Chinese poker is a game that is gaining in popularity more and more with every passing day. With 13 cards to each player (4 players max) Chinese poker may seem like an action game, but like all poker variants, has a very deep and subtle strategy to it.
Basic Strategy Overview
Once you have been dealt your cards, you must then analyze them in order to determine what would be the best course of play. If you are playing Chinese Poker online you can use the “sort by rank” and “sort by suit” options to arrange your cards into specific order, otherwise you will have to do it manually.
Be aware of what style of Chinese Poker you are playing because this will have a large effect on how you arrange your hands. If “clean sweep hands” are in play, this is what you should look for first because they automatically win. Clean Sweep hands are usually pretty easy to spot (“13 colors” for example), but they can be missed if a player doesn’t look closely. If clean sweep hands are not in play (or you don’t have one) you should now looking to make regular 5 cards poker hands.
You should analyze your cards thorughly before setting your hands. The best way to do this is by sorting them by rank, then by suit, then pairs ect. If you have the benefit of sorting your cards with lick of a mouse button, the sorting process becomes much easier. It would be wise to use this feature to make the best possible hand arrangements. Generally, you would want to make your back hand first then the middle and finally the front hand.
Your back hand is supposed to be the strongest, so anything less than a full house is considered a marginal hand in this spot. If you are able to make a full house you would want this as your back hand (unless you can make a straight-flush or quads). If you have already set your full house (or are unable to make one), you should then start looking to make straights and flushes.
There are often a number of different ways to arrange your cards on a given deal. Most times there is no absolutely correct way to do this, which is one of the most interesting aspects of Chinese Poker. Analyzing the strength of one arrangement over another is the benchmark for developing a solid strategy.