NoMercy OFC Crash Course: Learn all the royalties – Part 2

Hello everyone! 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!

Now that we went over the history of this fantastic game, let’s focus for a while on general advices and basic strategies. First, and as we saw last week, it is primordial that you know all the royalties in order to maximise your profits in OFC.

Indeed, and while it is true that the application will automatically calculate your points at the end of the hand, you have to realize that when you are in Fantasyland, no one will tell you which option pays more than the other.

Therefore, it is your knowledge of the bonuses that will direct you to make the best play.

Let’s look at a new example to follow up on that subject. Let’s say you receive these cards in Fantasyland:

Many times, amateurish players will quickly put their Quads in the back, because “it looks good” and “it seems right” so their board will end up looking like this:

While it is true that quads in the back will allow you to stay in Fantasyland, this might not be the most profitable way to set up your cards. Let’s analyse this deeper by looking at the points: 10 points for quads in the back + 2 points for trips in the middle = 12 points in royalties for that placement. Let’s now look at another way to set up these cards:

In this scenario, trips 3s on top will allow you to remain in Fantasyland just as the previous board placement. However, let’s see how many points you make here. Remember the tips that we learned in the very first part of these series of articles on OFC:

To know how many points your set on top is worth, you simply add the number 8 to the numerical value of your set. For example, here, a set of 3, plus 8, will give you 11 points.

In the end here, you will make 2 points for the straight in the back + 2 points for trips in the middle + 11 points for trips on top = 15 points in royalties for this placement. That’s already 3 points more than the previous option, not to mention that your chances of scooping are slightly higher here with trips 3s on top than previously with only King high on the top row.

I can only encourage you to not be lazy and to go back to the very first article of this blog in order to memorize the tricks I shared with you in order to count your royalties easily!

Meet me at the OFC tables on CoinPoker to practice your skills and enjoy the action. Welcome to Fantasyland!

Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier

OFC “Progressive” World Champion