Crazy Pineapple High-Low 8 or Better

Assuming most players are holdem players I think someone probably has your A outkicked, I would probably discard the A

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I just heard about Pineapple Poker the other day and know the order of play and that is about it.
I would discard the T.
You have a pair of Aces which is good and you are leaving the option of making a low straight or perhaps just the lowest hand of unpaired cards.

Lol at a pair of aces being good in pineapple and discarding a card from the flop. And for bumping a 3 year old thread

Not sure why the pair of aces is no good, but as I say I really don't know much about it. It was the name that caught my eye in the first place.
As for bumping the three-year-old thread, I didn't notice that. But surely that is still better than starting a new one when it isn't really all that important.

you cant discard the T since the T is a flop card and hero is holding A23.
Keeping the A gives you TPNK which is rarely good in this game, and you denying yourself the option of making a good low

You are right, I got the hole cards and flop mixed up.
Perhaps I'll give Pineapple a miss for a while.

I kinda miss Tasha.

Originally Posted by gjoselepen

yeah, like others said, I prefer to discard T...

Kind of hard to discard a flop card

I miss Tasha too.

JK, this is a real legit bump.

I found a group of players that play this live in a rotation, the setup exactly the same as in the OP.

I have absolutely no idea what im doing.

I read TLR's Stud hi/lo guide, and that gave me a good idea of some careless limit mistakes im making, but im clueless in how hand strength changes.

Things i think
-Wrap type hands are good?
-Pairs + sooted ace/king?
-Obv A23, A24 etc are good
-Suited connectors + ace?

idk. I wreck them in NLHE, wreck them in PLO, but fuck this game man. HELP

can you play 4 cards from the board for high and/or low, or 3?

In pineapple, you get dealt 3 cards, but discard before the flop. This game plays a lot like hold em, and if you know someone at your table prefers certain types of hands, you can heavily weight their range toward those hands.

In crazy pineapple, you discard after the flop, so putting villains on ranges until then is a total mind-warp. The turn and river are identical to a hold em game, though. It still comes down to knowing your villains and what they consider a playable hand. E.g. In my home game, there is a guy who thinks a 4-flush on the flop is the ultimate goal of hold em. It's pretty easy to put him on flush draws in crazy pineapple.

In crazy pineapple 8 or better, grab your seat belts and hang on because you are playing a wicked high variance game... maybe higher variance than PLO8. The general rule in all split pot games is to try for a sweep, so low straights and flushes would be the primary goal. You can try for the chopped pots when you can get them if its short-handed, but play for the sweep.

@Dr: For their game, you are allowed to play the board; and must discard a card when its your turn to act otf

Also from what ive seen, the game is very stationy...with those non stations being nits. If i were to limp, I'll get raised by nothing except like exactly A23, AA2 type hands.

The problem is i dont have any kind of feel on whats playable besides some vague merge of NLHE and PLO.

Originally Posted by JKDS

@Dr: For their game, you are allowed to play the board; and must discard a card when its your turn to act otf

Also from what ive seen, the game is very stationy...with those non stations being nits. If i were to limp, I'll get raised by nothing except like exactly A23, AA2 type hands.

The problem is i dont have any kind of feel on whats playable besides some vague merge of NLHE and PLO.

I guess you are playing in a rather passive game, in my home game opening and 3 betting ranges are wider

I think that hand selection is basically the same guidelines as O8 game, in a full table you want to play hands that have both high and low potential and work well together, note that counterfeight protection is not as major an issue in crazy pineapple 8 as it is in O8
In shorter table there is more value to high only hands

seems like suited low cards are the way to go. pairs below KK or so seem bad, i guess if you can limp in maybe play QQ/JJ.

what do you do when it comes JT9 and you have QJT?

Originally Posted by drmcboy

seems like suited low cards are the way to go. pairs below KK or so seem bad, i guess if you can limp in maybe play QQ/JJ.

what do you do when it comes JT9 and you have QJT?

I very rarely play naked QQ/JJ, those are basically set hunting hands that can be very easily turn to losers to str8 and flushes, if you have QQ with a good side card (A/K/J suited to the Q) it is more playable

regarding JT9 with QJT it depends on action and position, I guess usually HU I would discard the Q and multiway I would discard the T

Hrm, so ok. Wrap type hands lose a ton of value when you cant keep all the cards involved, and also pairs are doubtful to hold up with most pots multiway. Makes sense.

Here's the breakdown of starting hands w/ 3-cards:

There are 22,100 3-card combos
hand {total} percent

Straight Flush {48} 0.217%
Set {52} 0.235%
Straight {720} 3.26%
Flush {1,096} 4.96%
Pair {3,744} 16.9%
High Card {16,440} 74.4%

The odds of flopping any pair is about 50%
The odds of flopping any pair or better is over 60%, and that doesn't include draws.

You can get other interesting data if you look at starting hands for 7 stud high low.

I'm reluctant to take hand strength data from stud though

Like, it seems to me that the games are too different. For instance, Having 3 suited cards is awesome is stud... But I don't get any value from having 3 in pinapple and may actually lose value since I would still need 3 of that suit to come.

One thing that's irking me atm is the relatively low value of starting hands though pf. If wraps aren't as good as in plo, and pairs are arguably worse than in nlhe, then we're left with the nut hands....and junk. So like only 10% are powerful.

Of course position and #of players in the hand matter, as well as who acts (if there's a raise pre, high hands get better?). But in general it seems like weaktight is desirable until the flop comes.

Originally Posted by JKDS

I'm reluctant to take hand strength data from stud though

Like, it seems to me that the games are too different. For instance, Having 3 suited cards is awesome is stud... But I don't get any value from having 3 in pinapple and may actually lose value since I would still need 3 of that suit to come.

One thing that's irking me atm is the relatively low value of starting hands though pf. If wraps aren't as good as in plo, and pairs are arguably worse than in nlhe, then we're left with the nut hands....and junk. So like only 10% are powerful.

Of course position and #of players in the hand matter, as well as who acts (if there's a raise pre, high hands get better?). But in general it seems like weaktight is desirable until the flop comes.

You cant really compare stud hands to pineapple hands, you cant use holdem as reference because holdem does not have any low portion to it, it is a bit more comparable with PLO8 hands, basically you want 3 cards that work together well, and can give you good low and good high, hands like AWW, AWX suited to the ace are all good hands,

I agree that you have to re-contextualize the data on stud8 starting hands. You bring up good points about having 3 to suit being worse than 2 of a suit and an off-suit card (that doesn't block your flush draw). Starting with trips would be horrible, too, for similar reasons as Omaha.

On the bright side, you can expect to be dealt an ace ~ 1 in every 5 hands, so you shouldn't have to wait too long for a hand that can take a flop.

Aight, I think i've learned enough to at least not lose when this game comes up in the rotation. You guys helped a lot! Thanks!

this must be the most tilting game in the world, i really want to play

Oh yeah i forgot. I dont think it affects anything regarding my OP, but if you win a 20bb pot or larger...then theres a kill pot where the blinds go from 1/2 to 5/10, and the winner of that 20bb pot has to start the hand by putting in 5 (not dead). After its over, you go back to 1/2.

Because you know, whats a little more variance?