Since it’s a tournament and players may only have a few 'points' left in their stack, players pay in turn. If we’re playing an early level in the tournament at 100 chips per point, I would win 1,400 in chips. So if we’re playing three-handed poker and I score +20 against one opponent but -6 against the other opponent, I would expect to win 14 points. OFC is played 'per point,' meaning that you play out complete hands, then each hand is scored against every other opponent at the table. Obviously, players get eliminated as they run out of chips. They then play for progressively higher stakes until somebody has all the chips. Like any poker tournament, in OFC events all players start with an equal number of chips - something like 30,000 in chips, for example - and get sent to full random tables (four handed or three handed). Let’s take a quick look at how OFC tournaments are organized, and how we might tweak the rules to make them a bit more fun.

Canadian poker pro (and OFC novice) Peter Jetten won the event for $52,280 although, he may not have won had Melissa Burr and I not let him play take-backs on a sixth-card move when he missed an open-ended straight in the back. Despite some issues with sub-optimal rules and structure, the event drew 58 players, and by any measure, was a success.

With much fanfare, the first OFC event at a major tournament took place at last year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. As soon as one catches the open-face Chinese poker (OFC) bug, thought number three - after 'wow this fun because it’s poker and I never have to fold' and 'man, I bet I could get good at this game' - is 'this game would sure be fun to play as a tournament.'

Open face chinese poker scoring chart