Chinese poker scoring

[rchandra]

Other than bonuses, do scoring variants tend to change strategy?

When playing (casual only) I've usually had each player put in 3 "bets". The best front/middle/back each takes 4 bets. So in this version you aren't comparing headsup but multiway. I have seen it mentioned online, but most serious play seems to be 2-4 or 1-6. Do those cause different strategies too?

[Phat Mack]

If I understand correctly, everyone puts in three units, then all hands are compared, and the best of four hands for front, middle and back win 4 units.

It seems that this would change the strategy so that you would benchmark hands for four-way action, then set your hand so that it would have a high probability of winning at least one, as opposed to having it compete 2 or 3 ways...

[Siegmund]

Adding bonus hands changes strategy in a very obvious way -- if you can make one of the guaranteed payoff hands, you make it, otherwise you set your cards normally.

Adding an extra point for winning a majority (2-4 scoring) and adding extra points for a sweep (1-6 scoring) have opposite effects on the setting: in rough terms 2-4 encourages low-variance strategies and 1-6 high-variance ones... I imagine an expert on the game could show a few simple examples of hands where you can choose between nearly guaranteeing two wins and one loss (correct at 2-4) or a higher-variance strategy to get a 20-30% chance of a sweep, at risk of winning only one hand if you get unlucky. An expert might also be able to give some general advice on what types of hands play differently at 2-4 and 1-6.