Community Card Poker: Pinatubo
Pinatubo Poker is considered a “Community Card” game, and is one of the variants of Manila Poker (another version of that ever popular Texas Hold Em’ game). While there are similarities between Pinatubo and Manila Poker, the latter game is said to not play well within a no-limit or pot limit environment, due to its five betting rounds of play. If the no-limit exception were to take place in a game like Manila poker, a person who had a large sum of money and the skill to match could realistically push everyone else into the poorhouse (of course, said player wouldn’t mind that!)
Pinatubo Poker is different than Manila for a few reasons: It eliminates a betting round from the game (between the second and third community card play) and more importantly, is played with a “stripped” deck, which means certain sets of cards are removed from the deck in order to radically alter gameplay. In Pinatubo’s case the inclusive cards that are ranked from 2 to 6 are removed, giving the game a betting structure allows for three bet sizes and one blind.
When the game starts, each player is given two private hole cards, and a single, face up community card that is dealt to the board. Then the betting / more dealing begin.
Where Pinatubo is different is the second round – two community cards are dealt at the same time, followed by a bet (this is how a bet is eliminated – in Manila, a bet is made after each card). After the “double”, then two more individual cards follow (one at a time this time, followed by a bet for each). So essentially, it’s a 1-2-1-1 betting structure.
What is also interesting about Pinatubo Poker is that a three-hole-card version of the game can be played in the same manner as the above described game – in fact, it’s quite popular (the old adage that more cards to choose from makes for a more exciting game rings true.) Once again, the comparisons to Manila Poker are apparent, as the player is required to make a poker hand out of two (and only two) of their three hole cards in addition to having five board cards.
Now that you better understand the basics of Pinatubo Poker, go out there and make that big money to fund your dream purchase (maybe that big fishing boat??)
