to go for it every single time. It depends on the circumstances, your opponents’ playing style and, of course, the position.
It’s good to know that on average by reaching FL you’ll win ~8 points and that would help you a lot to win a whole set and some $. However you’ll succeed in doing that only around 20% of the time, so don’t rush.
In this example you have the position. You can see that your opponent has been dealt low cards and is playing safe by trying to place connecting hands on the bottom and middle rows. Good for you since none of your possible Fantasy Land cards are blocked – the opponent doesn’t have an Ace, a King or a Queen and you do.
This is a great time to risk it and place Q up top, a King and a six in the middle, and Ace Jack at the bottom. That way all you need to do in other rounds is either make two pairs/straight in the bottom, or a two pair in the middle with all live cards. Another option is just to pair your aces in the bottom and Kings in the middle to reach that FL. With all three queens live too you have great chances. Don’t worry if you won’t win many points that way or lose some, you’ll get them after your Fantasy Land.
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