Indian Chief Rules

Indian Chief was devised by Patrick St-Louis, as published on pagat.com, and is related to his card game Triangle. It uses a standard 52-card deck and the standard hand rankings.

Three to six players may take part. The number of players decides how many cards each player receives and how many community cards are used:

A player's hand consists of every card held by the other players plus the community cards. A player's own cards are never part of their own hand.

Because hands overlap so heavily, any two players' hands differ by only one or two cards, namely each player's own cards.

The source does not specify forced bets. An ante from each player is the usual practice in home games.

Each player is dealt their cards face down. Without looking at them, each player holds them against their forehead, facing outwards, so that every other player can see them.

A player shall not look at their own cards before the showdown.

The community cards, if any, are dealt face down to the table.

There is a betting round before any community card is turned. The community cards are then turned face up one at a time, with a betting round after each.

It follows that there are three betting rounds with four players, two with three or five players, and one with six players, who use no community cards.

At showdown each remaining player's hand is formed as in 1.3, and the best hand wins the pot. Identical hands split the pot.

To make the odds harder to judge, one or two extra community cards may be used. Each player then makes the best five-card hand from the six or seven cards available to them.