Chinese poker is a great game for beginners or for more experienced poker players who haven’t established their poker face. All you need to learn is the poker hand rankings - the rest is simple!
From the ancient game of Pai Gow that still lives on today to Chinese poker in its various forms, it would be fair to say that China has a rich history of organized gambling that dates thousands of years back, even before some of the western nations came into existence!
Some believe that the Chinese version of poker has been in existence for thousands of years and it originated at about the same time when Pai Gow was introduced.
Others believe that Chinese poker is actually a more recent development, a modern hybrid, which began when western poker was incorporated into the ancient game of Pai Gow.
CHINESE POKER RULES:
Each player receives 13 cards.
You then arrange your hand into three different hands, two five-card poker hands and one three-card poker hand.
Straights and flushes don’t count in your three-card hand, only high card, pairs, and trips.
Your hands have to increase in strength, starting with the three-card hand.
Once you’ve set your hands, you compare each of your three hands with your opponents corresponding hands, with the best hand earning a point, and a bonus point being awarded for sweeping all three.
There are also bonus points awarded to making certain hands, starting with straights on bottom and pairs higher than sixes on top. These bonus points can make the game incredibly swingy, especially if one player “fouls” their hand - or fails to create three hands that ascend in value from bottom to top.
In that case, the player pays the sweep bonus plus any high hand bonuses. Depending on the agreed-upon bonuses, hands can get up to thirty points or higher in some cases.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE:
The game is unlike poker in that there is no betting and there is no bluffing or hand reading. You simply play your hand and compare your results to your opponent and settle up. But the game is a lot like poker in that it contains a perfect combination of luck and skill, though this game involves considerably more luck.
Open Face Chinese Poker is played with the same rules as Chinese poker, but players are dealt five cards face up, then deal the rest of their cards one at a time. They decide where to set each card in their three hands as each card is dealt and they do it face up so their opponents can see what hands they are trying to make and attempt to beat them.
Legend has it that the Russian poker pro Alex Kravchenko brought the game from Finland to Russia where it spread like wildfire among poker players there. Russian pros like Kravchenko who traveled the tournament circuit introduced the game to the tournament scene, which is probably why in the early days of the game’s popularity it was sometimes called “Russian Chinese Poker.”
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