Chinese rocks
Go mental for oriental
When it comes to excitement and playability on the poker table, you’ve got to hand it to Chinese Poker. Not only is easy to get started, with no requirement for expert knowledge of poker hands, but it also relies more on about good old lady luck to bring you a win rather than that rather than that suave stranger (for many beginners, anyway) skill. It’s also a doddle to get started as it’s a simple game that needs no chips and can be played for any Bitcoin stakes.
This makes it a good choice for newbies, with better chances to pick up a killer hand and bigger scope for levelling the playing field with the seasoned sharks, even if you’re a little fish who’s just joined the game.
Not that Chinese Poker is a game for the kindergarten. Far from it. High stakes are attracting the high rollers, with the first major live OFC poker tournament taking place in 2013 during the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, according to online poker databases. The €2,000 + 150 Re-Entry event drew 52 players generating the €135,800 prize pool.
The lure of big money has also reportedly seen Phil Ivey scooping a cool half-a-million dollars from Phil Hellmuth playing high stakes Chinese Poker in an EPT championship; and Ted Forrest taking 1.5 million dollars from Barry Greenstein in a marathon one-month game.
Whilst the news over at pokernews.com reports Philadelphia chess grandmaster Jennifer Shahade czeched out of Prague’s King’s Casino with the €100,000 prize in the Open-Face Chinese Poker World Championship High Roller – the world’s richest open face competition to date.
A bit of history
So just how did this game come to be a popular pastime in the West? Chinese Poker (AKA Pusoy) has been played in Asia for many years and is as old as playing cards themselves. Research shows that there are even records of Emperor Mu-Tsung playing a poker-style game in the latter part of the 10th century. So when the mortar was still setting on the Great Wall, the game was no doubt being played in its shadow by workers grabbing a quick green tea break. This game developed into Pai Gow, which was introduced into the United States in the early 19th century by Chinese labourers shipped in to help build the expanding nation’s infrastructure. Like many other new and exciting Oriental exports, it soon captured the imagination of westerners and become wildly popular alongside poker in the burgeoning casino scene. The two games were merged into Pai Gow poker. It’s thought that Chinese poker evolved from this combination, adding strategy to the much more basic Pai Gow.
Learn Chinese with BitPoker247
Becoming fluent in this adrenaline-charged variation of poker is simple. Here at BitPoker247 we provide five versions for your delectation, all of which can be played using Bitcoins with minimal know-how and with no minimum stake. Here are some very brief introductions to variations on Chinese that we offer. Be sure to click on the game name for the full rules.
- Chinese Classic. In Chinese Poker, each player receives a 13 card hand from a standard 52 card deck. Each player then has to divide their cards into three poker hands
- Chinese Open Face. In this variation, the players are dealt five cards in the beginning. These cards are arranged face up on the table to the back, middle, and front hands. The cards cannot be rearranged later. Then the players receive a single card at a time for the remaining 8 cards.
- Chinese Open Face Turbo. Turbo Open Face Chinese begins in the same manner as normal open face, with each player dealt 5 cards. After that, each player is dealt 4 cards at a time.
- Chinese Open Face Pineapple. Pineapple is a variant of Open Face Chinese that can be played 2 or 3 handed. Each player is dealt 5 cards face down, like in regular Open Face, but after that they get 3 cards at a time.
- Chinese Open Face 2-7 Pineapple. This game plays just like high-only Chinese Open Face Pineapple, except with the middle played as a 2-7 lowball hand.
If you’re looking for an exciting version of poker that’s fast, fun and heavier on the luck of the draw, try one of our variations and start building your dynasty using your Bitcoins today.
Blog post originally written for BitPoker 24/7 and appeared on their website in 2015.
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