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Strategy Tips
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Remember that scooping is the name of the game. Better a 90% chance of NOT getting scooped than a mediocre hand in all three. For example, if you have four pairs, and an A-high flush, better to go
2pr/AA/QQ than A-flush/pair of nines/A-high. A pair of Queens in front (your best hope of not getting scooped in first example) will only get beaten about one time in ten. An A-flush in back (your only
hope in the second example) will get beaten at least half of the time. Bear in mind that you either want
1) A hand that can scoop a large portion of your opponents
2) A hand that is VERY hard for your opponents to scoop.
Excellent hands are ones with a virtual lock in one of three, and even average in the other two. For example 2-boat/K-flush/66 is hardly EVER going to get scooped (K-flush in middle is about a 99% winner). But it will scoop someone with a crappy hand like flush/2pr/AKJ. Another example would be
J-flush/nines-up/AAJ. AAJ is practically a lock, and even though the J-flush and nines up are BOTH vulnerable, they can scoop some common hands.
Here are my thoughts regarding break even hands: This is just a guess after a couple of thousand hands of experience, I haven't done any serious analysis:
In a six handed game:
nines-full will break even in back Jacks up will break even in middle 88A will break even in front
The hardest decision in Chinese is how to break up pairs. When you have a boat or flush in back, and are left with two pairs, how to play them is a LARGE part of your plus or minus edge. Obviously, if you
have 3322xAKQ, you would play AKQ in front. AAKKxxxxx is obviously AAxxx/KKx
A good rule of thumb that I have used quite unsuccessfully is that you need either:
1) good ace in front, like AK4 or AQJ to NOT split
2) at least 77 as bottom pair TO split, or
3) KK or AA as top pair TO split, even if underpair is a baby.
Another common decision is this: you have a boat, a flush/straight, and three little cards... for example: TTTQQ K7432c 964
It's probably better to play this as flush/trips/QQ. However, if the QQ was instead 55, better to play TTT55/flush/964. The reason is, the first one can scoop poor hands, and is tough to scoop (trips/QQx).
The second one(if played flush/trips/44) would be pretty hard to scoop, but couldn't scoop any reasonable hands.
Remember the first example hand that I gave you?
Ks4s JhTh6h4h AdJd8d AcQc5c4c
AdAcKsQcJhJdTh8d6h5c4s4h4c
4s4h4c AdAc JhJd KsQcTh8d6h5c
I showed you how to set it as:
Back: 4s4h4cJhJd Middle: AdAc8d6h5c Front: KsQcTh
Can you see a better way to set it?
How would you set:
KsKc 8s8h 2s2c AhJhTh9c6c5c4h
How about:
999 777 33 22 J54
Or:
999 777 KK 22 J54
Suggestions:
44456 AA8TQ JJK (Do you see why this is better than 4boat/JJ/KQT? If you have to pin your hopes on ONLY one of three, choose the best possible hand to do it on. JJ will win MUCH more often than 4-boat. Remember, you are ONLY concerned about scoops, both getting and giving)
p auto (because AJT84h K9652c K82s) ;-)
99933 77722 J54 (can't get scooped, get one royalty in middle)
99922 77754 KKJ (this hand can scoop)
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