If you have played Texas Hold'em before, then you already know how to play Pineapple Poker. However, understanding the format will not mean that you will master the game in one hand, no matter how good you are at Texas Hold'em. While the basic structure is the same, the skills necessary to excel in the game involve a twist. The difference being that in Pineapple Poker, you are dealt three hole cards starting out instead of just two, and you get the opportunity to immediately discard one of these cards during the start of the hand. After that, the game proceeds exactly like regular Texas Hold ‘em.

Learning how to discern which cards to hold and which to discard will take some practice. It won’t always be the obvious choice. While this game isn’t typically found at many online poker sites, it will probably show up more in the future, as players demand new ways to challenge their poker skill sets and develop their talents at different types of poker games. A poker player who can play a variety of variations is a more well-rounded player than those who only know how to play a few different types of poker.

As Open-Face Chinese Poker continues to grow in popularity, attracting players from all over the world, the rules of the game are being tweaked and exploited. Pineapple games are a family poker games in which the players begin with three cards concealed from the other players. In most variations of this game, one of those cards is discarded at some point.

Pineapple Poker play starts out with players placing their initial bets. The small blind (left of the dealer) and the big blind (left of the small blind) must put their bets in first. Three cards are dealt to each player, face down. At this point, one card is discarded by every player; the discard takes place before the flop, and then the first round of betting takes place. All players who wish to remain in the hand must match the big blind; otherwise, they will have to fold. Small blind can match the large blind or lose the small bet and fold. Alternatively, any player can raise, to which other players must call or fold.

After all betting is final three community cards are dealt face up on the table (the flop). After the flop falls, all players must bet again. Betting options at this point are to check, fold, call, or raise the bet to all players. Then another card is dealt face up to the table (the turn) to make four community cards. Another betting round is carried out, just as the two previous ones. A final community card (the river) is dealt on the table, face up. Final betting takes place, and then ultimately the showdown, in which all remaining players must show their cards. The best five-card poker hand made from one or both of a player’s hole cards, along with three or four of the community cards, wins the pot. Should two players have equal hands, they will split the pot.

Another variation of this game is Crazy Pineapple Poker, which can also be played in Hi/Lo format. While Texas Hold ‘em has become the reigning king of poker, Crazy Pineapple Poker is slowly becoming more and more popular because it’s actually a refined form of Texas Hold ‘em. Crazy Pineapple allows players more options to play, which makes the game more interesting than Texas Hold ‘em. Once you master Crazy Pineapple, you have mastered all Hold ‘em games.

The difference between Pineapple Poker and Crazy Pineapple lies in the point in the game in which you make your one-card discard. Like the rules described above, players in a game of Crazy Pineapple are dealt three cards, but the discard comes after the flop, not before. So after the hole cards are dealt, the first round of betting precedes the flop, and then, once the flop is dealt, players will discard one card. In regular Pineapple Poker (described above), the discard is made before the flop.

The discard decision becomes a critical point in the game for players, as the decision will govern the future of the hand. Analyzing your hand to determine its chances in relation to the flop is sometimes an easy decision, but other times it proves very hard. This is what makes the game completely different from Texas Hold ‘em. It changes the mindset of the game totally, which is what makes playing new variations of poker so fun and challenging.

Yet another similar variation of Hold'em Poker is Tahoe Poker, which has not caught on yet, but is carried out in the same fashion as Pineapple Poker and Crazy Pineapple Poker with the same starting three-card hand, but in this variation, no cards are discarded at anytime throughout the game. This game is a bit easier than the others, so it might be a good starting point to learn how three cards can win a hold ‘em hand. Once you’ve developed an understanding of this, you can then move on to Pineapple and then Crazy Pineapple in order to gradually develop your strategy for playing other variations of Hold ‘em Poker.

Overview:

Pimp up your poker

In Pineapple each player is dealt three instead of two (like in Texas Holdem) pocket cards, one of which he has to discard before the flop. All further rules are identical to those of Texas Hold‘em. What makes Pineapple Poker particularly interesting is the fact that the third pocket card gives you more possibilities of building your hand, thus the chances to get a better hand than in normal Hold‘em are comparatively higher. This is exactly the point, why you also need to be extra careful – in TH the chances of winning with one or two pair are relatively high while in Pineapple even straights and flushes are quite common. So in Pineapple it is essential not to overestimate your hand and not to forget that you still have to discard one of them before the flop. PP is usually played with fixed limit although the rules may also be easily transmitted to no limit or pot limit. If you want to play online, we recommend you do so at PokerStars, which offers a huge variety of poker games.

Pineapple ABC

At the very beginning of each game of Pineapple, the two players who sit next to the dealer (the person marked with the dealer button) have to place their blinds. This happens before the cards are dealt. The blinds are there to make sure that there is money in the pot so every winning hand can actually win money. Since the dealer button moves on clockwise from player to player with each round of the game, every player has to pay a blind at some point during the game. The player to the left of the dealer places the ‘Small Blind’, the player to his left has to place the ‘Big Blind’ which is usually twice the amount of the small blind.

Pocket Cards/Hole Cards

After the blinds, the first cards are dealt. Each player, starting with the one to the left of the dealer (the small blind), is dealt three cards face down. These cards are called ‘Pocket Cards’ or ‘Hole Cards’. The first betting round isstarted by the player to the left of the big blind, using poker language, this player is ‘under the gun’, since he is the one who has to act first. Now this player may fold his cards, call or raise.

• Fold: The player discards his hands and may also lose the bet he has already made.
• Check: The player does neither bet, nor fold his cards. He passes on the action to the player next to him. (This is only possible as long as no player has placed a bet yet.)
• Call: To place a bet equal to that of the last remaining player before you.
• Raise: To place a higher bet than the last remaining player before you.

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After the first betting round players of Pineapple Poker have to part with one of their pocket cards which means that from then on they actually play a normal Hold’em hand where they have to build their hand with their two pocket cards and three of the community cards. In case a player still has three pocket cards at showdown, this is called a ‘dead hand’ (obviously this can only happen in a real game where the dealer might make a mistake, online poker software would not permit such a mistake).

The Flop

After the first betting round the first three of maximum five community cards (these cards are the same for all players and players can use them to build their hand) are dealt face up on the table. These three cards are called the flop.

Second betting round

Now the first remaining player to the left of the dealer button (i.e. a player who has not already folded before the flop) starts the second round. The second betting round follows the same rules as the first one.

The Turn

Another card is dealt face up next to the flop, this card is called ‘the turn’. Now there are four community cards on the table and another betting round begins, starting with the first remaining player to the left of the dealer button.

Third betting round

Depending on whether you are playing a game of Texas Hold’em limit, pot limit or no limit, the rules are changing now. Please find more detailed explanations for the specific game type below.

The River

The last community card is dealt face up next to the flop and the turn, which makes the community cards a total of five cards. A last betting round is started; again the first remaining player to the left of the dealer button has to begin.

Fourth betting round

The last betting round works just like the one before.

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Showdown

As soon as all the betting rounds are over, the so-called ‘Showdown’ begins. The showdown is the final phase of a poker game where remaining players have to show their cards. The player, who has managed to build the best hand out of his two pocket cards and three of the community cards, is the winner of the pot. Should two players have the same hands, they share the pot. In the rare case that the best hand is made up entirely of the community cards, all players that are still in the game share the pot. Should you, upon seeing one of your opponent’s cards, note that you have the losing hand, you can choose to discard it face down (‘mock’). Obviously you can always reveal your cards to the other players to maybe compare your hand with those of the others. The last player who bet or raised during the last betting round has to be the first to show his cards, should there be no player who bet or raised during the last round, it depends on the casino or poker room, who has to show his cards first.

After every played hand the dealer button is moved on clockwise and the next hand can start. The first one to act in every round – after the cards were dealt or revealed – is always the first player to the left of the big blind, or in the first round, the player to the left of the dealer. Every one of the other players may now decide on the size of his bet, basing his decision on his cards. Depending on the number of players whose turn it is to bet after him, this gets more or less complicated. If you had a rather mediocre hand and five other players after you, the decision whether you should bet, raise or rather fold would undoubtedly be a difficult one.

Standard poker moves

Fold

How To Play Pineapple Poker

If you do not like the cards you were dealt, you have the opportunity to discard (fold) them and thus leave the current round of the game. Should you be big or small blind or should you have called someone’s bet already, you lose the money. Apart from that though, since you have folded, you cannot lose any more money during this round.

Check

If you want to keep your cards and stay in the game, you can, for example, check. This means that nobody before you has placed a bet yet and that you do not either. Now the player after you has the opportunity to check himself, or to bet. If any of the players in the round bets, you need to – as soon as it is your turn – decide whether you fold, call or raise.

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Call

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To call means that, in case a player before you has placed a bet, you bet the same amount as he does; you call his bet.

Bet and raise/re-raise – according to the limit

Pineapple Poker Score Sheet

If you find you have been dealt decent cards, you can bet a certain amount of money on your hand being the winning hand. If a player before you has already placed a bet, you can raise his bet. Depending on the betting structure the amounts you can bet or by which you may raise, are fixed.

• Fixed limit: On a $ 5/$ 10 table you may bet $ 5 in the first two betting rounds and up to $ 10 in the last two. In each round players may bet once and raise three times (bet, raise, re-raise and again re-raise or ‘cap’). After three rounds of betting the so-called cap is reached, this means that in this betting round, no more betting can be done. In this case the next card is dealt – or if it was the last round – the showdown begins.

• No limit: Here the betting structure follows these rules: Each player may bet all the money he has on the table, regardless of the size of the pot. As a rule, the minimum bet has to at least equal the amount of the Big Blind and if you decide to raise, your raise does at least have to equal that of the player before you.

• Pot limit: In a pot limit poker game a player may bet a sum between the minimum bet and the total size of the pot. In a $ 5/$ 10 pot limit game the small blind is $ 5 and the big blind $ 10. The first player could call the big blind (i.e. $ 10 in this case) or raise to any amount up to the total pot size. The raise has to either equal or exceed the previous bet. So in this case, the maximum possible raise would be $ 25 ($ 5 small blind, $ 10 big blind and $ 10 the call) which means that player #3 may actually bet a total of $ 35. So should player #3 raise the pot limit, the total amount in the pot would then be $ 50. Now if the next player (let’s say player #4) wants to go on playing, he at least has to call the $ 35, i.e. the bet player #3 has made. Should player #4 want to raise (up) to the pot limit he would have to put $ 120 into the pot. That is the total pot size ($ 50) plus the maximum raise of $ 70 ($ 35 call + $ 35 raise). The number of betting rounds per hand is not limited and in each round calling and raising continues until every player has either called, or folded his cards.

All-In

Primarily, players go ‘All-In’, when they have a particularly good hand. This is because: when one or more other players call this move and the player who went all-in wins anyway, his winnings in this round increase considerably. Another possibility would be, that a player goes all-in to bluff and merely signal that he has a good hand, in order to make the other players fold and win himself the pot. (What the precise rules for an all-in situation are is described in the following paragraph.) Apart from the situation described above, players could also go all-in for the following reason: In case a player lacks the necessary amount of chips to call or finish a hand but has nice cards and wants to stay in the game anyway, he does not have to fold. The player can also go all-in; so he bets all of his chips (even if they are not sufficient to cover the sum he would actually need to call) and can stay in the game without being able to act any further though. All the money that is in the pot up until the point when he goes all-in, is what the player can win. All money put into the pot after he went all-in is put in a separate pot (‘side pot’). Should the player who is all-in, win the showdown, he wins the main pot, whereas the side pot goes to the player with the second best hand. When a player goes all-in and his fellow players decide to call his bet, they obviously have to call the sum he bet.

Short history of Pineapple Poker

Very often, Pineapple Poker is called the ‘little brother’ or ‘cousin’ of Hold’em because Pineapple Poker is a variant of the popular classic. Just like many other variants of Texas Hold’em, this exotic variant, too, was only created a short time ago, in course of the worldwide poker hype. In search of a variant which would give classic Hold’em a bit of a ‘twist’, Pineapple and Crazy Pineapple were created. PP is a very young poker variant and is thus not yet represented at big poker events like the WSOP. Still there are many poker players who enjoy a good game of Pineapple Poker in their spare time. Take Chris Moneymaker for example who started his professional poker career online and has become one of the best known players by now, he also enjoys to play an exotic variant like Pineapple Poker every now and then.

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