TRIPLE DRAW AND PINEAPPLE

Every big Vegas cash game seems to include triple draw according to the sessions you read Daniel talking about on his blog. There are two versions with A-5 allowing the wheel to be the lowest and no penalty for straights and flushes and 2-7 with peanlties for anything but trash.

Just for variety I wanted to try it out and the only place that seems to offer Triple Draw is Ultimate Bet. So I opened an account on Friday played some .25$/$.50 limit during the weekend. I bought in for $25 the first time and lost $8. The second time I bought in for $15 and won $7. The third time I bought in for $15 and was up $10 before quitting down about $4. I wanted to get a feel for the action and the types of draws more so than anything. It was a fun enough time that I might introduce it into the home game.

I then played a little Pineapple, another game only offered by ULTIMATE BET. I had already introduced this game into the home atmosphere about a year ago, but playing yesterday made me realize that I had the rules wrong. The game is the same as Texas Hold'em except that you get three cards and I understood that you discard one before the flop. But the game is actually a little more intersting letting you keep your three cards through the flop and discarding one before the turn card. This particular table was also playing it 8 or better low. So that was one more thing to worry about. I bought for $15 again and took some lousy beats. My nuts flush went down in flames to the fullhouse on the river. Those kinds of hands were the reason I gave up limit poker for the most part. They can still outdraw you, but it's much more costly for them to do so.

It was entertaining, but in order to get my money back, I bought into the NL limit game. I won about $20 before having to leave for the party last night. Tricia's friend Carrie cooked traditional black eyed peas and greens and the guys played some Texas Holdem tournmanets for the fun of it. I would have preferred money play, but the host was apprehensive. We played six handed starting withabout 800 chips and 5/10 blinds. I won the first two tournaments pretty handily, but I fell way down in the third frame when my gamble with the flush draw didn't pan out. I fought all the way back was the chip leader heads up when I decided to go all-in on my straight draw ran into a weak ace that couldn't fold. With about 10% of the chips I fought back once again and finally won the whole thing when I paired my top card to defeat AQ. We went on to play a fourth tournament and I finished second after a draught of cards forced me all-in with KQ only to run into AJ.

The best part of the night was an invite from one of the players to play in a regular tournament in the downtown area. It would be great to pick up another local game.