NoMercy OFC Crash Course: Importance of optimal openings

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 like optimal openings.  Stay tune 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 openings according to each situation.

Let’s move on with a crucial subject: Openings

The way you will chose to place your initial 5 cards will be the foundation of your hand and therefore represent one of the most important decision you will have to make in Open Face Chinese Poker.

You can often identify bad players just by looking at their first move and initial placement. If you intend to make profit while playing OFC, you must learn how to optimise the placement of your initial cards, and to spot the players who are making multiple mistakes. Once you identify such weak players, sit down and play as long as they stay.

There is of course variance in Chinese Poker, but the effect on your winnings is drastically less than, for example, in No Limit Hold’em. If you play better than your opponents, it will be impossible for them to win over you on the long run. Being lucky will not suffice and all your opponents’ small errors will eventually pay out for you.

Unlike regular poker, you will not be able to fold your trash hands and wait for the next deal. This is actually the beauty of Chinese Poker; you are always in action!

Just like in chess, there are multiple classic openings. However, unlike chess, you could be last to act in a 4 handed game in OFC Turbo where you would have seen 15 cards exposed before you act, so the possibilities are infinite.

Therefore, and because OFC is such a complex game with possibilities being endless, we will always assume in this deep study on openings that we are:

• Heads up
• First to act
• Playing regular OFC Pineapple with Fantasyland

Of course, all subsequent draws involve many subtilities and each placement is important. After placing the initial 5 cards, it’s on the other streets that you will be able to identify some weaknesses, even from decent players that know how to make the best openings. Playing OFC is kind of a zone where you have to be attentive and aware at all times.

We recently covered a few scenarios of openings that included opening with a pair of Queens in a series of posts from this blog, as this was a frequent question that I received from OFC players.

As of next week, we will study all the best openings in order of the highest starting hands by ranking. We will start with a Royal Straight Flush and we will go over all possibilities, until we reach the very worst opening hand with 5 rags such as 10-7-5-4-3 in 4 different suits. 

Rendezvous next week for the continuation of these series of tips on Open Face Chinese Poker!

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Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier

OFC “Progressive” World Champion