The deck is dealt into 4 hands of 13 cards each, which are given to 2, 3, or 4 players (2 players: each gets 2 individual and separate hands, 3 players: each gets one hand, the last is discarded or given to a friend to play for funsies, 4 players: each player gets a hand).

Each player uses his 13 cards to make a 3-card hand (the ‘front’) and two 5-card hands (the ‘middle’ and ‘back’). Each hand must be stronger than the hand before it, so the strongest is in the back and the weakest is in the front. The version that I most often play in involves setting the middle hand as a deuce to seven lowball hand, and the front and back as regular high hands. This leads to a little more interesting decision-making, and probably a more skillful game, as well as usually stronger front and back hands. Once all players set their hands, they are each revealed and scored against each other. Each hand is scored heads-up against each other hand, and ‘points’ are distributed accordingly: If you take 2 out of 3 hands from somebody, they owe you 2 points. If you take all 3, they owe you 4 points. And vice versa, of course. If the hands are called A, B, C, and D, there are 6 iterations of points exchange (3 for each player/hand): AvB, AvC, AvD, BvC, BvD, CvD. If playing headsup, there are 4 points exchanges per game obviously.

The amount of money that each point is for is decided upon before the game, and ranges from $1-$5 for a smaller, fun-type game to $100-$1000 for a high-stakes, degenerate-type game. Its also worth noting that the players in a game can play for different stakes, even at the same time. For instance, if players A B and C want to play for $20 a point, and player D only wants to play for $5 a point, thats totally doable since the points are all exchanged in a heads-up manner. Just make sure to use color-coded chips to make it easy. In any case, Chinese poker is pretty much a neutral-EV game so long as every player is competent, but sometimes people will make mistakes that cost them some points.

The key to successful play in Chinese poker is to balance your hands in such a manner as to maximize your total EV. If you can set a monster back hand like a straight flush, but in doing so have to give up on (’punt’) the middle and front, chances are you’re better off putting 3 moderately strong hands down instead. Now this may change if you play with royalties (bonus points that are earned for playing particularly strong hands), but normally I don’t. Of course, as a poker player, that part shouldn’t be hard to figure out when you are put into a situation to do so.

There are a few other very important things to keep in mind when playing Chinese poker:

- Slowroll whenever possible. The best slowrolls are the ones where your opponent celebrates pre-emptively and doesn’t see it coming, though there is always room for the standard “two pair….. tens…. and tens!” when you really have quads in the back, and “pair of sixes…. with a six kicker!” when you have trips in front. Another regular slowroll is when you have a monster hand and your opponent throws down a huge, but slightly smaller one before anybody else. In that case, you should act like you’re disgusted, then wait for the rest to flip their hands before turning yours slowly and letting them figure out that they’re crushed without words. But the important thing is that you be creative with your slowrolls, and be sure to use them more liberally against people who are winning and/or gloating, as they’re less likely to flip out ninja-style or something.

- If ever a player leaves for long enough that you can pull it off successfully, you should rig the deck against him as hilariously as possible. Royal flush over straight flush, quads over quads, 76432 vs. 75432 etc. Basically you have to give them a huge hand that gets scooped across the board anyhow. Be sure not to blow your cover until after the whole hand plays out, and he’s about to start paying out.

- As you’re setting your hand, be sure to bitch and moan a lot about how bad it is. This is common practice in Chinese poker and should not be avoided.

- A common beginner mistake is to pick up your whole hand at once and then sort it out. This is wrong, and will lead to losing points. The correct method for looking at your hand is the “Bakes sweat” , which I learned from my friend Bakes. Leave all the cards face down, then pick them up one by one and add them to your hand, arranging as you go. This method is more enjoyable, and it also will lead to you seeing your hand more clearly as a whole, so that you can make the best decisions.

- Don’t ever play Chinese poker against Vanessa Selbst (unless theres also a fish in the game). She runs hotter than the sun.

I can’t think of any actual strategy for setting hands off the top of my head, but the next time I play I’ll try to catalogue the hands that are shown down so as to make a sort of rankings chart that’ll help you sort out the EV of your hands.