NoMercy OFC Crash Course: Opening with a Full House (Part 4)

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. Today it’s opening with a Full House! Stay tune and enjoy the Fantasy Ride!

As explained earlier, we are now covering a crucial subject in OFC: your openings.

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

We are studying all the best openings in order of the highest starting hands by ranking, until we reach the very worst opening hand with 5 rags such as 10-7-5-4-3 in 4 different suits.

Remember that one of the ultimate goals in Chinese Poker is to reach Fantasyland (FL), so starting with the most effective placement will greatly help you get there!

We already covered some of the best poker hands as we went over all possible scenarios and draws that concern a Royal Flush, a Straight Flush, and Quads.

We are now in the middle of studying the range of all possible openings with a Full House, and we started by covering the downsides of splitting a Full House.

We also started to go over the range of hands where it will be best to actually split your Full House:

• When a Full House includes a pair of Aces, Kings or Queens
• When a Full House includes a pair of Jacks or Tens

Let’s now move to Exception #3.

Exception #3

When you are dealt a Full House in which your pair is smaller than your trips.

Even though splitting your full house means giving up on a bonus that you won’t always get back, and even if it means giving up on eventual big draws in the middle such as straights and flushes, it is still the correct play to split your Full House when it includes a pair that is smaller than the trips.

Here’s a few reasons that explain why this is the best play:

Advantage #1

One non-negligible advantage with this play is that it allows you to stay open for quads on the back.

With 12 more cards to come on the subsequent draws, there is a fair chance for you to get there, or to at least fulfil another boat.

Advantage #2

Placing a pair in the middle as your initial opening improves your chances of accessing FL by a lot.

It also gives you an easy shot at making trips in the middle. How is making trips in the middle better than opening with a full house in the back?

Well, there are many factors explaining that:

• Trips in the middle are a fast and likely way to reach FL. You’re all set and ready to fill up that top line with any AA, KK, QQ, or even better, any trips below your middle trips, for a whooping royalty accompanying your FL.

(Note here that in a format called “ OFC Progressive”, the number of cards you would receive in FL would vary according to your top score:

QQ = 14 cards

KK = 15 cards

AA = 16 cards

222 to AAA = 17 cards

• Trips in the middle will allow you to score multiple bonuses. It will often beat your opponent on that line and help you scoop the whole board.

• Having a set in the middle improves by a lot your chances of completing a full house on that line, assuming that you have made a superior boat on the back row, or even quads. Remember that a full house in the middle is super valuable, adding a direct 18 points royalties to your score (6 for the back + 12 for the middle).

Remember that your pair must be smaller than your trips for these scenarios to materialize.

If you hold trip deuces with a pair of tens, do not split your full house!

You will never be able to make trip tens in the middle unless you catch the single remaining deuce of the deck to make quads in the back.

Other notable exceptions apply, and we will continue going over all possible scenarios in the next blogs.

Be aware of the reasons why you make every single decision in OFC. That’s how you will become a winning player.

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

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!

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Isabelle “No Mercy” Mercier

OFC “Progressive” World Champion