No Flop Pineapple

Last update: June 27, 2009

Introduction

No Flop Pineapple is a four-card poker-based table game. It can be found at the Santa Ana Star Casino near Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Rules

1. No Flop Pineapple Hold 'Em is played using a single 52-card deck.
2. The game uses standard poker rules when comparing 2 hands. The following list shows the rank order of all hands, with hands listed in descending-rank order.
   • Four of a Kind
   • Straight Flush
   • Straight
   • Flush
   • Three of a Kind
   • Two Pairs
   • Pair
   • High Card Hand
3. To begin, all players make a blind bet wager and, if they wish, an optional wager on a Pocket Pairs side bet.
4. The dealer then deals three cards face down to each player and three cards face down to himself. He also deals 2 community cards face down.
5. Each player then examines his three cards and determines which two cards he wishes to keep and which card he will discard.
6. After all players discard one card, the dealer will reveal the first community card (the turn). Each player must now decide to either fold his hand and lose his blind bet or raise two times his blind bet and continue playing the game.
7. After all players have either raised or folded, the dealer will reveal the second community card (the river), as well as his 3 hole cards.
8. The dealer will then discard one of his 3 cards to make his best possible 4-card hand.
9. The dealer will then compare his hand to each player's hand.
   • If the dealer's hand beats the player's hand, the player loses his blind and raise bets. The Pocket Pairs bet may still pay off, however.
   • If the player's hand beats the dealer's hand, the player wins even money on his blind and raise bets.
   • If the hands tie, the player's blind and raise bets push.
10. In addition, if the player gets a flush or better, the player wins a High Hand Bonus on his blind bet regardless of the outcome of the game. The following is the pay table for the High Hand Bonus:
    • Four of a Kind: 40 to 1
    • Straight Flush: 20 to 1
    • Straight: 3 to 1
    • Flush: 2 to 1
11. The Pocket Pairs bet pays based only on the player's cards, regardless of whether that player beat the dealer’s hand. The bet pays if the player has a pair as his two hole cards after discarding. The pay table starts as follows, according to the pocket pair.
    • Aces: 16 to 1
    • Kings: 11 to 1
    • Queens: 7 to 1
    • Jacks: 4 to 1
    • 2s-10s: 2 to 1
    If one of the two community cards matches the pair, then the win will be doubled. If both match, the win will be multiplied by 20.

Strategy

Discard Strategy: The table below ranks the expected value of all two-card hands from highest to lowest. The expected value will depend on the discard, and in the case of pairs, what the pair is. You should play the highest possible hand on the list.

Raise Strategy: Raise with any of the following, otherwise fold.

Blind Wager Analysis

The following table shows the probability and contribution to the return for all possible outcomes of the blind bet. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 1.30%. The player will raise 67.2% of the time, for an average final wager of 2.34 units. The element of risk is thus 1.30%/2.34=0.55%.

Pocket Pairs Analysis

The following table shows the probability and contribution to the return for all possible outcomes of the Pocket Pairs bet. All winning hands must include a pocket pair (meaning the player's hole cards are a pair). The lower right cell shows a house edge of 1.78%.

Links

No Flop Pineapple official web site.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the game inventor Nathan Klempel and mathematician Cindy Liu for the math analysis of this game.

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