Pok Deng is a fast Thai card game that takes about a minute to learn and rather longer to understand. The scoring is trivial: add your cards, take the last digit. The part that confuses people is deng — the multiplier that decides how much a hand is actually worth.
These are the rules as our tables run them.
The score
Every card is worth its face value, aces count as one, and tens and all face cards count as zero. Add them and take the remainder after dividing by ten — in practice, the last digit.
So 7 + 8 = 15, which scores 5. King + 9 = 0 + 9, which scores 9. The best possible score is 9 and the worst is 0.
Pok: the instant finish
If your first two cards total 8 or 9, that is a Pok, and the hand ends immediately. Nobody draws. Pok 9 beats Pok 8, and a Pok beats everything else in the game no matter what it is.
This is the single most important rule to internalise, because it means a three-card hand can never beat a two-card Pok, however good it looks.
The hand types, in order
When nobody has a Pok, hands are ranked by type first and score second:
- Pok — 8 or 9 on two cards. Beats everything.
- Tong — three of a kind.
- Straight flush — three in sequence, all one suit.
- Straight — three in sequence, mixed suits.
- Sam Lueang — three face cards (J, Q, K in any combination).
- Normal — anything else, judged on score alone.
One thing worth flagging, because it catches people out: at our tables Sam Lueang is resolved before ordinary straights, so J-Q-K is classified as Sam Lueang rather than as a straight. Also, aces are low only — A-2-3 is a straight, Q-K-A is not.
Now the deng
Deng is a separate multiplier applied to the amount won or lost. A hand has both a type and a deng, and they are not the same thing.
- Tong (three of a kind) — deng 5
- Straight flush — deng 5
- Straight — deng 3
- Sam Lueang — deng 3
- Three cards, all one suit — deng 3
- Two cards, same rank or same suit — deng 2
- Pok with two cards of the same rank or suit — deng 2
- Everything else — deng 1
The maximum is 5. And note that the multiplier is symmetric: it magnifies losses exactly as much as wins. A deng of 5 is not a bonus, it is a stake multiplier that happens to belong to whoever holds the hand.
Worked examples
Two hearts, 6 and 3. Score 9, so it is a Pok. Both hearts, so deng 2. A Pok 9 at double stakes is about as good as the game gets.
Three sevens. Score 21, so 1 — a terrible number. But it is a Tong, and Tong outranks every non-Pok hand regardless of score, at deng 5. A score of 1 wins five times the stake.
K, Q, J mixed suits. Score 0. Classified as Sam Lueang, deng 3. Again the score is irrelevant — the type decides it.
That is the mental shift the game asks for: outside of Pok, type beats score, and deng decides the size of the swing.
How hands are compared
Type first, then score, then deng. If all three are equal the hand is a push and nothing moves.
The dealer
The dealer draws a third card on a score of 4 or below and stands on 5 or above. Every player is settled against the dealer independently — you are not competing with the other seats.
What to take from it
Pok Deng has very little decision-making in it: you choose whether to draw, and that is close to the whole of it. The deng structure is what gives it its character — a big multiplier turns a middling round into a large one in either direction, which is exactly why the game feels the way it does.
Start with the beginner’s guide, or play Pok Deng free on FUNFOR.YOU — play chips only, nothing to cash out.
