Ofc Poker Fantasyland
Table Of Contents
Fantasyland is a type of ‘bonus round’ in Chinese Poker. A player may enter Fantasyland when they have made a pair of Queens or better in the front hand without fouling. Entering Fantasyland means that on the next hand, they receive all 13 cards at once. If a poker player manages to set a pair of Queens or better in the top and manages not to foul, they enter fantasyland as per OFC poker rules. Following the OFC poker rules, a player is dealt with 14-17 cards in one go after qualifying for fantasy land. No contest, this puts you at a great advantage. The OFC Fantasyland Calculator is a free mobile app that helps the user play Open-face Chinese Poker (or OFC for short) by 'solving' the fantasyland portion of the game. Welcome to my personal blog on OFC Pineapple (Open Face Chinese Poker). Week after week, I’ll go over the history of the game, some basic rules and recommendations, anecdotes from the players, and finally, some more advanced strategies. Stay tune and enjoy the Fantasy Ride! Welcome to Fantasyland! Welcome to the official site dedicated to Open Face Chinese Poker. You'll find here everything you need to know about OFC, the latest trend in poker! You can learn the Rules of all OFC variations.
Introduction
Open-face Chinese poker (OFC) evolved from closed-face (“regular”) Chinese poker, but it is not necessary to know the rules or strategies of regular Chinese poker in order to enjoy OFC.
Like other poker games, OFC players take turns drawing cards from a single deck, trying to make the best possible hand, while their competitors do the same. Unlike other poker games, however, there are no bets placed during the rounds of play. Instead, the players agree to play “per point” and the game is scored in points, similar to card games like hearts or gin rummy.
After all card-placement rounds are complete, each player will have arranged 13 cards into three hands, called the “top,” the “middle,” and the “bottom.”
Each player’s top hand is compared to his or her opponents’ top hand, the middle to the middle, and the bottom to the bottom. A player will win or lose points, based on how his or her hand measures up.
The three hands are scored and compared as regular poker hands. The bottom and middle are regular five-card hands. The top only contains three cards, but is scored the same way, thus the best possible hand on top would be three-of-a-kind, while most top hands are high-card hands.
Since each player need 13 cards from the deck, OFC is played with a maximum of four players. Most commonly, the game is played heads-up between just two opponents.
Objective
The first objective of OFC is to make a “qualifying” hand. There is a strict rule that the bottom hand must be at least as good as the middle hand, and that the middle hand must be at least as good as the top hand. Since a player is arranging his cards one at a time, this isn’t always possible. If he or she has already played a pair of kings in middle, and has a straight draw on the bottom using cards all lower than a king, he or she must complete the straight.
Otherwise, if you can’t make a qualifying hand, the entire hand is “foul.”
In OFC, as in bowling, if you hand has fouled (failed to qualify), then you get a zero for the frame. There is no fine and no penalty box, but your top, middle, and bottom are all marked as zero. As long as your opponent makes a qualifying hand, he or she will beat your top, middle, and bottom.
First Round & Subsequent Rounds
Like hold’em games, OFC is played with a dealer button. The player to the left of the button acts first on every street, the action moves clockwise, and the button moves after every hand.
At the start, players get five cards to play in turn, playing each card top, middle, or bottom. The cards are arranged face-up on the table, hence “open-face” Chinese poker. Once a player arranges the cards and indicates that his or her turn is complete, the next player flips over all five cards and starts their own arrangement.
After the first turn, players get cards one at a time, and play them face up, in turn.
Once you play a card top, middle, or bottom, you can’t move it to a different row later. There are no take backs.
If you have read this far, and are familiar with the basics of poker hands (a flush beats a straight, quads beat a full house, etc.), then you are ready to play OFC. As long as you trust your opponent, or an impartial judge, to score the hands, go ahead and get a game started.
Scoring
The basics of scoring are simple, but there are a number of detailed cases to account for. Don’t get overwhelmed. Like casino slots or Candy Crush, you can start playing the game without knowing all of the scoring details right away and learn as you go.
OFC is played per point, so scoring of the final hands (after all 13 cards are placed) is done on a point basis.
Each row, (top, middle, and bottom), is worth one point to the winner. So if you have a pair of jacks in the middle and your opponent has king high, then you win one point in the middle.
In this hand, 'moscow25' wins the bottom and top rows, but loses the middle row. Therefore, he wins one point overall.
If playing OFC three- or four-handed, each player scores against each player independently. Thus, unlike in hold’em, where the best hand that doesn’t fold gets everything and everyone else gets nothing, there is no folding. For example, if Bob beats Ted but loses to Joe, Bob still wins points from Ted.
But wait, there’s more!
In addition to the +1/-1 points per row, there are a myriad of scoring bonuses that can be worth a lot more than one point.
Scoring Bonuses
The most common OFC scoring bonus is the “scoop bonus.” If you beat an opponent's top, middle, and bottom, you win an additional three points. This is sometimes referred to as the “1-6” scoring system. If you beat your opponent two out of three rows, you win one point overall. If you scoop him, it’s worth six points overall.
To encourage players to take chances for big hands, OFC rewards good hands in every row with different point bonuses. These bonuses are given, as long as a player makes a qualifying hand, regardless of whether the hand wins or loses.
Here, 'moscow25' makes a straight on the bottom, but loses to a his opponent’s bigger straight on the bottom. His opponent gets one point for winning the row, plus a two-point bonus for the straight. However, 'moscow25' still gets two points for his straight. Therefore, the straight bonuses cancel each other out, and 'moscow25' loses just one point on the bottom row.
Bonuses for bottom-row hands range from +2 for a straight to +25 for a royal flush. Middle bonuses start with +2 for three-of-a-kind, going up to +50 for a royal flush. Bonuses for the top hand start with +1 for a pair of sixes and then increase from there. The full list is below.
OFC Bonus Scoring System
| Bottom Hand | Bonus | Middle Hand | Bonus | Top Hand | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | -- | Three of a Kind | +2 | +1 | |
| Straight | +2 | Straight | +4 | +2 | |
| Flush | +4 | Flush | +8 | +3 | |
| Full House | +6 | Full House | +12 | +4 | |
| Quads | +10 | Quads | +20 | +5 | |
| Straight Flush | +15 | Straight Flush | +30 | +6 | |
| Royal Flush | +25 | Royal Flush | +50 | +7 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +8 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +9 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +10 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +11 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +12 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +13 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +14 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +15 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +16 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +17 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +18 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +19 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +20 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +21 | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | +22 |
In addition to the bonuses for big hands, there’s a special rule, which started out as another way to add drama to the game, but has since become a standard, big part of OFC strategy.
Playing with 'Fantasyland” is optional, and must be agreed to before an OFC game begins. Most OFC games played online and in public casinos are played with the Fantasyland option. Make sure you know whether you’re playing with or without Fantasyland before you join.
Fantasyland
This rule is simple: If you make a qualifying hand with or better on top, then your next hand will be “in Fantasyland.”
Fantasyland is treated as a bonus round of OFC. It’s common for the button not to move, and a player is not allowed to quit or get dealt out of the hand during his opponent’s Fantasyland round.
The player in Fantasyland has a big advantage because he or she is dealt all 13 cards at once, instead of the starting five and then one at a time. The player then sets the cards face down in turn, and then waits for his opponents to play their hands according to standard OFC rules.
Once all players are finished setting, the Fantasyland hand is revealed and scored like a regular OFC hand. Thus, a player in Fantasyland, after rounds and rounds of setting his hand imperfectly because he doesn’t know what’s coming, is able to set his hand perfectly.
Staying in Fantasyland
It is too easy to make or better on top while in Fantasyland, which you can see all 13 cards at once, so the rules for remaining in Fantasyland are a bit stricter.
A player in Fantasyland gets to “stay in Fantasyland” if he makes quads or better on the bottom, a full house or better in the middle, or three-of-a-kind on top. The full list of hands qualifying to stay in Fantasyland are below:
| Bottom hand | Stay in FL? | Middle hand | Stay in FL? | Top Hand | Stay in FL? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -- | -- | Full House | YES | Three-of-a-kind | YES |
| Quads | YES | Quads | YES | YES | |
| Straight Flush | YES | Straight Flush | YES | YES | |
| Royal Flush | YES | Royal Flush | YES | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES | |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | YES |
Rules and Ethics
While it’s OK to quit the game or to get dealt out to take a smoke or a phone call at the beginning of an OFC hand, any hand started must be completed until scoring.
Since Fantasyland is treated as the extension of a previous hand, and the player in Fantasyland has a clear advantage, players at the table are not allowed to quit or skip the Fantasyland hand, if they played the hand that led to it. There is also a common-courtesy rule that asks the player in Fantasyland to announce that he or she is “staying” in Fantasyland.
House rules vary, but it’s also common for the Fantasyland player to set the hand face-down, and not change it before the other players start their round.
Variants
OFC is still a new game, however, the common rules for “standard OFC with Fantasyland” described above are nearly universal, both online and in the casinos that increasingly spread OFC whenever the poker tournament circuit comes to town.
There are also a few variants of the game that have caught a bit of steam in the poker community. One well-known variant is “criss-cross OFC,” which simply consists of two player playing two hands each, to form a four-handed OFC game. The hottest new variant of OFC that actually changes some rules is called 'pineapple OFC.'
Like other “pineapple” variants of poker games like Omaha and Texas hold’em, pineapple OFC deals each player three cards instead of one card per round, and that player must play two cards in turn, while discarding one.
Conclusion
Open-face Chinese poker is a new and exciting form of poker. It combines simple rules and the drama of drawing for big hands, as in Texas hold’em and seven-card stud, with the high variance of games like blackjack.
The game is easy to learn and intuitive to play (don’t be scared by the table of bonuses), and like any good poker game, a beginner can win right away. Even better, unlike hearts, gin rummy, or even Texas hold’em (without the hole-card camera), you can learn the game by watching top players play. The game is played face up, so at every point in time, the player and the spectators have the same exact information.
Since the beginning of 2013, OFC has taken off as a mobile game. The screenshots used above to illustrate OFC rules are from the ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker App, available for the iPhone and iPad. There are several other good apps for playing OFC on mobile, against friends, against strangers, or against a computer opponent.
We’ll see you in Fantasyland!
OFC rules have been contributed by Nikolai Yakovenko. Known as 'Googles,' Yakovenko is originally from Moscow, Russia and is now a poker player and software developer residing in Brooklyn, New York. Yakovenko has made both World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour final tables. Meanwhile after several years at Google New York working on ranking algorithms, he's been developing independent software projects ever since. He also helped create the ABC Open-Face Chinese Poker iPhone App. You can follow Yakovenko on Twittter at @ivan_bezdomny.
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How to Play Chinese Poker w/ Open Face (OFC Poker)
If you’ve ever played Pai Gow Poker in a casino, you should catch on to the rules of Open Face Chinese Poker pretty quickly. In the below sections, you’ll learn the object of the game, how to set qualifying hands, how to score standard points, bonus points, and win money, and how to enter OFC Fantasyland.
- Object of OFC: The object of the game is to set three poker hands from the 13 cards provided, and win earn points for winning those hands against other players…
- Setting Hands: To keep things fair, there are certain rules in place for setting qualifying hands. The bottom hand must beat the middle hand, and the middle must beat the top…
- Point Scoring: There are no betting rounds in OFC Poker. Wins and losses are accrued by scoring points. Points are earned for winning hands against opponents…
- Bonus Scoring: Another way to score points is to set high-ranking hands. A straight or better in the bottom or middle hand, or pair of 6s or higher on top, score bonus points…
- Fantasyland: Fantasyland is a special bonus round offered in most OFC games online and on land. You must have QQ+ in the top hand, and qualify, to enter Fantasyland…
- Pineapple OFC: Pineapple is a faster variant of OFC for up to 3 players. Following the initial 5 cards, players receive 3 cards at a time, but can only use 2…
Disclaimer – Not all forms of gambling are legal in all provinces of Canada. The legal age to gamble also varies by province. Breaking the law is a serious matter. The information provided on this website is meant for educational purposes only, and we will not be held liable for any irresponsible / illegal activity on your part. Know the gambling laws in your province and follow them. The following pages provide more information on Canadian gambling laws: Alberta – British Columbia – Manitoba – Newfoundland & Labrador – New Brunswick – Nova Scotia Northwest Territory – Nunavut – Ontario – Prince Edward Island – Quebec – Saskatchewan – Yukon |
OFC Poker Rules – Object of the Game |
OFC is played with a single, standard deck of 52 cards. Necessitating 13 cards per hand, the game can accommodate up to 4 players at most, but is often played with just 2, competing heads-up. The term “open face” refers to the fact that players must set their cards face-up, for all to see, throughout the entire hand. The object of the game is to set three poker hands – one 3-card hand, played on top, and two 5-card hands, played middle and bottom. Each hand competes unilaterally against each opponent’s hand – top versus top, middle versus middle, and bottom versus bottom. |
Setting the Hands – Rules of Qualification |
A hand starts with 5 cards being dealt to each player. One at a time, starting with the player left of the dealer, player’s will set their cards face up on the table in designated positions. They can choose to place any cards in the top, middle or bottom hands. However, once a card is set in one hand, it cannot be moved to another hand. After the first player to act has set his 5 cards, the player to his left will set, then the next, until all are done. The dealer will then pass out one more card to each player. Again, starting left of the dealer, players will set this next card in their hands. This action is repeated time and again until all players have filled all of their hands with 13 cards each. Note that, in a 4 player game, all 52 cards will be depleted from the deck. Qualifying HandsIn order for a hand to qualify, the bottom hand must rank higher than the middle hand, and the middle higher than the 3-card top hand. Although rare, an exact tie is also acceptable. However, if any of the player’s hands do not qualify, all three hands are deemed foul. If a player fouls, all of their hands automatically lose. In this case, the player will score -6 points against all other players who did not also foul (see Scooping below). |
Scoring – How to Win Money Playing OFC Poker |
| As mentioned above, Open Face Chinese is not like traditional poker. There are no antes or blinds, betting rounds, no pots to be won. It is not a single player with the highest ranking hands that wins. OFC Poker is played on a point system, where each hand, in each position, is evaluated against each opponent, on an individual basis. For instance, in a 3-player game, we have Player A, Player B, and Player C. Scoring would take place as follows: Player A vs. Player B: Player A compares all three of his hands against Player B’s, earning a point for each hand that’s higher (plus bonus score, if applicable, detailed below). They then exchange money accordingly – 1 bet unit per point. Bet units should be determined before the game, of course. Player A vs. Player C: Player A then compares against Player C, determining points and exchanging money. Player B vs. Player C: Finally, Player B compares against Player C. Each hand is completed in this fashion. All players compare against each other, collecting any winnings, and paying any debts. Then the cards are shuffled and a new hand begins. Scoring Points+1 Per Hand: Each individual hand that is won against another player is worth +1. For example, if Player A wins the top hand against Player B, he earns +1 points. Scooping: A player scoops the hand if all three of their hands win against another player. They will receive a total of +6 points for scooping the hand, calculated as +1 for top, +1 for middle, +1 for bottom, and +3 for the scoop (+6 in all). |
Bonus Scoring – Where the Big Money Is | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In addition to earning points for winning hands and scooping, players can earn a lot more points by setting exceptional hand ranks. A Straight on bottom, for example, is worth +2 points. A straight in the middle is worth +4. Setting trips on the top hand is worth anywhere from +10 for 2-2-2, to +22 for A-A-A. Striving to set such hands can be extremely profitable, if you succeed. However, it’s also a good way to foul out, resulting in a -6 scoop against everyone at the table. In short, be careful about shooting for the highest ranking hands. The higher the point value, the greater the risk of fouling. That being said, here’s a complete table of bonus point scoring for bottom, top and middle hands. Note that bonus points are scored in addition to regular points and scoops, and a losing hand will still earn bonus points against the winner. However, bonus score is not counted on foul hands.
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Learn How to Play OFC with Fantasyland Rule |
This is a super fun way to play OFC Poker – for the player who makes it there, that is. It gives this player an extreme advantage in the next hand. As such, everyone must agree to play with Fantasyland rules before the game begins. If you’re playing in a live or online poker room, check the rules to see if Fantasyland is in play before you begin. Here’s how it works. If any player completes a qualifying hand with Q-Q or better on top, they will enter Fantasyland on the next hand. For the Fantasyland hand, the dealer button does not move. This player receives all 13 of their cards at the very beginning, thus making it very easy to set a fantastic array of hands, and likely to score a lot of bonus points. All other players receive cards and set their hands by standard rules. Due to the extreme advantage given to this player, no other participant may choose to quit or sit out when a Fantasyland hand is about to start. It is the ethical thing to do to remain for the hand and face the unfavorable consequences. Staying in FantasylandGetting into Fantasyland requires Q-Q or better up top. By those rules, it would be relatively easy to stay in Fantasyland. To make it harder, the player must achieve one of the following hands to remain in Fantasyland for another round of play.
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Ofc Poker Fantasyland Game
Pineapple Open Face Chinese Poker |
Another popular variant of OFC Poker is called Pineapple. In this version, only 2 to 3 players can join in. It is essentially a faster version of the same game, with more cards dealt per round. Like standard OFC, each player is dealt 5 cards to start, and sets them as usual. From here on out, players receive 3 cards at a time, instead of just one, but they may only use 2 of these cards. Player player picks which two cards to set, then discards the third card. All other rules remain the same. |
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