PPM II story

[Inthacup]

Played in the PPM II last week and got to witness a truely bad beat.

Preface: Everyone starts w/ T-5000, limits start at 50-100. Hand happens in the 6th hour into tourney, limits are 300-600. There are about 100 players left in tourney, 19-90 gets $1000, 90-108 gets $500.

I'm in seat 10 and have the button. Seat 5(mp) has raises preflop, folded to seat 1(SB). SB 3 bets w/ KK, mp calls w/ A 10

Flop: 10 4 10

SB bets, MP calls

Turn: 5

SB bets, MP raises.
Now at this point there is a lot of commmotion going on around the tables do to spectators and personel so after MP raises, the dealer doesn't realize the SB hasn't called the raise yet and burns and turns a KING. It is then realized that the SB never completed the action and a floorman was called over. He says the K must be placed back in the deck and the deck reshuffled.

The SB has a dejected look on his face and calls the raise.

River: 5

Sb checks, MP bets, SB calls.

SB shows what would have been a full house, MP shows winner. The table lets out a collective sigh, and the dealer spends the next 5 minutes apologizing as everyone relives what just happened. As a result, Seat 1 was crippled down to about 1k in chips. He goes out 92 and basically loses $500 on dealer error.

[Homer]

How did you make out?

[crazy canuck]

And please, please, please give us a trip report.

[Inthacup]

I've never taken a cruise before. However, I am pretty used to road trips. A friend and I drove to Vegas last fall(which is a hilarious story in itself) from Nashville in 29 straight hours. So I get off work at 5 pm on Friday, finish packing and hit the road. I end up driving 13 hours straight and we hit Cape Canaveral at 9 am Saturday. Let me just say that I wasn't exactly so fresh and so clean clean. I did have time to pick up some brown sunglasses(you know, the kind that are dark brown on top and light brown on bottom) at Ron Jon's surf shop.
We set sail 2pm-ish, and Party Poker gets things started right...with cocktail hour. Free booze and Mike Sexton doing the tango is going to make any event memorable. I got to meet some of the players, including "GreatBrit" who is cool as hell, and some others whose names are now smeared in my mind with Crown and Coke.
That night we draw for seats, and lucky for me, I drew Daniel Negreanu's table.

There were 180 entrants in the tourney, 135 online, 45 pros. 90 played sunday, 90 played monday. The remaining players combined on tuesday and it was normal tournamet structure from there. Top 18 payed out. Then, the "Greatest deal in Poker" kicked in and helped out the online players who wanted to take something away from their trips. 19-90 got 1k. 90-108 got $500. I drew a monday spot, so I got to get a feel for things on sunday.

Monday: I couldn't lose. I won my first 9 hands that I saw flops on. I took my 5k and pumped it up to 8k in the first hour. In the course of that, I took 3 heads up pots off of big Dan. By the end of the first day, there were 84 players left, with me being in 40th w/ T-9500.

Tuesday: I couldn't win. I drew Table 1, so there was no hope of getting moved. I had several world class players at my table including Erik Seidel and Howard Lederer. Texrodeo was also there, sporting a hat that read "Don't mess with Texas". I still hovering around 10k when my KQ ran into texrodeo's AA. A king flopped and the rest is history. At this point, the limits are 600-1200 and he takes about half my stack. I'm blinded down to about 2k. I'm on the button w/ AQ unsuited. CO raises, I go all-in(which doesn't come close to covering his raise). He shows 22, I show AQ, I get no help and he puts me out 53rd. I got 1k which was my first goal going into the tourney.

So by wednesday, phase 1(poker) of the cruise was over and phase 2(duty free liquor) was just beginning. The rest was a blur of sunshine, beautiful beaches, cocktails and drinking games.

The only bad thing about the entire experience was choice of cruise line, Holland America. We're sitting at St. Thomas on Wednesday afternoon when the engines shut down. Apparently 4 out of 5 generators went out, which is huge when the engine is electric. But the engines weren't the only things out my friends, nooooo. The toilets were electric too. The funny thing is that the toilets were never publicly mentioned, yet the entire boat knew they were out from personal experience. About 6 hours later, they get enough generators to work to get the toilets flushing again. When I tried to flush ours, the toilet water was brown for 4 flushes before it was clear. That brown contained some of the most potent odor ever conceived. It did something to our room that wouldn't go away. After haggling with the front desk, we finally got a room change. For the troubles of personally moving out of a feces infested room, we were gloriously compensated with $50 and a complimentary glass of Champagne.

As a whole, Party poker and Card Player Cruises did a fantastic job. Everything was well organized and efficient. But, I will do everything in my power to never to use Holland America again.

I'm sure I left some holes, so feel free to shoot me some questions. Damn, I'm tired of writing.

[GrannyMae]

Crown and Coke.


ewwwwwww.. this should be illegal. YUCK
http://216.40.249.192/s/ups/kamikaze/smilie_barf.gifhttp://www.tcwozere.co.uk/~cracks/contrib/edoom/throwup.gif




great report cup! i wish i was there.

(btw, brown toilet water is not normal??? hmmm, time to call the plumber i think)

[crazy canuck]

Thanks for the great trip report Inthacup. I kind of have one question: when you were playing with the best players, were you impressed by their play? Did you learn something from them?

[beernutz]

Wow thanks for posting that, it was very interesting, and congrats for finishing in the money. I've never taken a cruise on Holland but I've heard similar reports about them from other people.

[RiverMel]

For the troubles of personally moving out of a feces infested room, we were gloriously compensated with $50 and a complimentary glass of Champagne.

That's a great line. I think you should make it your new sig.

[Big Ray]

To start with my real name is Dan so don't get confused with Big Ray(the name I hide behind).

Yes, I was the guy with the kings and the dejected look was hiding alot more than I was showing. The only thing that may ease the pain would be to win the world series one day!
Although I felt so much better when I managed to make 4th in the $1000 no limit tourney a few days later. There were 42 entrys and all the big names were in it. I made the final table without taking any risks with my stack as most players assumed I was inexperienced, the truth was I was inexperienced at live poker but not at poker, this totally worked in my favour and I was able to make lots of chips by making odd sized bets and got reraises when I had the goods. 4 places got paid and I managed to hang onto my short stack for 2 hours untill the 5th player went out, Phil Hellmuth was constantly steeling my blinds but paying me off when I could find a hand. Thanks to all the guys that supported the underdog (especially my bird Lucy), it was a great experience.

As for a trip report, well, it was fantastic! The service was excellent (apart from a few grumpy bar tenders) and we were looked after really well by both the cabin steward and our waiter (but i understand that a few people weren't as lucky as we were).
The boat had everything we needed (as well as every thing we didn't need, the gym for example) although it was very small for a cruise liner and was dwarfed in port by the other ships around us.
The weather was great and the islands that we did get to were fantastic.
We met most of the professionals and the big on line names, Greatbrit, icky1, sunofafishy and loads of other really cool people.

The boat did absolutely stink the day that the generators were down, and due to this (the generators, not the smell) we missed out on going to half moon cay in the bahamas.

To sum it up Party Poker and Cardplayer cruises organised a great week for everyone.
Also thanks to holland america for an excellent week, apart from the bar closing too early on the last night and the dj going to bed. Very poor!

As for the bad beat nobody was to blame, these things happen, If i was a bit luckier it could have even worked in my favour instead of against me.....Next time, maybe.

Thanks, Dan. (Big Ray)

[Big Ray]

Forgot to mention, I didn't lose $500 on the bad beat as I made it into the last 45 for that day (43nd I think) and made the $1000.

Dan.

[Inthacup]

hey Dan, good to hear from you. I'm glad you made the top 90. That makes the story much less painful. Congrats on the NL finish. If I remember correctly, you spoke with an accent. Where are you from, and how much did it cost to get to the cruise? I was told specifically by PP support that we would be compensated $500 for travel expenses(I saved the conversation which I will post later) only to be told by Lucy Jones that basically her staff is incompetent, and she was really sorry.

[Big Ray]

Hey Inthacup, the accent was english. I think I was the only player to come from the U.K. as I didn't meet anyone else from here and Mike Sexton metioned to my girlfriend that he thought we were the only one's. As for expenses, it cost me a fortune for the flights plus we had to stay in London and Orlando for a night on our way there, it all set me back about $2000.
Unfortunatly I was staked for the $1000NL tourney so I didn't get to see to much of the $4000 prize money however "WOW" I was so greatful for the chance and I got to play with all the top guys I wouldn't have minded giving it all away.

This $500 for travel expences, are you talking about the $500 prize money or something else. If its something else post back and maybe I can email them to about it.

Nice to meet you, see you next year, Dan.