Poker Cruise March 2022 (1 Viewer)

Day 3 recap
Port was Cabo San Lucas. Had to use tenders to get off the boat. So we got off a big boat onto a smaller boat, then went to port where we got on another boat and did some touring, then went back to the port and got on the smaller boat again back to the big boat. So lots of boat rides today. Beautiful though.
Satellite last night, $150 entry, both @travelgirl and I made it in so $550 main event tonight! Three day tourney so we will see how it goes. Some of these old people can’t last 2 hours!
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So I went out early in the main event. Had the pleasure (and concern) of sitting at a table with Jerry Yang to my left. He’s a really nice person and easy to chat with. I had a big pot against him early on, and took about $5k of his chips. Was running great at that table for about two hours. When our table split up, we both ended up at the same table again. He then kicked it into high gear and quickly became the table leader. My stack got really low, so I went all in with pocket 10’s. He thought for a bit, then called with pocket 7’s. Unfortunately he hit a 7 on the flop, and took me out. That’s okay - it felt good to play with a pro and not be a shriveling mess.

Went out close to the bubble last night in my survivor tournament. Need to expand my range of hands and big blind play with this group. They are mostly cash players. Hoping today’s survivor tournament goes well.

@ekricket will give a report on his tournament action soon.

We also wrapped up the ports yesterday. Cabo was first- it was a good stop as we did a boat tour along the coast with some friends. We saw a couple whales, and then stopped at a spot for about 10 minutes of snorkeling. Saw just a few fish and the water was murky, so looking for forward to snorkeling in the Caribbean again.

Mazatlan was a been-there-done-that port. Both of our tours were duds. Which is saying something because I generally enjoy the excursions.

Puerta Vallarta was nice. We took a cab to the downtown area, walked around and bought a couple things, then headed back to the ship. The coastline is very pretty with lush mountains in the backdrop.

Given a choice, I definitely prefer the Caribbean side. You just can’t beat the turquoise water.

Heading down to try my hand at another tournament. And there is a black jack tournament in the casino this afternoon. Maybe I will have some good luck today!
 
Main event update: There were 65 entrants and it was scheduled to be three days. We wrapped it up in two days, 7 way ICM chop once we got in the money.

I was one of the short stacks when we restarted. Got some great cards and doubled up to 46,000, then doubled the next hand for right at 100,000 so I was feeling pretty good. Some ups and downs but made the final table and scored ~$3500 from the $170 satellite entry so not bad. Chip leader got ~ $7500 and was the only one that had to get tax paperwork (>$5400).

I’ll post more pictures and write up after we are back on land, Internet is 1983 speeds so it take 3-4 minutes to load a picture and I’m too impatient to load 15 pictures.

Boat holds ~5000 guests but only 2200 on board so it’s really nice and open. The group parties are pretty sparse though, usually there’s about 1000 people or more in the main promenade but like for the 70’s party I only saw about 100-200 milling around. It’s nice.

Somebody kept asking about masks, I don’t know if I can make this clearer:

Only the crew wears masks.
None of the guests wear masks.
Nobody is required to wear a mask on board or on shore. Mexico has real diseases to worry about and they can’t control their cartels much less their people.
The only place we have to wear mask is federal facility’s like ports and air terminals. That is the only place we have to wear masks, we don’t have to wear them anywhere else.
We are not required to wear masks on the ship
I hope that clears up the mask questions.
I’ll post pictures later that show nobody is wearing a mask.
 
Main event update: There were 65 entrants and it was scheduled to be three days. We wrapped it up in two days, 7 way ICM chop once we got in the money.

I was one of the short stacks when we restarted. Got some great cards and doubled up to 46,000, then doubled the next hand for right at 100,000 so I was feeling pretty good. Some ups and downs but made the final table and scored ~$3500 from the $170 satellite entry so not bad. Chip leader got ~ $7500 and was the only one that had to get tax paperwork (>$5400).

I’ll post more pictures and write up after we are back on land, Internet is 1983 speeds so it take 3-4 minutes to load a picture and I’m too impatient to load 15 pictures.

Boat holds ~5000 guests but only 2200 on board so it’s really nice and open. The group parties are pretty sparse though, usually there’s about 1000 people or more in the main promenade but like for the 70’s party I only saw about 100-200 milling around. It’s nice.

Somebody kept asking about masks, I don’t know if I can make this clearer:

Only the crew wears masks.
None of the guests wear masks.
Nobody is required to wear a mask on board or on shore. Mexico has real diseases to worry about and they can’t control their cartels much less their people.
The only place we have to wear mask is federal facility’s like ports and air terminals. That is the only place we have to wear masks, we don’t have to wear them anywhere else.
We are not required to wear masks on the ship
I hope that clears up the mask questions.
I’ll post pictures later that show nobody is wearing a mask.
Please be careful posting the maskless pictures. The virtue signalers will flog you with tolerance filled hate.
 
Glad you guys are having a great time!

The cruise lines are doing the best they can. We took an 8-night cruise on Carnival over xmas, and a ten-day cruise on Celebrity in February. Neither line required vaxing, but for non-vaxers, the medical insurance requirements were so onerous that no one in his right mind would have even considered the cruises.

Masks were required in all indoor areas apart from cabins and the gyms (during aerobic exercise), except while eating or drinking. They were not required anywhere outdoors, including cabin balconies.

Both ships were around one-third populated (630-750 passengers on ship accomodating 2100-2200). Fortunately, all were grown-ups -- everyone complied, no one complained, and all had a great time.

We head from Tampa to Barcelona next month, and it will be interesting to see if and how the rules have been relaxed...
 
Ok back home so I can post pictures now.

It was a great cruise, nice to be back on the water, especially with poker involved. Like I mentioned earlier, cruise was only half full so it was nice and open to do anything. Few teenagers on board but not many. Food overall was ok, nothing special just normal cruise food and options. The staff seemed a little rusty, or maybe not fully hardened to handle a full cruise. But it really was a fine cruise and I’d recommend anyone who cruises regularly to get in while it’s not crowded.

Cardplayer poker
These are mainly all older retired players. You get a group of young guns every trio who are there for a bachelor party or something but mainly it’s 65+ Ok players who play pretty conservatively.
I don’t know if you can read between the lines, but what I’m saying is there’s money to be had if you work a little.
Tournament play was good, the conservative pick the crazies apart in the first few levels and then you can play TAGGG against the removing and clean up. I was the 4x raiser guy and pot sized continuation bets and got a reputation real fast so nobody messed with me much. Small blinds would regularly fold to my bb for fear I would raise and then follow up. We did well in tournaments, eventually cashing over $4500 between us. Spent a lot on entry’s but still came home with about $3000 more than we left with.
This is how many tournaments we played this week


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Notable were the main, where 7 of us did an ICM chop, and the all in or fold tournament where @travelgirl was in another 7 way ICM chop. Nobody was greedy, chops were normal especially after playing 7 hours until 1 am, old people get tired.

As far as covid travel we only had to wear masks when the US government was involved, like ports and terminals. Where foreign governments or businesses decided there were no masks. Same as in Africa, no masks. They laugh at diseases with less than 1% death rates, they wish all their diseases were like that.

Cruise ports were ok, not spectacular and the excursions we booked were kinda duds. Same stuff at all the ports, etc etc etc. water was cold so most beach trips were watching waves, snorkeling not so good.

I don’t know much about the ship. I didn’t go to any shows or events. I only played poker, ate, and slept basically. When you run deep in every tournament and there are 13 tournaments in six days it takes your time! But fantastically run tournaments, fantastic players to play against, it’s worth the extra money to weed out the casual headphone-hoody wearing wild guns.
But it was a smaller ship, had been refurbished some, so it was nice.

Booking through Cardplayer was cheaper than through the company, you have to pay Cardplayer $100 to access the room - and you have to do this before leaving port - but it was still cheaper. Like I mentioned before, the people you end up with are all solid well backed people, not looking to scam, hustle, pick up somebody, or otherwise bamboozle you, just a bunch of retired folks that want to have a good time.
 

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