Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) has been demanding an increased attention and is already considered by many to be the most popular poker game of the future. It is enthusiastically played by pros and recreational players alike, as its basic rules are easy to master, while in its higher form it is as challenging as it is entertaining. This year’s PCA and LAPC tournaments included OFC in their schedules, as is expected from more and more major tourneys.
Basic rules of the OFC are as follows:
OFC can be played by 2, 3 or 4 players. The goal of the game is to collect points that can be, of course, redeemed for cash on a pre-agreed exchange value.
Similarly to the general Chinese poker game, players need to collect three hands of decreasing value: the first hand is the low five-card hand which needs to be the strongest, the second hand is the middle five-card hand of medium strength and the third hand is the upper three-card hand of the lowest strength. In case the middle hand is stronger than the lower or the upper hand is stronger than the middle, it is a foul.
This is what an OFC hand looks like:
First, all players are dealt five cards. The player on the left of the Button places their cards first: any of those can go to any of the different levels but they cannot be relocated later. The rest of the players can place their cards similarly, going clockwise.
Next, all players get one card to place in a similar order. Rounds like this follow until all players place 13 cards each on the three levels. Their goal is to have the strongest hand without getting a foul. Certain hands have similar values on the different levels.
According to the Headshot Scoring System, the most widespread OFC scoring method, the following points are awarded:
Beat (victory): 1 point
Scoop (victory with the strongest hand on all three levels): 6 points
Foul: 6 points for the opponents
Royalty of the lower hand:
Straight: +2 points
Flush: +4 points
Full House: +6 points
Four of a Kind: +10 points
Straight Flush: +15 points
Royal Flush: +25 points
Royalty of the middle hand (points are doubled):
Straight: +4 points
Flush: +8 points
Full House: +12 points
Four of a Kind: +20 points
Straight Flush: +30 points
Royal Flush: +50 points
Royalty of the upper hand:
66: +1 point
77: +2 points
88: +3 points
99: +4 points
TT: +5 points
JJ: +6 points
QQ: +7 points
KK: +8 points
AA: +9 points
222: +10 points
333: +11 points
444: +12 points
555: +13 points
666: +14 points
777: +15 points
888: +16 points
999: +17 points
TTT: +18 points
JJJ: +19 points
QQQ: +20 points
KKK: +21 points
AAA: +22 points
This structure is only a reference system, while it is currently the most generally applied. Since OFC is still in the making, there are several scoring systems around, which are expected to eventually give way to a limited number of refined systems. According to OFC expert Michael Mizrachi, for instance, this system creates too much of a variance.
Watch CardPlayer’s OFC introductory video here:
The introduction of the Open Face Chinese Poker application has contributed the most to the growing popularity of the game recently.
PocketFives.com has interviewed app creators Joseph Michael and Martin Tyson. You can read the interview in its entirety below.
PocketFives: Talk about the growth and overall popularity of OFC. It has come a long way in recent months.
Martin Tyson: It was brought to our poker community in May 2012. We were playing regular Chinese Poker while we were waiting for a game to get going. Someone showed us OFC and it took off for us right away. It has a lot of excitement because of all of the royalties and swings that are in the game.
That’s the most exciting thing for people who like to gamble it up – you have big swings and points. That aspect of it is really what made it so attractive. It's also a new game. It's something that hasn't been around for very long. You can play heads-up or with three or four people. You don’t need a lot of people to play.
PocketFives: Are the swings and action comparable to what you'd find in Omaha, for example?
Joseph Michael: Even with Omaha where you start with four cards, more often than not, you're not going to flop anything. A lot of times, the hand will be kind of boring. In OFC, you'll always be able to make hands and will always have decisions to make. There is no folding.
Martin Tyson: The excitement of a big hand is what makes OFC more interesting. A middle hand royalty is doubled, so you can really crush someone. But, because the risk-reward is so high, you're getting punished if you don’t make it. You can go from crushing your opponent for 20 points to losing 20 points in one hand.
I find it interesting that people who don't play poker like to play this game. My daughter likes to play this game. It lends itself to games like spades, hearts, and other traditional card games that people who don’t play cards play. It's a relatively simple game, but you can make it more complicated if you want to.
PocketFives: Speaking of house rules, talk about some of the unique ones you've seen.
Joseph Michael: This is a very new game and I don’t know of anyone who has played it for more than a year. I'd imagine that in a couple of years, there will be set rules that everyone uses. Right now, it's a brand new game, so people are figuring out what rules they enjoy the most. It's interesting to see a game being created before our eyes. That’s a reason our app has become so popular: you can change the scoring and completely customize it. We have 10 different rules you can turn on or off.
Martin Tyson: The poker community has settled into the rule of all royalties paying out. I think that helped the first OFC tournament in the Bahamas because it helped standardize the scoring a bit. There's also an OFC tournament going on at LAPC.
We like Fantasyland, which is another huge risk-reward thing. You'll have a huge scoring hand to get to Fantasyland. Then, you get to play the Fantasyland hand and get 16 or 18 or 20 points on that hand because you get to set it perfectly. The rule I don’t like is what they did at the PCA, which was trips up top. I've never seen that before. It seems like the most difficult hand to make.
Joseph Michael: That’s a common way people score, which I think is ridiculous, where trip deuces are 11, trip threes are 12, all the way up to aces. It's so rare to get any trips up top at all. None of the people I know have ever gotten it, and that's a lot of hands. In our app, we have it where you can change how much trips up top are worth.
PocketFives: Where did the idea to create the app come from?
Joseph Michael: When Martin brought the idea to me about making the app, to be honest we didn’t think we were going to make any money. The conversation was that we love playing this game, so it would be awesome to play OFC on our iPhones without dealing cards. It would be even better if we could play it at a regular poker table during down time. We just decided that we enjoyed playing the game and all of our poker friends liked playing it; if everyone in the country bought it, we might be able to make our money back.
Martin Tyson: I saw how popular regular Chinese Poker was. I have a software development and high-tech background, so I knew where to go to find the guys to get the job done. I looked at that market to see how many poker players there were, how many Chinese Poker players there were, and how many we would be able to convert.
Being able to say that we made the app is another reason we wanted to do it. It has turned out to be a lot more complicated than we initially expected, but being such a big market, if it did catch on, it's one of those things that will spread virally. To get your friends to play, they need to download the app as well, so that can help grow it even more. We also thought that by making the app, it would create more buzz for the game in general.
Joseph Michael: When we decided to make the app, which was late September or October, between then and now, the popularity of OFC has gone through the roof. At that time, there were still a lot of people who didn’t know what it was. It has made me excited to go to big live tournaments again to find people to play OFC with. I'm going to the LAPC to see if the rumors are true about how many people are playing this game.
PocketFives: What countries have downloaded your app the most?
Joseph Michael: We have had a ton of Russian people download the app. There are people playing the game all over the world. U.S. is #1 and then the U.K. has just passed Russia. Then, Canada, France, and Australia.
PocketFives: Address Barry Greenstein's security concerns surrounding your OFC app.
Joseph Michael: Barry Greenstein has a longstanding reputation for acting with the highest levels of integrity. We appreciate him bringing this security threat to the poker community's attention so that it could be eliminated. The security of our app is of the utmost importance and our company is committed to ensuring that our players can enjoy OFC without the risk of their opponent having an unfair advantage.
Basic rules of the OFC are as follows:
OFC can be played by 2, 3 or 4 players. The goal of the game is to collect points that can be, of course, redeemed for cash on a pre-agreed exchange value.
Similarly to the general Chinese poker game, players need to collect three hands of decreasing value: the first hand is the low five-card hand which needs to be the strongest, the second hand is the middle five-card hand of medium strength and the third hand is the upper three-card hand of the lowest strength. In case the middle hand is stronger than the lower or the upper hand is stronger than the middle, it is a foul.
This is what an OFC hand looks like:
First, all players are dealt five cards. The player on the left of the Button places their cards first: any of those can go to any of the different levels but they cannot be relocated later. The rest of the players can place their cards similarly, going clockwise.
Next, all players get one card to place in a similar order. Rounds like this follow until all players place 13 cards each on the three levels. Their goal is to have the strongest hand without getting a foul. Certain hands have similar values on the different levels.
According to the Headshot Scoring System, the most widespread OFC scoring method, the following points are awarded:
Beat (victory): 1 point
Scoop (victory with the strongest hand on all three levels): 6 points
Foul: 6 points for the opponents
Royalty of the lower hand:
Straight: +2 points
Flush: +4 points
Full House: +6 points
Four of a Kind: +10 points
Straight Flush: +15 points
Royal Flush: +25 points
Royalty of the middle hand (points are doubled):
Straight: +4 points
Flush: +8 points
Full House: +12 points
Four of a Kind: +20 points
Straight Flush: +30 points
Royal Flush: +50 points
Royalty of the upper hand:
66: +1 point
77: +2 points
88: +3 points
99: +4 points
TT: +5 points
JJ: +6 points
QQ: +7 points
KK: +8 points
AA: +9 points
222: +10 points
333: +11 points
444: +12 points
555: +13 points
666: +14 points
777: +15 points
888: +16 points
999: +17 points
TTT: +18 points
JJJ: +19 points
QQQ: +20 points
KKK: +21 points
AAA: +22 points
This structure is only a reference system, while it is currently the most generally applied. Since OFC is still in the making, there are several scoring systems around, which are expected to eventually give way to a limited number of refined systems. According to OFC expert Michael Mizrachi, for instance, this system creates too much of a variance.
Watch CardPlayer’s OFC introductory video here:
The introduction of the Open Face Chinese Poker application has contributed the most to the growing popularity of the game recently.
PocketFives.com has interviewed app creators Joseph Michael and Martin Tyson. You can read the interview in its entirety below.
PocketFives: Talk about the growth and overall popularity of OFC. It has come a long way in recent months.
Martin Tyson: It was brought to our poker community in May 2012. We were playing regular Chinese Poker while we were waiting for a game to get going. Someone showed us OFC and it took off for us right away. It has a lot of excitement because of all of the royalties and swings that are in the game.
That’s the most exciting thing for people who like to gamble it up – you have big swings and points. That aspect of it is really what made it so attractive. It's also a new game. It's something that hasn't been around for very long. You can play heads-up or with three or four people. You don’t need a lot of people to play.
PocketFives: Are the swings and action comparable to what you'd find in Omaha, for example?
Joseph Michael: Even with Omaha where you start with four cards, more often than not, you're not going to flop anything. A lot of times, the hand will be kind of boring. In OFC, you'll always be able to make hands and will always have decisions to make. There is no folding.
Martin Tyson: The excitement of a big hand is what makes OFC more interesting. A middle hand royalty is doubled, so you can really crush someone. But, because the risk-reward is so high, you're getting punished if you don’t make it. You can go from crushing your opponent for 20 points to losing 20 points in one hand.
I find it interesting that people who don't play poker like to play this game. My daughter likes to play this game. It lends itself to games like spades, hearts, and other traditional card games that people who don’t play cards play. It's a relatively simple game, but you can make it more complicated if you want to.
PocketFives: Speaking of house rules, talk about some of the unique ones you've seen.
Joseph Michael: This is a very new game and I don’t know of anyone who has played it for more than a year. I'd imagine that in a couple of years, there will be set rules that everyone uses. Right now, it's a brand new game, so people are figuring out what rules they enjoy the most. It's interesting to see a game being created before our eyes. That’s a reason our app has become so popular: you can change the scoring and completely customize it. We have 10 different rules you can turn on or off.
Martin Tyson: The poker community has settled into the rule of all royalties paying out. I think that helped the first OFC tournament in the Bahamas because it helped standardize the scoring a bit. There's also an OFC tournament going on at LAPC.
We like Fantasyland, which is another huge risk-reward thing. You'll have a huge scoring hand to get to Fantasyland. Then, you get to play the Fantasyland hand and get 16 or 18 or 20 points on that hand because you get to set it perfectly. The rule I don’t like is what they did at the PCA, which was trips up top. I've never seen that before. It seems like the most difficult hand to make.
Joseph Michael: That’s a common way people score, which I think is ridiculous, where trip deuces are 11, trip threes are 12, all the way up to aces. It's so rare to get any trips up top at all. None of the people I know have ever gotten it, and that's a lot of hands. In our app, we have it where you can change how much trips up top are worth.
PocketFives: Where did the idea to create the app come from?
Joseph Michael: When Martin brought the idea to me about making the app, to be honest we didn’t think we were going to make any money. The conversation was that we love playing this game, so it would be awesome to play OFC on our iPhones without dealing cards. It would be even better if we could play it at a regular poker table during down time. We just decided that we enjoyed playing the game and all of our poker friends liked playing it; if everyone in the country bought it, we might be able to make our money back.
Martin Tyson: I saw how popular regular Chinese Poker was. I have a software development and high-tech background, so I knew where to go to find the guys to get the job done. I looked at that market to see how many poker players there were, how many Chinese Poker players there were, and how many we would be able to convert.
Being able to say that we made the app is another reason we wanted to do it. It has turned out to be a lot more complicated than we initially expected, but being such a big market, if it did catch on, it's one of those things that will spread virally. To get your friends to play, they need to download the app as well, so that can help grow it even more. We also thought that by making the app, it would create more buzz for the game in general.
Joseph Michael: When we decided to make the app, which was late September or October, between then and now, the popularity of OFC has gone through the roof. At that time, there were still a lot of people who didn’t know what it was. It has made me excited to go to big live tournaments again to find people to play OFC with. I'm going to the LAPC to see if the rumors are true about how many people are playing this game.
PocketFives: What countries have downloaded your app the most?
Joseph Michael: We have had a ton of Russian people download the app. There are people playing the game all over the world. U.S. is #1 and then the U.K. has just passed Russia. Then, Canada, France, and Australia.
PocketFives: Address Barry Greenstein's security concerns surrounding your OFC app.
Joseph Michael: Barry Greenstein has a longstanding reputation for acting with the highest levels of integrity. We appreciate him bringing this security threat to the poker community's attention so that it could be eliminated. The security of our app is of the utmost importance and our company is committed to ensuring that our players can enjoy OFC without the risk of their opponent having an unfair advantage.
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