Poker on the High Seas!

Do you like to play poker? Do you like sun and fun? Usually these two activities are like oil and water. They don't mix. On a poker cruise they do. Imagine a new port every day or so to explore, shop, or just hang out. Imagine a full-service cardroom running whenever the ship is at sea. This is a poker cruise.

To show you what is typically involved, here is what my family experienced on a poker cruise a few years ago. This particular cruise was a week of fun in the sun and poker on the MS Veendam, a ship that is part of the fleet of the Holland America Line. She was a big ship with the usual casino with a handful of blackjack tables, a Caribbean Stud table, a crap table, a roulette wheel, video poker, and of course slot machines. Neither the games nor the machines payed well and they are not the attraction of a poker cruise. This cruise described below occurred well before the current televised poker. The games have changed in response to the increased popularity of poker. But the general ideas are still current.

The poker room was an area usually reserved for meetings. It was a nicely ventilated room with about 14 poker tables. A bit cramped for space but not too bad. The poker room was open only when the ship was sailing (not in port), and whenever I sampled it (not in the middle of the night) it was jumping with all sorts of games.

They spread games including:

Stud: 1-5, 20-40
Hold'em: 2-4, 4-8, 20-40, 5-10-pot limit, no-limit
Omaha High Low: 2-4, 4-8
Anything anyone wanted to play

In addition there were a number of tournaments:

$120 buy-in 7 card stud (no rebuy)
$225 buy-in limit hold'em (no rebuy)
$225 buy-in half stud/half omaha high-low (no rebuy)
$120 buy-in no-limit hold'em (one optional rebuy)
A freeroll limit-hold'em tournament for people who signed up early with a purse of $1,333.
A freeroll limit-hold'em tournament for people who cruised before with a purse of $1,000.

The regular tournaments increased blinds at 30 minute intervals. The freerolls were really crapshoots with 10 minute rounds.

The rake in live games was 4% to a maximum of $4.00.

Poker was available whenever the ship was at sea, 24 hours a day.

Except for a few pros, the players were mostly there to have a good time. From time-to-time a tourist would walk into the room as well. The games seemed pretty soft to me...at least at the lower limits. Someone who played at the higher limits said that those games were pretty soft as well.

I didn't play as much poker as I would have liked because of family obligations, but I'd do the trip again in a minute. I could recommend a poker cruise to anyone who enjoys cruising and poker.

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