Pusoy

Pusoy is the Filipino name for 13-card Chinese poker. Nobody races to empty their hand: everyone gets 13 cards, splits them into three poker hands, and then compares hand by hand. It’s a puzzle more than a race, which is why people who are good at it tend to stay good at it. Not to be confused with pusoy dos, a completely different game.

How to play Pusoy

1. Deal 13 cards each to four players from a standard 52-card deck. No wild cards.
2. Split your cards into three hands: a 5-card back hand, a 5-card middle hand and a 3-card front hand.
3. Keep them in order. The back hand must be the strongest and the front hand the weakest: back ≥ middle ≥ front, using normal poker rankings. A hand set in the wrong order is illegal.
4. Remember the front hand is only 3 cards, so it can only be three of a kind, a pair or high card — straights and flushes don’t count there.
5. Reveal and compare. Each player compares front against front, middle against middle and back against back with every other player.
6. Score. +1 for each hand you win, −1 for each hand you lose, 0 for a tie.

A worked example

The hand in our cover image is set like this: a spade flush in the back (3-8-10-Q-A of spades), two pair in the middle (nines and jacks), and a pair of queens in front. The order holds — flush beats two pair, two pair beats one pair — so it’s a legal setting. Moving the jacks to the front would make the front stronger than it needs to be and weaken the middle; most of the skill in pusoy is deciding where your strength does the most good.

Bonuses and special hands

House paytables vary in the Philippines, so check before you play. A common bonus scheme (from pagat.com) pays extra units for the hand you win with:

• Three of a kind in front: 3
• Full house in the middle: 2
• Four of a kind in the back or middle: 4
• Straight flush in the back or middle: 5

Some 13-card hands win automatically if you declare them before the reveal: six pairs, three straights or three flushes (3 units each), and the “dragon” — one card of every rank from ace to king — worth 13.

Common house variations

• A banker who wins all ties
• A sweep bonus for winning all three hands against someone
• Surrendering before the reveal for a smaller loss
• Different penalties for a mis-set hand — often losing all three hands, but confirm the table rule

Pusoy online

Online tables usually arrange the comparison and scoring for you and give you a timer to set your three hands — which is where most mistakes happen. Take the first few hands slowly, and look for an auto-arrange or “check” option that warns you about an illegal setting before you confirm.