Crazy Pineapple

I've been playing a lot of Crazy Pineapple at a free poker site lately. I've always said that poker is one of those games that makes no sense to play for nothing, but I have put in a fair bit of time the last week under the pretenses of learning the game. Here are the basic rules:

1. Ante in the manner as Texas Hold 'Em.
2. Each player gets three hole cards.
3. Round of betting.
4. Flop revealed.
5. Round of betting.
6. Each player must discard one of his hole cards.
7. Turn revealed.
8. Round of betting.
9. River revealed.
10. Round of betting.

The only difference from Texas Hold 'Em is the player gets three hole cards and must discard one just before the turn is revealed.

Most of the time, it is obvious which card to toss, but not always. Take this situation, for example:

Flop: 9h, 7h, 7s
Your cards: Jh, Jd, 2h

Do you?
1. Toss the Jd and go for the flush.
2. Toss the 2h and have a two pair, with hopes of a full house.

If you toss the Jd, you have a 35.7% chance of completing the flush.
If you toss the 2h, you have a 16.8% chance of a full house or four of a kind. If you don't hit it, at least you have a two pair.

I know this also depends on the kind of pot odds you're getting.

Where am I going with this? Let me preface this by saying that I did a search online and can find no good strategy on Crazy Pineapple. Give me a link if you think I'm wrong. Seems to me some fresh ground to break and my contribution to poker has been, to be honest, very little.

I'd love to post something on which way to play is most likely to win, but what do I assume the other players do? One site I stumbled on has an ordered list of starting hands by strength, but it is based on Lazy Pineapple, where the player keeps all three cards throughout the game. That doesn't help me at all.

Maybe what I could do is start with some kind of basic strategy and use an iterative process to keep improving on it. However, this would be a fair bit of work. I'm up for it and it would be a good challenge. However, one thing I've learned about gambling writing is usually people appreciate the easy stuff, like top ten lists, and the groundbreaking obscure stuff gets ignored.

What would you do in my shoes?

In your example, and in your shoes, I would toss the Jd card for a higher chance of completing the Flush. Only someone really gambling challenged would take the risk that has a lower chance of completing the Flush.

in your example, everybody has a pair of 7s, so the way I have always played is to think of myself just having the pair of jacks and the value that would have. In other words, two pair has lower than normal value if it includes the community cards. Does that make sense or does it just show my poker needs improving?

So I would want the jacks to have a chance of winning, though naturally i would want them to improve. I usually go by the number of players in the hand. If I think Jacks or Trips, excepting the effect of the pair of 7s, would not likely win, I'd go for the flush.

I don't know how people can quickly figure pot odds. I'd have to ask the game to stop while I figured them, which of course goes over like a lead balloon. Naturally I recognize a big fat pot, but that usually has treachery of its own exceeding what pot odds would tell you. Seems also that it is more complicated than usually presented, since you need to know not only the chances of getting a flush etc but also the probability that such a hand can win.

I have quite a bit of hold em experience, but very limited Pineapple and Crazy Pineapple experience. The solvers (like PioSolver and others) that leverage GTO into their strategies are quite effective in analyzing two card strategies against a range of hands. But in this case, the three combinations you hold would need to be analyzed against the expected range of the opponents which would naturally be stronger as they get to take the best two of three cards. That's where I get stuck, in developing the opponents range.

In deciding which card to discard, as you mention it is usually obvious. But some factors that need to be factored in are the absolute hand strengths, the number of opponents, your position, and the betting pattern on the flop.

In your specific example, in general I think I would keep the Jh Jd and discard the 2h. You have an overpair to the board and thus a two pair combination (which still has two streets to improve to a very nutted hand) that has showdown value over someone holding a 9x. You also don't have the nut flush draw, there are three better flush possibilities even if you hit yours. The fascinating part about this is that I may change my strategy if there are a lot of players in the hand, as that increased the chance that someone is holding a 7, thus increasing the chance that two pair is no good.

Thank you for the comments thus far. Still listening so please keep them coming.

I agree with MidwestAP. I would play the Jacks because I wouldn't be confident that my Jack high flush would be the best hand the majority of the time assuming a full table.

Completing either the Full House or the Flush leaves you with a hand that is still easily beaten.

And two pair? While dealing in my pub league I often tell people, "Having two pair, when one of them is on the board, ain't that great."

I think the best option at this point is to fold.

Of course, if there is no flop bet, then you gotta make a discard decision. Often (as in Wiz' example) it's a tough decision. And almost as often, the turn or river proves you made the wrong choice. Frankly, that's why it's called Crazy Pineapple.

On a side note, there's also Pineapple, where you discard before the flop.

Did you check the Two plus Two forum? I view that as the definitive serious poker forum on the internet.

Quote: unJon

Did you check the Two plus Two forum? I view that as the definitive serious poker forum on the internet.

They didn't have much of value.

I'm currently running a program to see what the one player probabilities are in Lazy Pineapple. That will give me a starting point. The program takes 16 hours to complete.

I am an experienced poker player and I tend to agree with the thoughts of MidwestAP.

A pocket pair of Jacks to a 9 high board (with a pair of 9s) is a strong made hand and a flush draw is a speculative hand. For me, the number of opponents in the pot and how much strength they have shown pre- and postflop is a critical issue. Also how large my stack size is. I am thinking "what will I do if an Ace comes out on the turn or river and my opponent bets?" and I probably will have raised both pre-flop and raised big postflop before I have to make this decision. Because I don't want to make this decision or make raise/call/fold decisions on later streets.

So, (1) I've already won the hand or
(2) I am dealing with one (probably) opponent who has either called
(3) or raised my bet (and I've called)
(4) or shoved (and I've called)


If (2) I assume my opponent has a range of hands that include 2 hearts or a 9, or AK,AQ or (less likely) AJ. Something speculative. If my opponent and I have deep stacks and an A,K, or Q comes then I have a very difficult decision to make and I may not continue on to the River no matter what I chose.

Note my two suited cards are not high. If I keep them and discard the off-suit jack and a heart comes at the turn, I am probably folding to a raise by my opponent.

If (3) I assume a slightly stronger range. Maybe a 7 (as the third card in the preflop hand) or 2 hearts and a 9 or two overcards. Or a bluff. I think I favor discarding the off-suit jack, but I hate my hand.

(4) I probably would not have called the shove by an opponent with a significant stack relative to the BB and so I would not have been in this situation. This is either a very strong hand or a bluff (assuming opponent is a good player) and stack sizes would be important here. I probably would have already folded to a post-flop all-in.

Basically, if you are playing with good players then I question how often this hand goes to a showdown.

If you are playing with bad players at low stakes (and especially if more than one player is in the hand postflop) then I agree with your analysis.

In the early 2000s, I played at a daily poker tournament at Treasure Island, and I clearly remember a sign posted about Crazy Pineapple being one of the games. I was intrigued that this kind of game was available in a live casino.

Likely because of that, at our home game among friends, I'll call Crazy Pineapple to shake things up. It's fun because everyone tends to see the flop, and because of the low-stakes (10 cents to $1 bets), people stay in until the end, and sometimes the leader on the flop winds up behind after the river.

In this example, someone would undoubtedly keep the two pair hoping for the boat. Typically in our games, someone hits the boat—and my straight or flush usually gets screwed.

This is why poker is fun. It would be kind of cool if someone waved a magic wand and everybody had to play an unfamiliar game and figure things out on the fly, rather than using rote strategies.

The 2 pair IS somewhat relevant because you have an overpair, albeit a modest one in this case. However, someone holding 9-10 or 9-8, for example, has far less equity against you since 3 of their outs are practically dead. (They could only hit a runner runner FH)

The more cards people have in their own hands, the bigger hands they can make when the community cards arrive. So generally you need to be tighter preflop and, in particular, you need to have an eye to making bigger hands, For example, it becomes more important to shoot for big flushes instead of any flush. A jack high flush in Hold Em is a monster. In Omaha it's generally going to be more of a showdown, bluff catch type hand. What is it in pineapple? Somewhere in between, I guess.

This is especially true when you hit front door draws. Let's say there was some betting on the flop. Then you TURNED your J high flush draw. People who had higher hearts could very well have folded on the flop. But when the flush draw flops, they ain't folding. So I think the value of a front door jack high flush in Pinapple is more than it would be in Omaha, but still significantly less than in HE.

In pinapple, I'd expect the value of a backdoor FD to be very close to in hold em (maybe higher!), because you discard your third card and people will not be that inclined to shoot for backdoor flushes. So basically, you are hitting the turn with a hold em hand.

Another issue is how many people are in the hand. The more people, the more likely that someone has a full house or a higher flush draw.

This is a perfect hand choice by Mike. Honestly, I don't know how to value a jack high flush in pineapple. I guess that it is a fairly storng hand, but not one we want to put tons of money in with.

Jacks is kind of in the same boat. It is an overpair and the 77 does help us, IF nobody has a 7 or 99. Or, if we hit a J.

If and how to play the hand is interesting. My first thoughts.

Heads up, I would keep the JJ as the aggressor hoping that villain had a FD (with me blocking 2 of his outs), straight draw, MAYBE TT. If he has a monster, other than quad 7s, I have outs and will win a huge pot when I hit.

Heads up facing aggression, I would draw to the flush for at least 1 street. Hoping to make a flush against trips and some other stuff like AA or bluffs. But I would tread cautiously and realize that there isn't a ton of value in hitting my hand.

Facing heavy action 3 ways or more, fold.

In a multiway I would sometimes fold and sometimes play JJ as a FH draw. Say, it goes bet, call, call and I act last. There's a good chance someone has a higher FD. There's a good chance someone has a 7. Someone could also already be full. If I hit my hand and don't run into 7777, I stand to win a very big pot.

According to this article from just three months ago, the Treasure Island poker room has shut down:

It opened in 2006 under MGM ownership with eight tables serving up games as niche as badugi and a special mix featuring hold'em, Omaha and crazy pineapple.

Key Insight. The tension in the postflop discard decision will usually be when you need to choose between keeping a straight or flush draw versus keeping a pair. The optimal choice in such a decision will depend upon the number of opponents still in the hand.

Suggestion:

Assume a low stakes friendly game in which people stay in with 50% of starting hands or 70% of starting hands. Because honestly, no one is staying in with 9-6-2 rainbow. And everyone is staying in with a suited ace or high pairs. Frame your decisions as being about Showdown Value and as a function of:

1. Number of opponents (1-7)
2. Whether they play with the top 50% or 70% of starting hands. (maybe Top 100%?)

This does require you to approximately rank the showdown value of starting hands which is a significant analysis.

Simplest ranking: 1. Versus One opponent, with 100% of starting hands
Other possible rankings:
2. Versus: One opponent with top 50% of starting hands (requires some iteration)
3. Versus Two opponents, 100% of starting hands
4. Versus: Two opponents, top 50% of starting hand

Again, the difference between one opponent and two (or more) opponents is the value of middle pairs and the value of suited connectors like 8H-7H.

Obviously, publishing these power rankings for starting hands would be high value in and of itself.

Must be a frustrating situation if you flop a royal (using all 3 of your hole cards) have to toss away the 10, and then not even make a flush or straight after that.

Thank you all for your comments. Some of you (I won't say names at the risk of offending those omitted) sound like you could write a book on the game. However, you know that I'm very mathematical and was hoping for some kind of basic strategy to the discard decision. Something like the power ratings table on WoO for Texas Hold 'Em, which was entirely mathematical.

I know it is dangerous to make a blanket statement like play two pair over four to a flush, but I would still like probe it with simulations. I'll keep thinking. My first program has 737 minutes to complete.

Quote: Rigondeaux

It would be kind of cool if someone waved a magic wand and everybody had to play an unfamiliar game and figure things out on the fly, rather than using rote strategies.

Like Guts.

Seems critical that you're figuring best 5 out of 8 instead of 5 out of 7, even though you have to do the discard with incomplete info.

Maybe it would be instructive to look at that old master spreadsheet you did for hand percentages for all number of cards up to 10? There could be significant percent changes between filling hands with 7 and 8 that could inform some of your choices.

It's on WoO somewhere, dates back to at least 2014. Not sure what page though.

Quote: Wizard

Thank you all for your comments. Some of you (I won't say names at the risk of offending those omitted) sound like you could write a book on the game. However, you know that I'm very mathematical and was hoping for some kind of basic strategy to the discard decision. Something like the power ratings table on WoO for Texas Hold 'Em, which was entirely mathematical.

I know it is dangerous to make a blanket statement like play two pair over four to a flush, but I would still like probe it with simulations. I'll keep thinking. My first program has 737 minutes to complete.



Like Guts.

Because the fold decision is post flop I think it is much more difficult to make rankings in the vacuum vs Texas Holdem hole card rankings.

A simple simulation would be to compute (pairwise) the equity value your three possible two card holdings have against each other. I think JJ will clearly be ahead. This simple calculation will miss important details like whether a hand is likely to hit and still lose a big pot.

I think, since the pair on the board plays for all, you have to hold the overpair, because it's that much more likely that someone will have a FH, and you only have a 33% (?) Chance of improving your hand by finding the 5th heart in the turn + river.

I was playing a lot of Omaha for a while there, and it seemed the biggest trap was to bank on straights and flushes holding with a pair on the board. 9 cards, and restricted play of them, yes, but closely analogous.

Quote: michael99000

Must be a frustrating situation if you flop a royal (using all 3 of your hole cards) have to toss away the 10, and then not even make a flush or straight after that.

I would probably throw away the ace leaving open the straight flush and still having the nut flush draw.

I know this table isn't very useful, but I consider it just a starting point. It shows the combinations for each hand in Texas Hold 'Em and for a psychic Crazy Pineapple player, who could foresee the turn and river when making the discard decision.

Hand	Texas Hold 'Em	Crazy Pineapple	Texas Hold 'Em	Crazy Pineapple
Straight Flush	41,584	28,340,824	0.000311	0.000673
Four of a kind	224,848	131,523,936	0.001681	0.003121
Full House	3,473,184	2,159,882,784	0.025961	0.051252
Flush	4,047,644	2,401,782,776	0.030255	0.056992
Straight	6,180,020	3,461,308,416	0.046194	0.082134
Three of a kind	6,461,620	2,494,326,648	0.048299	0.059188
Two pair	31,433,400	13,777,123,488	0.234955	0.326920
Pair	58,627,800	14,475,223,728	0.438225	0.343486
Nonpaying hand	23,294,460	3,212,623,800	0.174119	0.076233
Total	133,784,560	42,142,136,400	1.000000	1.000000

It shows the player will make a straight or better 10.44% in Texas Hold 'Em and in psychic Crazy Pineapple 19.42%. I know this is no big secret, but it just goes to show that you should have higher standards for what hands to play in CP.

The question for me is what step to take next. Maybe a distribution of the best hand in multi-player games.

Quote: Wizard

The question for me is what step to take next. Maybe a distribution of the best hand in multi-player games.

I would like to see what is likely the best hand at the table prior to flop based on the number of players at the table. If we assume the top 50% of hands stay in and see the flop, what is the expected best hand at that point based on the number of players at the table.

Quote: DRich

I would like to see what is likely the best hand at the table prior to flop based on the number of players at the table. If we assume the top 50% of hands stay in and see the flop, what is the expected best hand at that point based on the number of players at the table.

That sounds like a crazy loose game unless it’s very short handed.

Remember the general rule that the more starting cards you get, the more selective you should be playing the hand. In other words, play more Holdem flops than Omaha Hi flops.

ETA also just found this with a search. No idea if any good. http://gamblersbookclub.com/pineapple-hold-em-1477.html

Does this mean one has roughly the same chance of making a full house (5.1%) as making a flush (5.7%) in crazy pineapple?

So, going for the boat is correct strategy in home play!

Quote: smoothgrh

Does this mean one has roughly the same chance of making a full house (5.1%) as making a flush (5.7%) in crazy pineapple?

Yep.

Quote:

So, going for the boat is correct strategy in home play!

Of course, it depends on the situation after the flop. However, as in my example, the answer still isn't necessarily clear.

Quote: unJon

That sounds like a crazy loose game unless it’s very short handed.

Back before FL allowed no-limit games (all games were strictly limit, with a $2 max bet), Crazy Pineapple was the preferred game for the "high action" crowd. It was not uncommon to have 7 or more players seeing the river! 50% sounds about right for that game.

One day, I decided to dip my toes in the water and sat down at the CP table with $100. Over the course of the next hour and a half, my stack slowly disappeared, $2 at a time. I didn't drag a single pot! :P

BTW, is CP spread live anywhere these days? I haven't seen it in the local card room in over 10 years.

Quote: Wizard

I know this table isn't very useful, but I consider it just a starting point. It shows the combinations for each hand in Texas Hold 'Em and for a psychic Crazy Pineapple player, who could foresee the turn and river when making the discard decision.

Hand	Texas Hold 'Em	Crazy Pineapple	Texas Hold 'Em	Crazy Pineapple
Straight Flush	41,584	28,340,824	0.000311	0.000673
Four of a kind	224,848	131,523,936	0.001681	0.003121
Full House	3,473,184	2,159,882,784	0.025961	0.051252
Flush	4,047,644	2,401,782,776	0.030255	0.056992
Straight	6,180,020	3,461,308,416	0.046194	0.082134
Three of a kind	6,461,620	2,494,326,648	0.048299	0.059188
Two pair	31,433,400	13,777,123,488	0.234955	0.326920
Pair	58,627,800	14,475,223,728	0.438225	0.343486
Nonpaying hand	23,294,460	3,212,623,800	0.174119	0.076233
Total	133,784,560	42,142,136,400	1.000000	1.000000

It shows the player will make a straight or better 10.44% in Texas Hold 'Em and in psychic Crazy Pineapple 19.42%. I know this is no big secret, but it just goes to show that you should have higher standards for what hands to play in CP.

The question for me is what step to take next. Maybe a distribution of the best hand in multi-player games.

So, the Crazy Eight columns are essentially "draw 8 cards and make the best possible 5 card hand?"

Quote: gordonm888

So, the Crazy Eight columns are essentially "draw 8 cards and make the best possible 5 card hand?"

No. You can't keep all three hole cards. More like you have a set of 3 and a set of 5 and make the best hand, but you can't use all three of the hole cards.

This is why it is so painful to get a three of a kind in the hole.

Quote: Joeman

BTW, is CP spread live anywhere these days? I haven't seen it in the local card room in over 10 years.

I don't know about "anywhere" since some people might have a loose enough definition of "somewhere" to include Commerce, CA out in the wilderness of LA & suchlike. But for Southern Nevada...

A table of it getting played as a stand alone game is very unlikely in Las Vegas or anywhere in Nevada. It might possibly be included once in a while as part of a mix game that switches among different poker variants with every round.

About eight or ten years ago there was a regular very small stakes weekly or bi-weekly mix game that sometimes included this among the shifting mix of uncommon poker variants, which also sometimes included some stuff people in that group just made up to experiment with. TI is rightly mentioned above as a former home for this. That mix game, which might or might not include Crazy Pineapple on any given week, got moved around repeatedly among several host rooms over several years, including TI, the old Imperial Palace before it got Linquefied, and in the bigger older version of the Mirage room, and maybe also somewhere else that I'm forgetting about, before eventually fizzling out, in spite of some rooms willingness to try promote it in various ways, including sometimes taking zero rake and some special efforts to spread word about it. I think it has been dead as a regular thing for something like eight-ish years or so now. There was a Facebook page at one time that was dedicated to alerting the most dedicated Las Vegas area mix game fans to any such game that might be planned or active; I don't remember exactly what that was called but if someone's very interested maybe they can find it.

Separately from any of that, the large high-end Aria poker room, which has some of the biggest buy-in cash games in town, gets some kind of a mix game table going at various stakes at times. I don't know if they include Crazy Pineapple in their mix. I suspect not, but I could be mistaken. If not, then... no.

Quote: Wizard

No. You can't keep all three hole cards. More like you have a set of 3 and a set of 5 and make the best hand, but you can't use all three of the hole cards.

This is why it is so painful to get a three of a kind in the hole.

Okay, of course. So, comparison of your numbers with conventional "8 to make 5 cards" stats would quantify the (presumably small) effect of the restriction on not using all 3 cards.

And, yes, in Omaha getting 3 of a kind in your 4 hole cards is universally recognized as a reason to cuss and fold.

Here are frequency stats for 8 card poker hands (8 cards making 5 card poker hands) from another site 8 card poker hands as compared to your calcs for Crazy Eight.


[ /row]

Hand	Crazy Pineapple	8 card poker hands
Straight Flush	0.000673	0.000726
Four of a kind	0.003121	0.003360
Full House	0.051252	0.060664
Flush	0.056992	0.067572
Straight	0.082134	0.089129
Three of a kind	0.059188	0.051151
Two pair	0.326920	0.342522
Pair	0.343486	0.313728
High Card	0.076233	0.071011

By comparing the two columns you can see the effect of not using the 3rd hole card in your Crazy Eight calculation.

The one that surprised me is the comparison of the Three of a Kind numbers. Why is the 8-->5 frequency for Trips lower than your Trips frequency? I think its because there are hands where your hole cards are, for example, AA5 and the board comes A5xxx and so the 8-->5 makes a full house where you only make trips.

Quote: gordonm888

Okay, of course. So, comparison of your numbers with conventional "8 to make 5 cards" stats would quantify the (presumably small) effect of the restriction on not using all 3 cards.

Should be close, as CP is eliminating only one combin(5,3)=10* ways out of 56 to pick 5 cards out of 8.

* Corrected

I dont have time to read all 4 pages right now so I am not sure if we are still talking about that original hand but with jj2, I wouldn't have been in the hand to begin with unless I was BB and had no choice.

Make the scenario AA2 and I think it is more of a questionable scenario.

Here is my next step in this. These tables show the best hand in 2- to 10-player games. This assumes every player never folds and is psychic. I know, pretty worthless information, but hopefully it is leading up to something that isn't.

Hand	2 Players	3 Players	4 Players	5 Players	6 Players
Nonpaying hand	0.011002	0.001454	0.000170	0.000017	0.000001
Pair	0.205615	0.120976	0.072636	0.044181	0.026832
Two pair	0.365836	0.336755	0.291979	0.247295	0.207094
Three of a kind	0.086050	0.104383	0.116229	0.122936	0.125838
Straight	0.136383	0.174738	0.202073	0.221504	0.235291
Flush	0.096249	0.125330	0.147513	0.165023	0.178964
Full House	0.091540	0.125523	0.155066	0.181189	0.204638
Four of a kind	0.006003	0.008873	0.011728	0.014613	0.017473
Straight Flush	0.001322	0.001967	0.002605	0.003242	0.003868
Total	1.000000	1.000000	1.000000	1.000000	1.000000

Hand	7 Players	8 Players	9 Players	10 Players
Nonpaying hand	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000	0.000000
Pair	0.016130	0.009509	0.005447	0.003008
Two pair	0.172420	0.143100	0.118643	0.098420
Three of a kind	0.125899	0.123663	0.119915	0.114949
Straight	0.244840	0.251300	0.255535	0.258252
Flush	0.190143	0.199235	0.206394	0.211923
Full House	0.225740	0.244920	0.262314	0.278247
Four of a kind	0.020345	0.023177	0.026037	0.028874
Straight Flush	0.004482	0.005095	0.005715	0.006325
Total	1.000000	1.000000	1.000000	1.000000

Quote: smoothgrh

Does this mean one has roughly the same chance of making a full house (5.1%) as making a flush (5.7%) in crazy pineapple?

So, going for the boat is correct strategy in home play!

Well only if you’re psychic. Defer to Wizard, but think the full house % will drop (maybe materially) when that assumption is removed.

Quote: unJon

Well only if you’re psychic. Defer to Wizard, but think the full house % will drop (maybe materially) when that assumption is removed.

It will be. I need to start somewhere. My next step is to develop a good strategy, that balances strength and simplicity, to do as well as possible against psychic players. We will call that the Wizard 1.0 strategy. Then I'll have all players but one follow the Wizard 1.0 strategy and try to find a Wizard 2.0 strategy to defeat it. I'll keep repeating that until I find an equilibrium strategy, that can't be easily defeated, or lose interest.

Quote: Wizard

It will be. I need to start somewhere. My next step is to develop a good strategy, that balances strength and simplicity, to do as well as possible against psychic players. We will call that the Wizard 1.0 strategy. Then I'll have all players but one follow the Wizard 1.0 strategy and try to find a Wizard 2.0 strategy to defeat it. I'll keep repeating that until I find an equilibrium strategy, that can't be easily defeated, or lose interest.

Is there any reason to think, preflop, that the ranking of starting hands would be different for crazy pineapple and lazy pineapple? If not see this: http://www.crazypineapplepoker.org/crazy/best-starting-hands-crazy-pineapple-poker/

Also Amazon shows one pineapple Holdem strategy book. I haven’t read and don’t know the author. https://www.amazon.com/Pineapple-Holdem-Gamblers-Book-SHelf/dp/0896508277/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542392917&sr=8-1-fkmr0&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=pineapple+hold%27em+strategy

Quote: unJon

Is there any reason to think, preflop, that the ranking of starting hands would be different for crazy pineapple and lazy pineapple? If not see this: http://www.crazypineapplepoker.org/crazy/best-starting-hands-crazy-pineapple-poker/

I think they are probably pretty similar. I plan to make such a ranking myself.

Quote:

Also Amazon shows one pineapple Holdem strategy book. I haven’t read and don’t know the author. https://www.amazon.com/Pineapple-Holdem-Gamblers-Book-SHelf/dp/0896508277/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542392917&sr=8-1-fkmr0&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=pineapple+hold%27em+strategy

To cover looks like it's from the 1960's. Maybe I'll buy a copy, but my expectations are not very high.

Quote: Wizard

To cover looks like it's from the 1960's. Maybe I'll buy a copy, but my expectations are not very high.

1979 per the link.

It’s hard to google for information on this game because Pineapple is also a popular open face Chinese poker variant.

Quote: Wizard

Should be close, as CP is eliminating only one way out of 56 to pick 5 cards out of 8.

Hmmm, I get that CP eliminates 10 out of 56 ways to pick 5 cards out of 8.

Quote: gordonm888

Hmmm, I get that CP eliminates 10 out of 56 ways to pick 5 cards out of 8.

You're right. I realized this on my unicycle ride this morning and meant to correct myself, but forgot by the time I got back home.

I think there’s a pretty decent carnival game that can be created with the player having to get rid of one card after the flop and the dealer keeping all 3 of their cards for the whole hand.

As just a start at a realistic strategy, I created a six-player game where five players were psychic and the the sixth was not and always played the two cards resulting in the highest five-card value after the flop.

If this sixth player were psychic too, you would expect him to win 1/6 of the pot money (I split it in a chop). However, the strategy above drops his pot share from 16.67% to 12.31%. This goes to show that against psychic players you should sacrifice the two cards that result in the best immediate poker value 27% of the time. It is easy to predict this is sometimes due to discarding a singleton mid or high card to improve the chances at a straight or flush. How to code adding value to add value for straight and flush draws seems the next challenge.

Quote: Wizard

As just a start at a realistic strategy, I created a six-player game where five players were psychic and the the sixth was not and always played the two cards resulting in the highest five-card value after the flop.

If this sixth player were psychic too, you would expect him to win 1/6 of the pot money (I split it in a chop). However, the strategy above drops his pot share from 16.67% to 12.31%. This goes to show that against psychic players you should sacrifice the two cards that result in the best immediate poker value 27% of the time. It is easy to predict this is sometimes due to discarding a singleton mid or high card to improve the chances at a straight or flush. How to code adding value to add value for straight and flush draws seems the next challenge.

I’ll suggest again calculating the equity value of the three possible Hold’em hands you can make with your three card Pineapple cards against each other. And then keeping the highest.

As an example: Hand is Ac8c8s and flop is 7c5c2s. Calculate the equity each hand would have in a three handed game against each other where no one folded: Ac8c vs Ac8s vs 8c8s.

Quote: unJon

I’ll suggest again calculating the equity value of the three possible Hold’em hands you can make with your three card Pineapple cards against each other. And then keeping the highest.

As an example: Hand is Ac8c8s and flop is 7c5c2s. Calculate the equity each hand would have in a three handed game against each other where no one folded: Ac8c vs Ac8s vs 8c8s.

That is a pretty good idea, thank you! I am a bit concerned that this will favor more conservative play. In a real game, I think you'll be going against strong hands at the final showdown, so many need to be more aggressive than this strategy would result in. Perhaps also throwing in some totally random-handed opponents in the simulation would favor more aggressiveness.

Don't think of this as negating your good suggestion, just thinking out loud. However, what you suggested is a good starting point and I do believe in going step by step.

Thanks again!

In thinking about this some more, it is my ultimate goal to have a basic strategy for discarding in Pineapple. Something I can put in writing, like a video poker strategy. I think the idea of pitting the three ways to play a hand against each other sounds good in theory, but you can't run a computer simulation sitting at the table, unless you're playing online and have the right program.

Quote: Wizard

In thinking about this some more, it is my ultimate goal to have a basic strategy for discarding in Pineapple. Something I can put in writing, like a video poker strategy. I think the idea of pitting the three ways to play a hand against each other sounds good in theory, but you can't run a computer simulation sitting at the table, unless you're playing online and have the right program.

I don’t think it will end up being that complicated at the end of the analysis. Things will aggregate up to a manageable number of “situations” such as top pair good kicker vs flush draw. Most decisions won’t be close. Poker players are used to estimating equity in situations like that based on outs.

Although I haven't posted here for a while, I have been spending quite a bit of time on Pineapple. I decided to start with the simple case of regular Pineapple, where you discard before the flop. That is much simpler. However, it has consumed much of my time the last two weeks. That said, here is a first look at my page on Pineapple. Please have a look and give me your thoughts.

I'm afraid this will go down as one of my big projects that gets little attention, to be honest with you. This poker simulations are not as easy as they sound to program and formatting the results into Excel and then into WoO formatting is rather time consuming.

Anyway, after this I'll try to catch up on more pressing things and then try to build on what I started with a Crazy Pineapple analysis.

Well, my new page on Pineapple took me two weeks to do. As usual, my biggest efforts tend to get the least attention. I'm sure Nathan gets more mileage from lottery picks today. Oh well, at least I tried. After so little interest, I probably won't bother with a Crazy Pineapple strategy.

Quote: Wizard

Well, my new page on Pineapple took me two weeks to do. As usual, my biggest efforts tend to get the least attention. I'm sure Nathan gets more mileage from lottery picks today. Oh well, at least I tried. After so little interest, I probably won't bother with a Crazy Pineapple strategy.

Next time we have a home poker game, feel free to call this game each time(NL or pot limit), I will even call it when it's my turn if you wish. Use all your chart's and knowledge for the game, you should dominant the game.