Learn what makes Crazy Pineapple poker so crazy, why players love it for social poker games, and how to play it here. You'll love this simple poker game. Pineapple Poker or Crazy Pineapple is a new poker variation that is still growing. It adds some cool twists to the standard poker and can be played online. With a dedicated Star Poker area on the main gaming floor, poker at The Star offers you cash and tournament games to suit every level of poker player. We offer a range of games to suit your style.

• Crazy Pineapple Poker Game
• Crazy Pineapple Poker Games

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.

Crazy Pineapple Poker Game

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.

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.

Crazy Pineapple Poker Games

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

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.

Call

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

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.

Welcome to the world of Crazy Pineapple Poker. Find out everything you need to know about the world’s fastest growing Poker variation.

Crazy Pineapple has changed my life completely. I used to spend my weekends travelling to and from the UK to see my beloved Chelsea football team. However, since I discovered Crazy Pineapple Poker I now travel throughout Europe competing in Poker Tournaments which are specifically designed for Crazy Pineapple.

Crazy Pineapple poker belongs to the Pineapple poker family, of which there are three games.

• Pineapple poker
• Lazy Pineapple poker
• Crazy Pineapple poker

All three of these games are variants of Texas hold’em. They are played in almost the same way, with a few subtle differences. For example, in all variants of Pineapple poker, you get three hole cards instead of two.

Why Play Crazy Pineapple Poker?

You might be wondering why you should play Crazy Pineapple poker. Why not just stick with a better-known poker variant?

• Ideal Social Game – You’ll rarely find Crazy Pineapple poker in real-world casinos. You can play it online, but it’s basically never included in tournaments or real money poker games. It’s a fun game to play with friends at home.

• Offers Key Advantages – In most Pineapple poker games, you’ll have to discard one of your three cards before the flop. In Crazy Pineapple poker, you get to keep all three cards until the second betting round. This lets you see how the flop cards impact your hand before you decide which one you want to discard.

• Easy to Play – Like all of the other Pineapple poker variants, this one is easy to play. If you understand the rules of Texas Hold’em, you know 99% of what you need to. The only difference is that you’ll get three cards, and you can hold them all until after the flop.

How a Typical Crazy Pineapple Poker Game Is Played

Examples are always helpful. Let us explain a hypothetical game of Crazy Pineapple poker. You will recognize most of this if you’ve played Texas Hold’em before.

• Every player is dealt three hole cards. Don’t show these to other players. Keep them close to your chest.

• One betting round follows after the initial hole cards have been dealt. You don’t have to discard any cards before you make this bet.

• Three communal flop cards are then dealt on the table. You need to think about how these cards impact your hand. Each player will try to make the best hand he or she can using these cards, the cards in his or her hand, and the cards still to come.

• Another round of betting takes place right after the flop. This is when you have to choose one of your hole cards to discard. Every player must get rid of one card before gameplay proceeds.

• The dealer will then reveal the fourth community card. This is called the Turn. Another betting round will then take place.

• Finally, the dealer will reveal the River. This is the fifth and final community card. A final betting round then occurs.

• It’s time for the showdown. Each player will now have to use the two cards in his or her hand and the five community cards on the table to make the best five-card hand possible.

• The winner is declared after all hands have been shown. Typical poker hand rankings decide who has the strongest hand. The player who has it collects the pot.

Crazy Pineapple Poker – Player Questions

1. Can I play Crazy Pineapple poker for free?

It’s possible to play for free at some casinos, but it’s rare to find this game at an online casino. It’s more likely to play this game in a social setting, so agree to the rules with your fellow players. A few free rounds to learn the rules properly before you bet for real money is always a wise idea.

1. Do they play Crazy Pineapple poker at the WSOP?

This game has never been played at the World Series of Poker. It has been played in some other pro poker tournaments, but we rarely see it. Again, it’s more of a social game for fun.

1. How many betting rounds are there in Crazy Pineapple poker?

There are four. There’s the pre-flop betting round, the betting round right after the flop, the round before the river, and the final betting round.

1. Do I have to show the card I’ve discarded?

No. Place this card face-down on the table. Showing it to other players could give them a clue about what hands you can make later on. This is especially true if they see everybody else’s discarded cards, too.