OFC poker glossary
Every term you'll hear at an Open Face Chinese poker table, defined in a line. If a term has a page of its own, there's a link.
Last reviewed 8 September 2026
- Back
- The bottom row. The five-card hand that has to beat everything else on your board.
- Bail out
- Deliberately giving up on a row to keep the board legal. Losing one row costs a point; fouling costs six plus royalties. More →
- Board
- Your three rows of cards. Thirteen seats: three on top, five in the middle, five on the bottom.
- Bottom
- The five-card row nearest you, and the strongest hand on a legal board.
- Break
- Splitting a made hand across rows to keep the row order legal — putting trips in two places rather than making a full house you can't cover.
- Classic OFC
- The original form: five cards to open, then one card at a time for eight more turns, with no discards. More →
- Dead card
- A card you need that is already visible on someone's board, so it can never come to you. Counting them is the biggest edge in the game. More →
- Dumping
- Placing a useless card in a row you have already written off, to protect the rows that still matter.
- Fantasyland
- The bonus round for making queens or better on top: the next hand is dealt to you all thirteen cards at once, in private. More →
- Foul
- An illegal board — the middle beats the bottom, or the top beats the middle. It scores nothing and concedes everything. More →
- Front
- The top row. Three cards, and the only row where straights and flushes don't exist.
- Hand
- One complete deal, from the opening five cards to showdown. Also used for the poker hand in a single row.
- Kicker
- A card that doesn't form part of the hand but breaks a tie. A-A-K-7-3 beats A-A-K-6-5 on the third card.
- Middle
- The five-card row between top and bottom. Pays double the bottom for the same hand, because the bottom has to beat it. More →
- Muck
- The face-down pile of discards in Pineapple. Never revealed, which is why your outs are worse than a raw count says.
- Open face
- Every card you place stays visible for the rest of the hand. The defining feature of OFC and the reason there's no bluffing.
- Out
- A card still available that would complete or improve a row. Count them, then subtract the ones you can see.
- Pineapple
- The popular variant: after the opening five, each deal gives three cards of which you place two and discard one. More →
- Placement
- Committing a card to a row. Permanent — a placed card never moves, not even at the end of the hand.
- Point
- The unit of scoring. One per row won, three extra for a scoop, plus royalties, at an agreed amount of money per point. More →
- Quads
- Four of a kind. Worth 20 royalty points in the middle, 10 on the bottom.
- Re-entry
- Staying in Fantasyland by making trips on top, quads on the bottom, or a full house in the middle while you're there. More →
- Rounds
- How many hands a match runs for. Fixing the number is what keeps a session's variance under control.
- Row
- One of the three hands on your board. Also called a line.
- Royalty
- Bonus points for a strong hand in a row, paid for making the hand whether or not you win the row. More →
- Scoop
- Winning all three rows against an opponent. Worth three extra points on top of the three row points. More →
- Set
- Three of a kind. In the top row it's the biggest royalty in the game; on the bottom it pays nothing.
- Settle
- Paying out the points at the end of a hand or a session, at the agreed rate per point.
- Showdown
- The comparison at the end of a hand, once every board holds thirteen cards. Row against row.
- Straight flush
- Five suited cards in sequence. 30 royalty points in the middle, 15 on the bottom — 50 and 25 if it's a royal.
- Surrender
- A house rule in some games letting a player concede a hand early for a fixed penalty. Not standard, and not in most apps.
- Top
- The three-card row furthest from you, and the weakest hand on a legal board. Also called the front.
- Trips
- Three of a kind. See also set.
- Two pair
- Two separate pairs. Ranks above one pair and below trips — and pays no royalty in any row.
- Wheel
- The A-2-3-4-5 straight, and the lowest straight there is. It loses to 2-3-4-5-6. More →
Questions people actually ask
What does 'scoop' mean in OFC?
Winning all three rows against an opponent in the same hand. It pays the three row points plus a three-point bonus, so a clean scoop is worth six points before royalties.
What is a dead card in Open Face Chinese poker?
A card you need that is already face-up on somebody's board, so it can never reach you. Because every placed card in OFC is visible, dead cards are countable rather than guessable — which is why counting them is the core skill of the game.
What's the difference between the front and the top row?
Nothing. They are two names for the same three-card row. 'Back' and 'bottom' are likewise the same five-card row nearest the player.
Keep reading
Rules The complete OFC ruleset: the three rows, the dealing order, fouling, scooping, royalties and how a hand is settled. Written to be read once and remembered. Royalties The full Open Face Chinese poker royalty chart for the top, middle and bottom rows, plus which royalties are actually worth chasing. Hand rankings Every poker hand ranked, plus the part most charts miss: how three-card hands are ranked in the top row of Open Face Chinese poker. Strategy Open Face Chinese poker strategy that actually moves the needle: bottom-heavy starts, when to chase royalties, reading the board and the foul-risk rule.
Want to play a hand instead of reading about one?
OFC Poker is in open beta on iOS. Leave your email and we'll send a TestFlight invite — it's free, there's no account to create, and hands work on the underground.
- Pineapple and Classic, 5 to 50 rounds a match
- Three bot difficulties that don't hand you the pot
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