How to Play Open Face Chinese Poker
Description
Chinese Poker but you build your hand card by card, face-up, and you can't move anything once it's placed. One wrong placement early can cost you the whole hand.
Objective
Same as Chinese Poker — arrange three hands to beat your opponents' — but built one card at a time, in full view of the table.
Setup
Two to four players, using a standard deck.
No cards are dealt all at once. Instead, each player receives five cards to start and places them face up, directly into their front, middle, or back hand.
Rules
After the opening five, players take turns receiving one card at a time and must immediately place it into one of their three hands, face up, where everyone can see it.
Once a card is placed, it can't be moved — your hand's shape locks in gradually as the deal continues, in full view of your opponents.
As before, your back hand must ultimately beat your middle hand, and your middle hand must beat your front hand.
Winning
Once all thirteen cards are placed, compare hands the same way as standard Chinese Poker — a point per hand beaten, a bonus for sweeping all three against one opponent.
Misordering your hands (back weaker than middle, or middle weaker than front) is a foul, and you automatically lose the maximum against everyone.
Fantasyland: place a Queen or better in your front row without fouling, and you enter Fantasyland next hand — thirteen cards dealt face-down at once, which you set out in private before revealing your layout.