How to Play Pusoy Online: Rules, Scoring and Pusoy Dos
Pusoy and Pusoy Dos are two different games that share a name, and confusing them is the fastest way to lose money at an online table. Pusoy is the Filipino name for Chinese Poker: you are dealt 13 cards and split them into three poker hands that must get stronger from front to back. Pusoy Dos is Big Two, a shedding game where you play combinations in turn until someone empties their hand, and the deuce is the highest card in the deck. The card-game rule archive pagat.com, maintained by John McLeod, spells out the difference on both of its pages: in the Philippines, Chinese Poker "is known as Pusoy, again not to be confused with Pusoy Dos, which is Big Two."
Neither game has an official rulebook. What follows separates the rules almost every source agrees on from the ones that genuinely change between tables — and one of them, the suit order Filipino players use in Pusoy Dos, is the opposite of what the international version says.
Quick Answer: Pusoy vs Pusoy Dos
| Pusoy (Chinese Poker) | Pusoy Dos (Big Two) | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of game | Partition and showdown | Climbing and shedding |
| Players | Four, each for themselves | Two to four, best with four |
| Cards each | 13 | 13 |
| What you do | Split 13 cards into three hands, then everyone reveals | Beat the last play or pass, until one hand is empty |
| How you win | Beat each opponent hand for hand | Be first to shed every card |
| Highest card | Standard poker ranking, ace high | The 2, and in the Philippine version the 2 of diamonds |
| Who plays first | Nobody leads; hands are compared simultaneously | Whoever holds the lowest card |
| Other names | Sap Sam Cheung, Xap Xam, "Good, Better, Best" | Big Two, dai di, capsa, chikicha |
The rest of this page takes them one at a time.
Setting 13 Cards: Back, Middle, Front
Four players, one standard 52-card deck, no jokers and no wild cards. Everyone receives 13 cards and divides them face down into a back hand of five, a middle hand of five and a front hand of three. Pagat states the single constraint that defines the game: "the back hand must be better than the middle hand, and the middle hand must be better than the front hand."
Everything else is arithmetic on top of that one rule.
The front hand is where beginners break their game. With only three cards, exactly three hand types exist, and two familiar ones are missing.
| Position | Cards | Hand types allowed | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Back | 5 | Full poker ranking, up to royal flush | Stacking everything here and starving the middle |
| Middle | 5 | Full poker ranking, must be weaker than the back | This is where most units are actually won and lost |
| Front | 3 | Three of a kind, one pair, high card only | Placing a pair so strong that no legal middle and back remain |
Pagat is explicit that "straights" or "flushes" in the front hand do not count — three cards in sequence, or three of the same suit, is just a high-card hand there. Its worked example shows the trap: a player cannot put a pair of jacks in front, because the remaining ten cards could no longer produce a middle better than jacks and a back better still.
Mis-setting is punished, not corrected. Wikipedia's Chinese poker entry describes the standard penalty for an illegal arrangement: the player pays each opponent still in the hand an amount equal to being scooped, as if they had lost all three hands. Online there is no discussion — the software either refuses the arrangement or forfeits the round.
How Pusoy Is Scored
Basic settlement is one unit per hand. In pagat's wording: "you win one unit for each corresponding hand of another player that you beat and lose one unit each hand that beats you." Tied hands pay nothing, and every player settles with every other player separately. That is a structurally different money game from Hold'em, where a single pot goes to one person — second best at a Pusoy table still gets paid. Our Texas Hold'em beginner guide covers the pot-based side of the comparison.
Two systems dominate the extra unit awarded for winning the deal overall, and they pay the identical hand differently.
| Scoring method | How it works | Win two of three hands | Win all three (scoop) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2-4 | One unit per hand won, plus one "overall unit" for taking two or three hands | 2 units | 4 units |
| 1-6 | One unit per hand won, plus three bonus units only for a scoop | 1 unit | 6 units |
Wikipedia names these as the two most common Chinese Poker scoring systems. Pagat records the same mechanics under variation headings — "the overall point" and "extra payment for sweep" — which tells you how unsettled this is even at the level of basic settlement.
Royalties and automatic-win hands
On top of the per-hand units, most versions pay extra for strong hands in specific positions. Pagat gives what it calls a typical scale, and immediately warns that "it is important to agree in advance exactly which ones are allowed and how much each is worth."
| Hand and position | Typical payment instead of 1 unit |
|---|---|
| Three of a kind in the front | 3 units |
| Full house in the middle | 2 units |
| Four of a kind in the back or middle | 4 units |
| Straight flush or royal flush in the back or middle | 5 units |
Separately, a handful of 13-card hands win automatically if declared before the cards are exposed. Pagat's schedule lists six pairs, three straights and three flushes at 3 units each, and a complete straight from ace to king — every rank once, suits mixed — at 13 units. Wikipedia calls the same category naturals and adds a longer list, including four separate three-of-a-kinds and a suited dragon.
Do not carry those numbers to a table. Pagat documents Singapore, Malayan, Vietnamese and Californian casino versions with entirely different royalty schedules, some paying a suited dragon 26 or even 39 units. The concept is universal; the payout is local.
Surrendering
Both sources record a surrender option: a player who sees a hopeless hand can fold before the reveal. Pagat says a surrendering player pays as though they had lost two hands out of three; Wikipedia frames it as more than losing two hands and less than being scooped, and notes that in some variants surrender does not exist at all. Check the rules panel rather than assuming it is there.
Pusoy Dos: Same Name, Opposite Game
Pusoy Dos is Big Two. Pagat records the Filipino etymology from Ruben Canlas Jr. — it translates roughly as "Poker Two," since pusoy is the Filipino word for poker. Nothing about the hand-setting game applies here.
Everyone gets 13 cards. The holder of the lowest card opens and must include that card in the first play. After that, each player in turn either beats the previous play with a higher combination of the same number of cards, or passes. When everyone else passes, the last player to have played takes control, and control means you must lead something new — you are not allowed to pass while in control. The PinoyAI rules page, a Filipino Pusoy Dos project, states the control rule in exactly those terms.
| Combination | Cards | How it is ranked |
|---|---|---|
| Single | 1 | Rank first, then suit as the tie-breaker |
| Pair | 2 | Rank first, then the higher suit in the pair |
| Triple | 3 | Rank only |
| Straight | 5 | Five in sequence, mixed suits — lowest of the five-card types |
| Flush | 5 | Five of one suit; beats any straight |
| Full house | 5 | Ranked by the triple; beats any flush |
| Four of a kind | 5 | Four cards plus a fifth card, which must be included |
| Straight flush | 5 | Five in sequence, one suit; beats everything else |
Two things surprise people who come from poker. There is no two-pair combination at all. And a triple cannot carry extra cards, while four of a kind must — four equal cards on their own are not a playable combination in pagat's base rules.
The Philippine suit order is the reverse of the international one
This is the single most useful thing on this page, because getting it wrong loses hands.
| International Big Two | Pusoy Dos as played in the Philippines | |
|---|---|---|
| Suit order, high to low | Spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds | Diamonds, hearts, spades, clubs |
| Highest single card | 2 of spades | 2 of diamonds |
| Lowest card, which opens | 3 of diamonds | 3 of clubs |
| Scoring | Penalty points to the losers, one per card left, doubled at 10 or more | Positive points to the winner |
Pagat states the Philippine order directly: "In the game Pusoy Dos, played in the Philippines, the order of suits from high to low is diamonds, hearts, spades, clubs," and adds that the 3 of clubs, not the 3 of diamonds, starts. The PinoyAI rules page arrives at the same order independently, listing suits from low to high as clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds, and noting that the 2 of diamonds beats every other card. Wikipedia's Big Two article, describing the international game, says the opposite on all three points.
Scoring splits the same way. Wikipedia describes the international penalty system: each card left in your hand costs a point, two points per card if you still hold 10 or more, doubled again for unused deuces, quads or straight flushes. Pagat records that the Philippine game "is normally played with positive points rather than penalty points" — the winner scores 1, and if the winning play contains deuces the score doubles per deuce: 2 points for one, 4 for two, 8 for three, 16 for all four.
Where the Rules Actually Change
Pagat's own summary of Big Two is worth quoting before any table: "I have not seen any two independent descriptions of the rules that agree completely." Treat the list below as the consensus, and the right-hand column as the reason to open the rules panel.
| Rule | Common consensus | Where it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Pusoy front hand | Only three of a kind, pair or high card; straights and flushes do not count | Consistent across every source checked |
| Pusoy overall unit | 2-4 or 1-6 settlement | A Californian casino version pays 1 unit for two of three, 6 for a scoop and 9 for scooping everyone |
| Pusoy royalties | Three of a kind in front, full house in middle, quads and straight flushes | Singapore, Malayan and Vietnamese schedules differ in both which hands count and what they pay |
| Pusoy dragon | Complete ace-to-king straight wins automatically | Worth 13 units in pagat's basic schedule, 26 or 39 in others |
| Pusoy surrender | Pay as though you lost two hands | Some versions do not allow surrender at all |
| Pusoy winners | Every player settles with every other player | Pagat records a Philippine version in which only one player wins the deal, by beating everyone on at least two hands |
| Pusoy Dos suit order | Philippines: diamonds high, clubs low, 3 of clubs opens | International Big Two reverses it: spades high, 3 of diamonds opens |
| Pusoy Dos straights | Wrap-arounds such as A-2-3-4-5 are allowed in the Philippine descriptions | Pagat lists at least six different rankings for straights containing a two or an ace |
| Pusoy Dos scoring | Philippines: positive points to the winner, doubled per deuce | International: penalty points per card left in hand |
Where a real-money table is involved, the app's rules screen is the contract. Not this page, and not the house rules from your family reunion.
Playing for Pesos: What Actually Needs Checking
PAGCOR licenses the operator, not the game. That is not a rhetorical point — its own published numbers show it. The Philippine Gaming Industry Data for 2Q CY 2026 breaks gross gaming revenue into Table Games, Slot Machines, Junket, In-house Bingo, licensed casinos by zone, Bingo Operations, Electronic Games, and Poker onsite and offsite. There is no line item for Pusoy, or for any individual card title. Electronic Games alone produced ₱36.25 billion of the ₱88.14 billion total industry gross gaming revenue that quarter — roughly 41 percent — and every peso of it sits under an operator's licence, not a game's.
So the question worth asking is never whether Pusoy is legal. It is whether the platform is licensed, and whether the exact domain in your address bar appears on PAGCOR's published lists. Our walkthrough on spotting a genuinely PAGCOR-licensed casino covers how to check that, and the legal picture for online gambling in the Philippines covers the wider framework, including why offshore sites are a different matter entirely.
Three practical points before pesos are involved:
- Free chips and real money are two different products. A social card app with virtual chips is not a licensed gambling platform, and chips bought inside it do not convert back into pesos. We drew that line in detail in the Tongits guide, and it applies identically here.
- Try the mechanics without money first. JILI's Pusoy Go demo runs in the browser on play money, which is enough to learn what a mis-set looks like before it costs anything. If you want the other classic Filipino card game with an equally short rulebook, Lucky 9 is the one people learn next, and Color Game online covers the perya side of the same shift to licensed platforms.
- The age gate is 21, not 18. PAGCOR's Responsible Gaming Code of Practice, version 6, states plainly that "persons younger than 21 years old are not allowed to play." Free social card apps commonly carry an 18+ store rating, which is a useful signal that they are not the same category of product.
The Honest Limits of Any Pusoy Guide
Pusoy is a skill game in a real sense — setting decisions compound over a session, and a player who understands that the middle hand decides most deals will beat one who does not. But there is a boundary that a regulator draws harder than most guides do. PAGCOR's Responsible Gaming Code of Practice requires operators' advertising to "discourage the thought that skill and talent can change the result of the game or can assure a win." Setting a hand well improves your expectation; it does not survive a bad deal, and nobody should sit down expecting otherwise.
Three more limits, stated plainly:
- There is no authoritative rulebook. Every table above is a consensus reconstruction drawn from rule archives, not a standard anyone enforces. Royalty values, tie-breaks and the surrender option all move between platforms.
- We have not verified how any individual operator implements these rules. No PAGCOR-licensed platform we checked publishes a public Pusoy rules document, so the in-app rules screen is the only authority on the version you are actually playing.
- Rake and paytable are unknowable in advance. Whatever the traditional unit settlement says, a commercial platform substitutes its own fee structure, and the peso value of a unit is whatever the table stake says it is.
Decide your buy-in before you sit down, use the platform's own deposit limits rather than willpower, and treat a losing session as finished rather than as a reason to raise. Tools for setting limits and self-excluding are listed on our responsible gambling page. For players 21 and over.