poker on a cruise ship

[jb9]

Anyone have any experience with and comments on playing poker on a cruise ship?

I'm going on a cruise this summer, and the ship has a casino which is supposed to include 3 texas hold'em tables in addition to all the slots and roulette wheels. I don't know what the stakes/limits will be, but my guess is $5/$10 or $10/$20 limit.

This will be my first opportunity to play poker live. I've read some of the posts on the B&M Cardrooms forum with advice for online players going to play live for the first time, so I think understand the basics of that, but I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has played on a cruise ship.

[shadow29]

I dunno. But I did play some BJ on a Carnival Cruise and the floor was oblivious. Going from $10 bets --> $100 bets and no one knowing why or caring = good.

[Crveballin]

In early June I was on a Carnival Cruise ship and they had 1 table tucked away for Holdem. Blinds were $3/$6 Max 4-bets. Competition was pretty bad. Most of the guys were playing to spend a few hours away from the wives. VPIP for these tables had to be around 60%.

Dont be intimidated by your first time. Play your normal TAG style and you will do fine.

[jb9]

OK, now I can pretty much answer my own question as I've been on my cruise. Here is a report in case anyone is interested.

I only played one 2 hour session of 3/6, but a few people I was traveling with played a bit more, including a tournament, so I have some first hand and second hand info. This was on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship.

The poker room was a back room reached by walking through the main casino. It looked very much like it use to be a storage room that was converted to a poker room recently, but it was fine. Definitely quieter and more laid back than the casino. There were 3 tables.

I think the separation from the rest of the casino made it hard to keep games going or get them started as it was not easy to just walk up and watch a game for a while or take a seat. You had to go through a door, down a hallway, and through another door to get to the poker room. It wasn't entirely clear that you could "just walk right in". When I left, I turned the wrong way and ended up in a storage room. It was also harder for players to order drinks as a special request had to be made to summon a waitress.

When I was playing, a few people came in, saw the table was full and left. Later, when a few people left the game, we had to ask twice for an announcement to be made in the casino that there were openings at the poker table (as soon as the announcement was made more players came in).

Dealers were not assigned to stay at the table waiting for players. There was a sign up board at the front of the casino, and as soon as 4 people signed up, a dealer and floor man were called to set up the game.

I went to play with a few people and there were 3 names on the sign up board when we got there, so after we signed up, a dealer was called and a table was set up. It took a little while to get going as there was a shortage of $1 and $5 chips, but some more chips were acquired in a few minutes, and by the time we started, we had a full table.

They offered 3/6 and 5/10 limit, and the rule seemed to be "if everyone at the table wants to play 5/10, the table is 5/10, if anyone doesn't wasn't to play 5/10, it's 3/6". I found this out when I annoyed a couple of surly drunks by being the only person at the table to say "3/6" when asked what we wanted to play... (I usually play $2/4 and $3/6 online and was edgy enough about playing live the first time without playing higher stakes too.)

So, we played 3/6 with a $1.50 small blind. The rake was 10% up to $5.00. The dealers and floor man seemed fine. One or two misdeals, but no real problems. Someone joined the game later and was allowed to start playing in the cut off position without posting a blind. Not sure if that was the house rule or an oversight.

The other players were mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s and were a bit “less fun” than I had expected on cruise ship (although since I’ve never played live before, I didn’t really know what to expect). They were all either drunk or well on the way to being drunk. No one seemed to be enjoying themselves. The table talk pretty much consisted of arguments over who got the best comps at the Bellagio, who lost the most money at blackjack, and how 3/6 was a stupid game because you can’t stop anyone from seeing a flop when it’s only $3.

The play was generally loose passive except for one drunk maniac who played about 70% of his hands and raised 95% of those preflop and raised or bet every flop. He sometimes didn’t raise the turn, but he would bet if checked to. The guy next to me (an aspiring table coach) got very upset by this and eventually left the table out of annoyance (he was replaced by another surly drunk who complained about playing 3/6). Fortune smiled on me as I got some decent cards and thanks to the drunk maniac all the pots were fairly large. I was amused to discover that when I won a big hand, my hands would shake as I stacked the chips (didn’t think that would happen to me...). It's a shame that we were only playing 3/6 /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

There were also at least 2 (no limit, I think) tournaments I saw advertised but didn’t play in. They were $50 + $10 buy ins with 50%/30%/20% payouts (up to 30 players since they only had 3 tables). Players started with $2000 in chips with a $200 big blind. I don’t remember how fast the blinds went up, but I think it was every 10 or 15 minutes.

It was fun playing live at a real table with real cards and chips, but since I was on vacation to relax, had plenty of fun things to do, didn’t really enjoy spending time with the players at my table, and there were no other tables to switch to, I didn’t go back to play again.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
No one seemed to be enjoying themselves. The table talk pretty much consisted of arguments over who got the best comps at the Bellagio, who lost the most money at blackjack, and how 3/6 was a stupid game because you can’t stop anyone from seeing a flop when it’s only $3.

[/ QUOTE ]


This pretty much sums up more than half of my live poker experiences.
People CAN be much grumpier and less fun then, say, a fun and social blackjack table.


[ QUOTE ]
Someone joined the game later and was allowed to start playing in the cut off position without posting a blind. Not sure if that was the house rule or an oversight.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know either...but some places allow you to join the game without posting.
In Tunica, Mississippi (near Memphis where I live...good poker-rooms there btw) you are allowed to join the table, wait for the blinds to pass you (if you sit in the under-the-gun seat for example), and then play your first hand in the cut-off without posting.
But you can only do this at 3/6 and 4/8.
If you are playing 10/20 or something then you will have to post.

I later learned that this was NOT typically done at casinos in other regions (when I went to Vegas for example).




poker in a make-shift storage-room doesn't sound very fun.

On the card-player cruise for the Party Poker Millions (big tournament...and lots of ring-games) they had 60 tables in what is normally the upstairs part of the dining room.
Kind of nice when you're playing with an ocean-view (although they sometimes had to close the curtains because the direct sun-light in was making it pretty hot...greenhouse-type effect).


If you really want to play poker on cruise-ships I highly recommend the card-player cruises.
The play is still quite fishy....but the set up and the delaers on these are quite good.
My only experience was the PPM tournament cruise....so maybe the ones that don't have a big tournament are a bit different. But I would be willing to give those a try too (and the people I talked too on the boat who had been on 'regular' poker cruises just raved about them).
I wouldn't mind doing the European or the Alaska poker-cruises someday.

And they aren't as poker-intensive as you might think.
My GF knows ZERO about poker and she had a great time too. The amount of poker talk everywhere was a bit weird to her...but it was generally very easy to get out of 'poker-mode' and just enjoy the cruise.

[ResidentParanoid]

I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise last year where an individual organized a NL holdem tournament, held in the card playing/game room on the top deck. He posted messages on all the cabin doors to invite people to play. I'm guessing he had the OK of the cruiseline folks. After checking out the lineup (which was very beatable, about 15 people), I thought about being stuck in a room with those folks for 5 or 6 hours. Then I thought about sitting by the pool, eating good food, sipping a cool beverage, going to the nightclub, getting a cigar, checking out the spa, going on land to a tropical beach, renting a sailboat, ...

I decided not to play poker.