Because you can use both, one, or neither of your remaining hole cards to create your high and low hands, Crazy Pineapple is a bit more of a guessing contest than are games where you don’t have to discard a card after the flop.
Work through the following three practice hands to form the highest and (if possible) lowest five-card Omaha hand from the board and the assigned hole cards. Once you’ve determined the best hands you can create using your hole cards, try to figure out the best possible hands you could cre- ate using any set of hole cards. The first hand appears in Figure 4.20.
For this hand you have an Ace-high flush, but it’s not the best possible high hand. The best possible high hand is a Queen-high straight flush, which could be made by a player holding Q♠9♠. Someone could also make a straight flush with 9♠7♠. There are no pairs on board, so there’s no possibility someone could beat you with four of a kind or a full house. You also have the best pos- sible low hand, 8♠6♠4♠2♣A♠.
The second practice hand appears in Figure 4.21.
The best possible hand you can create from the seven cards available to you is three of a kind, Q♣Q♦Q♠A♠6♣. Your hand isn’t the best possible hand, however. It’s not possible to create a straight flush given the board
cards, and no one can have four of a kind because you hold one of the Queens, but there are plenty of other hands that can beat you. Anyone with the Q♥ and any remaining Three, Five, or Six has a full house, as would anyone with a pair of Sixes, Fives, or Threes. There are also three spades on board, so any player with two spades in the hole would beat you with a flush.
It is possible to create a low hand given the three cards ranked Eight or lower on the board, but you only have one card ranked Eight or lower in the hole and can’t make a low hand.
The third practice hand appears in Figure 4.22.
The best possible high hand you can cre- ate with your hole cards isn’t all that hot: 9♠9♣A♥6♠5♣. Anyone with a card that matches any of the board cards beats you, so don’t count on getting any money from the high side of this pot. You do, however, have the second-best low hand, with 6♠5♣4♦2♠A♥. Only a player with a Three and a Two in the hole beats you, so you should feel pretty good about your chances.
Dividing a Pot with Multiple Winners
In a high-low split game, a player could always win the entire pot, or scoop, by having both the highest and lowest hand, such as with a Five-high straight flush (remember, straights and flushes don’t count against you when you’re going for low). But what would happen if a player had the highest possible hand and two players tied for the lowest hand? Rather than split the pot into thirds, the high hand wins half of the pot, and the two players tied for the low would each win one quarter of the pot.
