Chinese Poker
The original, simultaneous-deal version of Chinese Poker: all thirteen cards dealt at once, then arranged into three hands (top, middle, bottom) and scored against every opponent.
Coming soon — not yet playable
Rules
Chinese Poker is dealt very differently from betting-round poker games: each player receives all thirteen of their cards at once, face down, with no further cards dealt during the hand.
Arrangement: each player privately arranges their thirteen cards into three hands — a 3-card "top" hand and two 5-card "middle" and "bottom" hands — then reveals all three simultaneously once every player is ready. The bottom hand must rank equal to or stronger than the middle hand, and the middle must rank equal to or stronger than the top; a player whose hands don't satisfy this ordering "fouls" and scores the worst possible result against every opponent that round.
Scoring: each player's top, middle, and bottom hands are compared individually against each opponent's corresponding row; the better hand in each row wins an agreed number of points, often with bonus "royalty" points for especially strong hands (such as trips on top or quads or better on the bottom). Points are tallied across every pairwise comparison at the table.
Strategy notes: Because all thirteen cards are seen and arranged at once (unlike Open-Face Chinese Poker, where cards are placed one at a time as they're dealt and committed immediately), Chinese Poker is a pure hand-construction puzzle with no real-time risk management — the entire skill lies in balancing top-hand strength against bottom-hand strength without fouling.
Common house rules
The original vs. the 'open-face' variant
This simultaneous, all-at-once deal is the original/classic version of the game; Open-Face Chinese Poker (also in this library) is the newer, harder variant where cards are placed one at a time as dealt, with no ability to rearrange — the two are commonly confused, so confirm which the table means before dealing.
Royalty bonus scale varies by table
As with Open-Face, the exact bonus points awarded for strong hands in each row vary by house rule and should be agreed and written down before playing.
Scoop bonus
Many tables award an extra bonus (commonly worth as much as all three individual row wins combined) to a player who wins all three rows against a given opponent in the same hand, on top of the standard per-row points.
Related games
Based on shared category, origin, and rules that reference each other.
Open-Face Chinese Poker
A very different kind of poker: no betting rounds at all. Thirteen cards are arranged into three hands (top, middle, bottom), scored against each opponent's three hands.
Learn the rules →Pusoy
The Filipino take on 13-card poker: all cards dealt at once and sorted into a 5-5-3 arrangement, with its own suit-ranking conventions distinct from the Chinese original.
Learn the rules →Pai Gow Poker
A banking card-table adaptation of the ancient Chinese tile game Pai Gow: each player splits seven cards into a five-card hand and a two-card hand, both of which must beat the banker's.
Learn the rules →Cheat
Also called I Doubt It or Bullshit — a pure bluffing game where players discard face-down while lying about what they played, and others may call the bluff.
Learn the rules →