I Love Casinos: Game

This Chinese gambling game is popular in Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia and is also played to some extent in the USA. It is known by several different names.

In Cantonese it is called Sap Sam Cheung , which means 13 cards, and in Vietnamese it is known by the similar name .
In Chinese, it is also sometimes called Luosong Pai Jiu , which means Russian Pai Gow. The game is indeed related to Pai Gow.
In the USA it is often known as Chinese Poker or sometimes Russian Poker, but note that some people also use the name Chinese Poker to refer to the climbing game Big Two. In Hawaii it is called Pepito.
In the Phillipines it is known as Pusoy, again not to be confused with Pusoy Dos, which is Big Two. Another name sometimes used is Good, Better, Best, referring to the three hands of a player.

Objective
The aim is to arrange your 13 cards into three poker hands - two of five cards and one of three cards - which will beat the corresponding poker hands made by the other players.

Players, Cards, Stakes and Deal
There are four players, each playing for themselves. A standard 52 card pack is used.

Before playing it is necessary to agree on a stake. Below I will describe the payments in terms of units; one unit can be worth whatever the players agree in advance - $1, $10, $100, etc.

The cards are shuffled, cut and dealt out singly: 13 cards to each player.

Arrangement of cards
Each player must divide their 13 cards into a 'back' hand of 5 cards, a 'middle' hand of 5 cards and a 'front' hand of 3 cards. Considered as poker hands, the back hand must be better than the middle hand, and the middle hand must be better than the front hand. The standard poker ranking is used - so the hand types from high to low are: royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pairs, one pair, high card (see the page on ranking of poker hands). There are no wild cards.

Since the front hand has only 3 cards, only three hand types are possible: three of a kind; one pair; high card. There is no value in having a front hand with three consecutive cards or three cards of the same suit: 'straights' or 'flushes' in the front hand do not count.

Players place their three hands face down in front of them, the front hand nearest the centre of the table and the back hand nearest themselves.

Showdown and Scoring
When everyone is ready, all the players expose their three hands and each pair of players compares the corresponding hands. In the simplest system of payments, you win one unit for each corresponding hand of another player that you beat and lose one for unit each hand that beats you. When the hands are equal you neither win nor lose