NoMercy OFC Crash Course: Opening with 3 Cards Flush

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. We already went over a list of elements such as knowing your royalties, taking your time before you act and counting your live cards. In the latest blog posts, we studied a frequent situation where you must choose between scoring more points or remaining in Fantasyland. We also quickly went over a valuable concept about setting up your initial cards, and we will now go deeper into that subject with multiple examples of real-life openings.

Let’s start with this scenario when you receive these 5 cards as an opening:

I see many players with a tendency to always place their 3 cards flush in the back, which would result in the following opening in OFC Fantasyland Classic Pineapple:

There are two major problems with that option:

First, if you don’t succeed in making your flush in the back, you will most likely bust out your entire board, because you will end up with no hand at all on that bottom line.

Second, you are splitting a pair that you already have. Why would you do that? It will be really difficult to catch another 7 for your middle row, since you already have two 7s in your own hand.

Therefore, the correct play with such an opening would be the following:

With such an opening, you are all set to make two pair or a full house in the back, with a smaller hand in the middle, and even possibly a pair of Queens on top to access Fantasyland! In any case, your chances of fooling are way lower with this starting board then with the previous staring board.

Let’s look at another example:

This is basically the same opening as the former one, but with different cards. Ask yourself how you would place these cards on your board. Would you go for the following placement?

Or would you go for this one?

If you understood this concept correctly, you now know that the best play here will be to keep your pair on the same line and to forget about trying to make a flush on the back. The reasons for this choice are the same as above:

• Less risks of fooling by not making your flush
• Better chances of making a valid board by starting with a pair on the back
• Opportunity to make a full house in the back for 6 points royalty
• Improved odds to access Fantasyland with a middle row that will be lower than the back row

Please remember that this is an extremely important concept in order to be a winning player in OFC! Indeed, your openings are the whole foundation of your hand, so if you frequently start with placements that are not optimum, this will translate into an accumulation of mistakes and money losses.

Let’s continue on openings’ theory next week with more hand analysis to come.

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