Chinese Poker Rules
Chinese Poker is a game of arrangement rather than betting. Each player is dealt 13 cards and splits them into three separate poker hands — a five-card back, a five-card middle, and a three-card front — that must be ordered from strongest to weakest. There are no community cards and no rounds of raising; the whole game turns on how skillfully you set your cards, and the ever-present danger of fouling.
The objective
Chinese Poker is usually played by two to four players, and the aim is to win units by beating your opponents row for row. You do that by dividing your 13 cards into three hands that are each strong enough to win yet still respect the required order. Every hand is scored against every other player, so a single well-set board can collect from the whole table, while one careless mis-set can hand all of your units away at once.
The 13-card deal and the three hands
From a standard 52-card deck, each player is dealt exactly 13 cards. Those cards are arranged, or "set," into three separate hands laid out in three rows:
Back hand — 5 cards
The bottom row, and it must be the strongest of your three hands. Your best available five-card holding — a flush, full house, or better — belongs here.
Middle hand — 5 cards
The center row, which must be weaker than the back but stronger than the front. Full standard five-card rankings apply.
Front hand — 3 cards
The top row, and the weakest of the three. With only three cards, the best you can make is three of a kind — straights and flushes do not count in a three-card hand, so it is decided by trips, pairs, and high cards alone.
The setting rule: back ≥ middle ≥ front
Your hands must be ordered so the back is at least as strong as the middle, and the middle at least as strong as the front. Break that order and your hand is fouled.
A fouled hand — for example a middle that outranks the back — loses all three rows to every opponent that deal, and usually costs an extra penalty unit on top. This is the single defining tension of Chinese Poker: your back is easy to make strong, but you must hold back enough strength to keep the middle and front legal and still competitive.
Hand rankings
The five-card back and middle hands use standard poker rankings, strongest at the top. The three-card front is scored only by three of a kind, one pair, and high card.
| Hand | Example |
|---|---|
| Straight flush | T♥ 9♥ 8♥ 7♥ 6♥ |
| Four of a kind | K♠ K♥ K♦ K♣ 4♠ |
| Full house | Q♠ Q♥ Q♦ 8♣ 8♠ |
| Flush | A♣ J♣ 9♣ 6♣ 3♣ |
| Straight | 9♦ 8♠ 7♥ 6♣ 5♦ |
| Three of a kind | 7♠ 7♥ 7♦ K♣ 2♠ |
| Two pair | J♠ J♦ 5♣ 5♥ 9♠ |
| One pair | T♦ T♣ A♠ 8♥ 4♦ |
| High card | A♠ Q♦ 9♣ 6♥ 2♠ |
Scoring: units, the 2-4 method and scoops
There is no pot. Instead, players settle in units, and every player is compared against every other player one pair at a time. For each of the three rows you win against an opponent you collect one unit, and for each you lose you pay one unit — so a typical result is winning two rows and losing one for a net of one unit.
Winning all three rows against an opponent is a scoop, also called a sweep, and it pays a bonus. Under the common 2-4 scoring method, winning two of three rows is worth a single unit but winning all three is worth four, which makes the difference between a two-row win and a clean sweep far larger than one extra row would suggest.
Because scores are settled pairwise, a strong board can win units from several opponents in the same deal while a fouled board pays out to all of them at once.
Royalties and bonuses
Premium holdings earn royalties — extra units awarded for the hand itself, whether or not you win that row. Typical royalties reward a flush, full house, four of a kind, or straight flush in the back, a full house or better in the middle, and three of a kind in the front, where trips are rare and especially valuable. Royalties reward players who take the risk of building big hands rather than merely setting safely, and they are added on top of the normal row-by-row unit scoring. Some formats also allow a surrender option, where a player who expects to foul or lose every row may fold before the showdown for a small fixed penalty instead of paying the full amount.
Open-Face Chinese (OFC)
Open-Face Chinese Poker is the most popular modern variant. Rather than receiving all 13 cards at once, players are dealt cards a few at a time and place them face-up into their rows one by one — and once a card is placed it can never be moved. That single change transforms the game: you must commit early cards without knowing what is coming, so the risk of fouling becomes a live gamble on every draw. Completing a qualifying front hand, typically a pair of queens or better, can earn a trip to Fantasyland, where on the next deal you receive all your cards at once and set them in secret, a powerful advantage. OFC keeps the same ordering rule, unit scoring, and royalties as classic Chinese Poker while adding the drama of placing cards under uncertainty.
A worked example of setting a hand
You are dealt A♠ A♦ K♣ K♠ K♥ 9♣ 9♦ 7♥ 7♠ 5♦ 4♣ 3♠ 2♥. Thirteen cards, and now you must set them.
It is tempting to put your three kings in the front for a huge top row. But the front is only three cards, and if it holds trip kings your middle and back must both be even stronger — which these cards cannot support. That set would foul instantly.
A legal, strong set instead reads: back K♣ K♠ K♥ 9♣ 9♦, kings full of nines; middle 7♥ 7♠ 5♦ 4♣ 3♠, a pair of sevens; front A♠ A♦ 2♥, a pair of aces. Now the order holds — full house beats a pair of sevens, which beats a pair of aces in a three-card hand — and no row is wasted.
The lesson is that raw strength is not enough: every card you spend on one row weakens another, and the art of Chinese Poker is balancing all three so the order stays legal while each hand still competes.
On SPN
SPN Chinese Poker supports two to four players and offers both the classic all-at-once deal and the Open-Face format where cards are placed one at a time. Foul detection is automatic — the software checks the back ≥ middle ≥ front order before finalizing your board — and all unit scores, scoops, and royalties are calculated for you. There is no rake taken from the pot under the SPN tick-fee model, dealing is provably fair, and the tables are bot-free.
Frequently asked questions
How many cards do you get in Chinese Poker?
Each player is dealt 13 cards from a standard 52-card deck. With four players every card in the deck is used. You then split those 13 cards into three separate poker hands: a five-card back, a five-card middle, and a three-card front.
What does it mean to foul in Chinese Poker?
Fouling means setting your three hands out of the required order — for instance, making your middle stronger than your back, or your front stronger than your middle. A fouled hand automatically loses all three rows to every opponent that deal, usually with an extra penalty, so keeping back ≥ middle ≥ front is the one rule you can never break.
How is Chinese Poker scored?
Scoring is by units, compared one opponent at a time. You win one unit for each of the three hands you beat and lose one for each you lose. Winning all three hands against an opponent is a scoop and pays a bonus, most commonly under the 2-4 method where a normal 2-1 result is worth one unit and a clean sweep is worth four.
What are royalties in Chinese Poker?
Royalties, also called bonuses, are extra units awarded for premium holdings regardless of whether you win that row — for example trips in the front, or a full house, four of a kind, or straight flush in the back. They reward taking risks with big hands and are paid on top of the normal row-by-row scoring.
What is Open-Face Chinese Poker?
Open-Face Chinese (OFC) is the most popular modern variant. Instead of receiving all 13 cards at once, you get them a few at a time and place each face-up, one by one, and a card can never be moved after it is set. That turns setting into a live gamble against fouling, and completing a qualifying front hand can send you to Fantasyland, where you receive all your cards at once on the next deal.