Taiwanese poker rules: set seven cards, read two boards
A royal flush on the board looks like an easy tie. In this game, that answer depends on which row you are reading. The top and middle can use the whole board. The four-card bottom has to bring two private cards with it. One table can therefore produce a tie, a tie and a winner from exactly the same community cards.
Mei has laid out two blue study mats. The HPD spade wants to combine their best cards into one impressive hand. She slides them apart. This lesson keeps the boards separate, shows the exact five cards that count and gives you a small practice desk for trying your own seven-card arrangement.
Name the profile before learning its score
This lesson uses Phenom’s double-board Taiwanese Poker, standard 52-card deck, no jokers. It is a named operator profile, not a rulebook for every game called Taiwanese poker. Rules checked on 18 October 2026. All deals and point ledgers below are invented teaching examples.
The 2026 WSOP Live Action Rules, printed page 29, describe a different Taiwanese entry: a community board and a separate hand-category payout table. That table is not used here. The game name alone cannot tell you which settlement applies.
Chinese poker and Pineapple OFC also arrange cards into rows, but their thirteen-card layouts and row-order rules are a different exercise. Do not bring a Chinese scoop schedule, a foul penalty or a Fantasyland reward into this practice desk. Here, a stronger top than bottom is not a row-order foul. Phenom’s separate Taiwanese Jokers game changes the deck; the trainer contains no wild cards.
The whole deal in one view
Each player receives seven cards and privately arranges them into top, middle and bottom rows of one, two and four cards. Players commit their setups before two five-card boards appear. There are no betting rounds or folds. Compare corresponding rows on each board against each opponent separately.
| Row | Private cards assigned | Legal five-card hand |
|---|---|---|
| Top | 1 | Best five from that card and the board; zero or one private card |
| Middle | 2 | Best five from those cards and the board; zero, one or two private cards |
| Bottom | 4 | Exactly two private cards and exactly three cards from this board |
A card placed in the middle belongs to the middle for both boards. You cannot lend it to the bottom when a useful river appears. Within a row, though, the best legal five cards may change between boards. The evaluator below searches those legal choices afresh each time.
Use the practice desk
Choose a deal, assign each card a row and reveal. The opponent and boards stay hidden until your arrangement is complete. “Load teaching setup” supplies the arrangement used in the printed walkthroughs; it does not claim to find the best strategy. You can reset a deal and move cards to see what changes.
There are 105 possible arrangements of seven distinct cards into these labeled row sizes: seven choices for the top, then fifteen choices for the middle, with four left over. The desk evaluates whichever legal arrangement you choose. It does not calculate equity, predict a live result or take a wager. Use it away from live play.
Set and score a fixed deal
JavaScript is needed for the controls. The complete printed deals and answers below remain available without it.
First check: can those five cards actually play?
Use this small audit before counting a winner. Name the row, put its permitted private cards beside one board and write the resulting five-card hand. If you cannot show five legal cards, you have not finished the comparison. The hand label on its own is too easy to get wrong.
- Top has six available cards. A strong-looking private ace can still be omitted when the five board cards are better.
- Middle has seven available cards. A pocket pair does not force both cards into the final hand.
- Bottom has sixty legal candidates: six ways to select two of its four cards, multiplied by ten ways to select three of the board’s five. None uses one private card, and none uses four board cards.
For a bottom-row flush, three suited board cards must meet two private cards of that suit. Four hearts in your row cannot replace missing hearts on the board. Likewise, four hearts on the board do not let a single private heart complete a legal Omaha flush. Count the source of each card, then compare ranks.
Walkthrough 1: the heart-heavy seven
Start with A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 9♣ 9♦ 2♠. Put the deuce on top, the nines in the middle and the four hearts on the bottom. This arrangement is deliberately useful for teaching card selection. A made result on these two boards is not a reason to call the setup best before the deal.
| Player | Top | Middle | Bottom |
|---|---|---|---|
| You | 2♠ | 9♣ 9♦ | A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ |
| Opponent | A♦ | K♣ K♦ | Q♣ J♣ 10♣ 8♣ |
Board 1: 10♥ 8♥ 3♥ 4♠ 6♦
| Row | Your best five | Opponent’s best five | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | High card 10♥ 8♥ 3♥ 4♠ 6♦ | High card A♦ 10♥ 8♥ 4♠ 6♦ | -1 points |
| Middle | One pair 9♣ 9♦ 10♥ 8♥ 6♦ | One pair K♣ K♦ 10♥ 8♥ 6♦ | -2 points |
| Bottom | Flush A♥ K♥ 10♥ 8♥ 3♥ | Two pair 10♣ 8♣ 10♥ 8♥ 6♦ | +3 points |
Board 2: A♠ A♣ 9♥ 7♦ 2♣
| Row | Your best five | Opponent’s best five | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | Two pair 2♠ A♠ A♣ 9♥ 2♣ | Three of a kind A♦ A♠ A♣ 9♥ 7♦ | -1 points |
| Middle | Full house 9♣ 9♦ A♠ A♣ 9♥ | Two pair K♣ K♦ A♠ A♣ 9♥ | +2 points |
| Bottom | Three of a kind A♥ K♥ A♠ A♣ 9♥ | One pair Q♣ J♣ A♠ A♣ 9♥ | +3 points |
On Board 1, the top deuce does not enter your best five at all. The board is your ten-high hand. The opponent can replace its lowest card with an ace. In the bottom comparison, your ace and king of hearts join three board hearts. The queen and jack of hearts stay out, however attractive they look together.
On Board 2, the nines make nines full of aces. Your bottom can use the ace of hearts with the two board aces, but it still needs a second private card. The king fills that slot and becomes a kicker. Borrowing a nine from the middle would produce a different hand and is not allowed.
Check the signed arithmetic
Board 1: −1 − 2 + 3 = 0. Board 2: −1 + 2 + 3 = +4. No six-row sweep, so the bonus is 0. Your total is +4; the opponent’s is −4. The four points are a net result, not four individual row wins.
Read the second board from the beginning
A frequent mistake is to remember the category from Board 1 and carry it over. In the walkthrough, your bottom changes from a flush to three of a kind. The private row did not change; the three usable community cards did. Rebuilding the five-card hand catches that difference immediately.
Another mistake is to take the three nicest board cards from the two mats combined. Try that and almost any troublesome layout starts looking better. It also stops being this game. In a written review, use one line per board and keep all five selected cards on that line. The trainer prints both complete hands so you can audit them.
Walkthrough 2: two royal boards, but not six ties
Your teaching setup is top 2♣, middle 3♦ 5♣, bottom 4♠ 6♦ 7♠ 8♣. The opponent sets top 9♦, middle 10♣ J♦, bottom Q♣ K♦ 2♦ 3♣.
Board 1 is A♠ K♠ Q♠ J♠ 10♠. Board 2 is A♥ K♥ Q♥ J♥ 10♥. Pause before opening the answer. Which rows are forced ties, and where can either player still win?
Show the legal hands and the zero total
Top and middle play each royal board unchanged. Those four comparisons tie. On Board 1, your bottom uses 4♠ 7♠ A♠ K♠ Q♠ for a flush. The opponent uses Q♣ K♦ A♠ J♠ 10♠ for an ace-high straight, so you win 3 points. On Board 2, your best bottom is 7♠ 8♣ A♥ K♥ Q♥, only ace-high. The opponent uses Q♣ K♦ A♥ J♥ 10♥ for another ace-high straight and wins 3 points. Your total is +3 − 3 = 0. No one has a bottom-row royal flush.
This deal also explains why a tie is its own outcome. It is not a smaller win, and a board that everyone can play does not give everyone a point. In a notebook, write a zero. Leaving the square blank makes it too easy to treat it as an unscored comparison later.
Use weighted points, not a row count
For this Phenom profile, top, middle and bottom wins are worth 1, 2 and 3 points; losses subtract those amounts and ties score zero. Winning all six comparisons against one opponent adds an 8-point Home Run bonus. Losing all six subtracts it. Score every opponent independently.
| Board 1 outcomes | Board 2 outcomes | Base points | Home Run | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Win, win, loss | Win, win, loss | 0 + 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tie, win, win | Win, win, win | 5 + 6 | 0 | +11 |
| Win, win, win | Win, win, win | 6 + 6 | +8 | +20 |
| Loss, loss, loss | Loss, loss, loss | −6 − 6 | −8 | −20 |
The first line wins four of the six comparisons and still finishes level. Two bottom losses erase all four top-and-middle wins. That is why a list of wins and losses without row labels is not enough to reconstruct the score.
The second line misses a sweep by a top-row tie. Changing only that tie to a win moves the total from +11 to +20: one extra base point plus the eight-point bonus. That nine-point jump is an arithmetic fact about this score sheet. It is not permission to chase every possible sweep regardless of the other five matchups.
Walkthrough 3: prove the Home Run
Your setup is top A♠, middle A♥ A♦, bottom K♠ K♦ Q♠ Q♦. Opponent: top 2♣, middle 3♣ 3♦, bottom 4♣ 5♦ 6♣ 7♦.
Board 1: A♣ K♥ Q♣ J♥ 9♠. Board 2: K♣ Q♥ J♠ 9♥ 8♠. In the trainer, choose “Six separate wins” and load the teaching setup to see every five-card selection.
Check all six before adding eight
On Board 1, your top makes a pair of aces, your middle makes three aces and your bottom makes three kings. They beat the opponent’s ace-high, pair of threes and ace-high respectively. On Board 2, your top is ace-high, your middle is a pair of aces and your bottom is three kings. They beat king-high, a pair of threes and king-high. Six wins give +6 on each board; the Home Run adds +8. Total: +20. The opponent records −20.
Notice the first board’s middle is stronger than its bottom: three aces beat three kings. The arrangement remains valid in this profile. Looking for an OFC ordering foul here would erase a correctly scored win for a rule that belongs to another game.
A multiway score needs a separate ledger
Suppose your six comparisons against Ben give a Home Run, worth +20. Against Cora, suppose you lose five comparisons and tie the remaining top comparison, for −11. Your net is +9. You do not cancel Ben’s Home Run because Cora beat you elsewhere, and you do not award a fresh bonus for finishing ahead overall.
Ben and Cora must also settle their comparison with each other. Their result does not change your +9. A useful audit is to give each pair two opposite signed entries. Once all pairs are complete, every player’s net added together should be zero before any separately specified fees. A nonzero sum means an entry is missing or has the wrong sign.
At a six-player table, each player has five opponents. Five separate twenty-point losses would total one hundred points, not twenty. This is arithmetic exposure under the stated profile, not a prediction or a suggested stake. A point’s monetary value, fees and table-entry conditions must be checked separately; the practice desk uses points only.
What one replay can and cannot teach
Reset the heart-heavy deal and exchange the top deuce with the ace of hearts from the bottom. Before revealing, write down which rows you changed. The middle has exactly the same two cards, so its legal candidates and results must stay the same on both boards. If your review changes the middle score, you have mixed something up.
Now compare the top and bottom separately. Removing an ace from the bottom may damage one result even as it improves the top. A net improvement on these fixed boards is a useful observation about this deal. It does not establish that the new arrangement earns more over unknown boards and unknown opponents.
Check the ace-for-deuce replay
With the ace of hearts on top, both top comparisons tie the opponent’s ace of diamonds. The bottom still wins both comparisons: a king-high heart flush on Board 1 and aces and deuces on Board 2. The middle stays at −2 and +2. Board totals become +1 and +5, for +6 overall. You gained two points by turning two top losses into ties. The weaker bottom categories did not cost a comparison on these particular boards.
You can repeat the experiment without the controls: deal seven distinct cards on paper, mark a top card and a middle pair, then write four leftover cards as the bottom. Keep both boards fixed while comparing two setups. After you understand the difference, put the boards away and explain the trade-off without looking at them. That last step stops hindsight from pretending to be a plan.
A quick rules check before playing elsewhere
- Ask for the complete game profile, including the number of boards and whether the deck has jokers.
- Confirm the card-use rule for each row and when the arrangement becomes final.
- Read the row weights, tie treatment and exact bonus trigger. A familiar game name does not supply missing terms.
- Check the point value and settlement conditions before sitting in. Keep practice tools away from a hand in progress.
For another lesson, return to the HPD information and tools section. The useful habit from this page is simple: show five legal cards, label the row and board, then count the points.