Chinese Poker - An Overview
Chinese poker has long been a popular game amongst low rolling poker pros. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that it was a featured event in the 1995 World Series of Poker. Poker professional Barry Greenstein is reported to have lost upwards of $1.5 million dollars to Ted Forrest in a Chinese poker game that spanned several months, and other poker pros (including Phil Hellmuth) are rumored to have absorbed six figure losses while playing this game with other professionals.
There isn’t a ton of skill that goes into playing Chinese poker, and it’s a fast paced game that can feature some startling financial swings. While this game has long been the domain of the ‘A-list’ poker crowd it has recently begun to gain favor amongst online players at smaller limits. It’s also a great game to play amongst friends, since the low skill quotient makes it an ideal choice when you find yourself with a crowd that’s intimidated by the prospect of playing ‘real poker’.
Chinese poker can be played by anywhere between two and four players. Each player is dealt 13 cards, from which they have to make three poker hands; one five card hand (called the ‘back hand’), another five card hand (called the ‘middle hand’) and one three card hand (called the ‘front hand’). The back hand must outrank the middle hand, and the middle hand must outrank the front hand. Flushes and straights do not count in the front hand.
After each player has set their hands the hands are exposed, with the back hand being exposed first, then the middle hand, and lastly the front hand. The player with the highest ranking of each of these hands is declared the winner of that hand, and each player must pay him one ‘point’ (it is up to the players to decide upon the monetary value of a point). If you are using the 1-3 scoring system, where each winning hand is worth one point, then in a four handed game it would be possible to win three points from each player on a single deal, for a total of nine points. In the event that two hands are tied for first place then that hand is declared a ‘push’ between the two players in question, and no money is exchanged for that hand.
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