Xi To Rules: How to Play Xì Tố, Vietnamese Five-Card Stud Poker

Xì Tố is Vietnamese poker: five-card stud played with a short deck of 32 cards, from the sevens up to the aces. Each player gets one card face down and the rest face up, one at a time, with a round of betting after each card. In Vietnam it is also called xì phé, and outside Vietnam the same game is known as Asian five-card stud. This guide covers the deck, the deal, the betting words you will hear at the table, the hand ranking, and the exact odds of every hand in a 32-card deck — which are not the odds you know from regular poker.

The 32-card deck and the players

Xì Tố uses a standard Western deck with every 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 removed. That leaves eight ranks in each suit — 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A — and 32 cards in total. The ace is the highest card.

The game is for 2 to 6 players. Each player ends with five cards, so a full table of six uses 30 of the 32.

The deal and the betting rounds

Xì Tố is a stud game: there are no shared cards on the table and no swapping. Cards are dealt a few at a time, with betting in between.

1. First deal: every player gets two cards — one face down, the hole card (bài tẩy), which only you see, and one face up.
2. First betting round: the player showing the highest face-up card opens the betting.
3. Three more cards: each player still in the hand gets another face-up card, followed by a round of betting. Each round is opened by the player whose face-up cards make the best hand, so the first player to act can change from round to round.
4. Showdown: after the fifth card (one down, four up) and the last betting round, the players still in turn over their hole cards. The best five-card hand takes the pot.

If everyone else folds at any point, the last player standing wins the pot without showing the hole card. That is how most hands end — and it is why the hole card matters so much: it is the one piece of information nobody else has.

Betting words at a Xì Tố table

Xì Tố hand ranking

Hands are ranked as in regular poker, from strongest to weakest. The Vietnamese names are the ones used at the table:

Flush or full house? With only eight cards in each suit, a flush is rarer than a full house in a 32-card deck — and even rarer than four of a kind. That is why the international version of the game, Asian five-card stud, ranks the flush above the full house, and many Xì Tố tables do the same. Others keep the standard order shown above. Agree on it before the first hand.

The low straight. Some tables let the ace play low in A-7-8-9-10, skipping the removed cards, as the shortest-deck version of the wheel. Agree on that too.

Exact odds of every hand in a 32-card deck

A 32-card deck gives exactly 201,376 different five-card hands. Counting every one of them (with A-7-8-9-10 as a straight):

Two things stand out against regular 52-card poker. First, pairs are everywhere: more than half of all hands hold exactly one pair, and only about a quarter are high card (in a full deck, half of all hands are high card). Second, your first two cards are a pair 9.7% of the time (3 in 31), against 5.9% with a full deck — so a pair showing early is worth less here than you might expect.

Reading the table

Because four of each player’s five cards end up face up, Xì Tố is a game of reading what is in front of you:

• Count the live cards. There are only four of each rank. If you hold a pair of kings and two more kings are showing in other hands, your three of a kind is no longer possible.
• Watch the suits. With eight cards per suit, two or three of your suit showing elsewhere makes a flush very unlikely.
• Guard the hole card. It is your only private information. Betting the same way whether it helps you or not keeps it private.
• Folding is part of the game. Staying in a hand that is already beaten by the cards showing only adds to the pot someone else takes.
• Set a budget before you sit down, and stop when it is gone.

Much of what applies to poker technique in general — position, pot odds, reading betting patterns — carries over, and bluffing works the same way: a big tố on a weak hand only works against players who can fold.

Xì Tố and the other Vietnamese poker games

Vietnam plays several games built on poker hands, and the names get mixed up:

• Xì Tố — five-card stud, 32 cards, betting round by round.
• Mậu Binh — Chinese poker: thirteen cards split into three hands, with no betting rounds.
• Liêng — a three-card game with its own ranking, closer to Three Card Poker and Teen Patti.

See the full list of Vietnamese card games.

Can you play Xì Tố online?

Xì Tố is a game played between players, so it is not a standard table at online casinos. The closest casino game is Caribbean Stud: five-card stud played against the dealer rather than other players, with a full 52-card deck, so the hand odds above do not apply to it. 20Bet’s live casino lists Caribbean Stud in its poker section, alongside Ultimate and Extreme Texas Hold’em and Three Card Poker. If you play for real money, set a budget first.

Play responsibly

Xì Tố is a social game, and played for money it is gambling, with a real risk of losing that money. Treat it as entertainment, never chase losses, and set limits on time and spending before you start. For adults 18 and over only.