NoMercy OFC Crash Course: Opening with a pair of Queens (Part 5)

Hello everyone! Welcome to NoMercy OFC Crash Course, 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 tuned and enjoy the Fantasy Ride!

Over the last series of tips, we reviewed different openings and we went through some real-life hand analysis. There are multiple different possible scenarios in OFC, and we will continue to study what are the optimal plays according to each situation.

At the moment, we are continuing our deep study about opening with Queens and all possible scenarios when receiving such a pair to start your hand. After reviewing all possible best strategies, we will move on to opening with Kings, Aces, 3-Flush, 2 Pairs, Open-ended straight draw, and so on.

We ended the last blog post with a question regarding the following initial five cards and I asked you to guess what the best opening in such a case would be:

What is your answer to this question?

There are typically two ways that you could decide to go with these cards:

As we saw previously, when you receive two Queens with another small pair in the opening, you should constantly place these two pairs in the back and look for a boat. This is illustrated in option #1 here above. Remember that you can always access Fantasyland with Kings or Aces, so placing your Queens in the back does not mean that you are forfeiting that option.

However, if you receive an Ace or a King along with your pair of Queens and other small pairs, this changes everything! Indeed, this Ace or King will be enough strength to “sit your Queens on”, a topic we previously covered.

Therefore, in a case like this, you should place your Queens on top and the King in the middle:

Heads-up and first to act

For the simplicity of these series of tips about openings, we always assume that we are first to act in a Heads-Up play.

Because of that, it means that we assure that all the other Kings are live. But be very careful if you are last to act and remember to watch for the other Kings that may be exposed out there. Indeed, if this King is no longer 100% live, then it changes everything.

For example, if the 3 other Kings were exposed, then the King would be completely dead and it should be placed on top with the pair of Queens. Otherwise, your chances of accessing Fantasyland would be too slim.

If there were 2 Kings already exposed, then the initial placement would vary depending on the liveliness of the Queens and 7s. According to that, the best play could be two pairs Queens and 7s on the back, or Queens on the back with 7s in the middle and King on top.

With only one King exposed, then we would stick with the original placement with a King in the middle and Queens on top.

Remember that OFC is a mastermind complex game and there will ALWAYS be exceptions if you are second or last to act or depending on the format you are playing: Heads-up or three-handed. 

What about an opening with 3 Flush and an Ace?

For example, look at the following opening and try to guess what would be the optimal placement here?

Rendezvous next week to find the answer! Make sure you keep a lookout for the NoMercy OFC Crash Course!

Meet me at the OFC tables on CoinPoker to practice your skills and enjoy the action. Open yourself a CoinPoker account today. Welcome to Fantasyland!

Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier

OFC “Progressive” World Champion