Players Cruise

Wow, it has been quite a while since my last blog entry.  Time to recommit to this effort.  Lots to share and more memories to wrap up before this summer's WSOP.

Just got off of my 13th poker cruise, and I have to say that it was my favorite trip to date.  There were lots of returning guests to reconnect with, several players from Bill Heuer's home games that I have met, played with, and dealt to over the last couple of years.  The ports of call were more relaxing than exciting this time around, but the poker room was busy and fun whenever we were at sea.

This was the last Players Cruise currently on the schedule, as the guys running this venture have decided to only schedule a couple of cruises each year.  Sailing much less frequently with larger groups makes sense for everyone.  The poker is much better, as you get a better mix of players and don't have the same few competitors beating heads every day.  We can spread more games and offer more options to the players.  Dealers can count on more work and less time being on call.  The room can actually generate enough rake to pay off all the pre-boarding expenses and return a modest profit.

This particular cruise was special because 17 previous tournament champions (who won their cruise) returned to compete in a two-table satellite to the WSOP main event this summer.  We held another multi-table tournament on the first full day of sailing to qualify one last player into this tourney.  I was given much of the responsibility of designing the structure and set a style for this tournament and I had a blast playing the tournament director role.  I've set up a few bar league championships, but this tourney had a little more than twice the prize pool of any event I had done to date.

I chose to align the blind schedule very close to the WSOP blind structure (with far shorter periods).  We roped off the tournament space to give the players a special feel and keep their friends and family back away from the tables.  I used the microphone quite a bit before the tourney started and introduced each of the players.  We kept chip counts at each break and I recorded many of the interesting hands for an article that we will distribute in a cruise newsletter when we have future dates to announce.  As each all-in situation came, I announced the hand and results for the benefit of bystanders and the other players at live action tables in the room.  We rotated dealers regularly and did a decent job with card and chip security even though there was another tournament being held in the room at the same time (which turns out to be the case in all big events as well).  As the final table played out, I took the time to announce many of the significant hands and try to estimate current chip counts.  It was a lot of fun and I got nice feedback on how it was run.

I'm going to try and post more short entries and get in a routine of posting regularly, so that's it for now.  More on this and previous cruises, as well as some catch-up posts on my tournament jobs and local dealing gigs to come.