NCL Cruise Line Trip Report

moose

Plus:
Tons of incentives to play. We got two coupons for match play type bets before we left. Then we signed up for the players card and got a bunch more. Plus they have daily match specials buy $10 in chips get $5 free etc.

Minus:
One poker table where they spread $1/2 nl. $1 is raked regardless if there is a flop or not. Yes I raised pf and won a whopping $2. Players are constantly exchanging $5s for singles because of the severe rake. The $1s are constantly disappearing out of the pot. $25 max rake. Yes I got sick to my stomach when $16 when taken out of a $160 pot. Also they rake it to the nearest $.50 which is a pain while they count out the coins.

We had this clueless bitchy dealer for a while that insisted that if someone left the table in mid orbit that there would be a dead Big Blind. I tried to point out her folly and instantly she pulls out this little bell and calls for the floor. In the meantime a new player comes in the spot and the floor gets confused over what the issue was so it never got corrected. This became a running joke at the table especially when she lost track of who left the table in what spot and was randomly assessing dead big blinds to spots that had been empty for a couple orbits. Note this would then necessitate a dead small blind and dead button as well. Way to make your life more difficult honey.

Anyways with the crazy rake I finished up the session up a whopping $4 after a couple hours and moved to the craps where I won $220 in 20 min. mmoose left shortly after up $60.

Craps is $5 min with 3,4,5x odds. Not terrible, but Brantford is better.

Playing a $60 rb today. Raked 25% out of the total amount. 2000 chips. Blinds start at 100/200 holy crap what a joke. Hopefully I get the dead BB dealer again. Also weird is the tourney has 21 max players? WTF? 3 seven handed tables? I'm not sure.

RAM_Eh

moose wrote: »

Playing a $60 rb today. Raked 25% out of the total amount. 2000 chips. Blinds start at 100/200 holy crap what a joke. Hopefully I get the dead BB dealer again. Also weird is the tourney has 21 max players? WTF? 3 seven handed tables? I'm not sure.

I won this tournament the last cruise I took. It was an all in fest. Either 25% or 50% of the prize pool goes to the house.

We had 7 tables 7 handed, playing at the black jack tables. My advise....don't play...if you do....only do one rebuy. I had one guy at my table rebought 8 times!...the blinds were 200/400 and the rebuy only gave him 1000 in chips. ALL IN EVERY TIME.

GL

moose

rebuys were 2000, addon was 5000. Yeah we played at the BJ tables 7 handed. The dealers were strict on the string bets etc. so it ran well and they did a good job of keeping the tables balanced. Total pot raked 25%. Ouch.

blinds
30 min
100/200
200/400
15 min
500/1000
rebuys end

1000/2000
left after this

busted last hand before break AK<KJ. grr. two useless players won first $1000 and 2nd $600 and they dumped a lot of it back at the cash game last night.

I won about $30 and mmoose >$100. Then I went to craps and won $150+ and mmoose went to BJ and picked up another $60. So far we are covering our expenses on this cruise.

Off to Atlantis today.

moose

Day 3 we were in Nassau and I got a few $1s from Atlantis. Atlantis is amazing with an incredible lazy river that has waves and rapids and multiple options of paths, one of which hauls you up into a tower and again you have a couple of choices of paths into different rides down. We booked into the Comfort Suites hotel next door which has an arrangement for full access to Atlantis. Day passes for Atlantis run about $120 and booking for the day at CS cost us about $80 ea so it was a lot cheaper. They are totally used to people doing this so it was of sort wink wink nudge nudge that it didn't matter than our 'room' was not ready. No poker at Atlantis.

In the evening we were back at the tables. I won a monster pot that was limped 7 ways and then bumped by someone up to $10. Most people called and I came along with J10. Flop comes J107, checked to me so I fire $30 or $40, aggressive dude raises another $60 from SB and UTG shoves over top for $117 I think. Against good players I'm mucking but no way against these idiots so I shove for about $150 total and SB calls. We roll the cards and SB holds Q10 and UTG has KK and my hand holds. After a gross $25 rake, I'm left with a $442 pot. However for the evening, I wasn't even the big winner. As the evening wore on, most people decided they were going to go bust or double up. Of course if they doubled up then the dummies would play on. My wife stacked at least 5 players that night and one by one the table emptied until it broke around 3:30am. My wife cashed out $505 when the table broke and a supervisor had to be called over because she was cashing out over $500. We were the only ones left that left the table that eveving with a profit due to the heavy rake. Everyone else lost heavily (two dudes spent over $500 ea) or were completely stacked.

Day 3 total:



Yeah that's 12 blacks in there plus my Atlantis chips and Isle of Capri. The octagon chip was a special promo chip where if you bought $10, you received three $5 promo chips.

Day 4:

Variance rolls in and I lose a $350+ pot 3 way allin when button opens to $6 and aggressive Q10 dude from night before is in BB and is tilting from being bluffed off a pot the hand before by the button player, so I flat call with KK, fully expecting BB to shove a very wide range. As expected he shoves about $65, button then moves in for over $100 and I shove my KK. So BB holds KJ and button has A8. I close my eyes because I know what is coming. The hand ends, my wife says nothing so I know I lost and I look at the board. Sure enough A on flop, 4 clubs on turn, only club held is the 8c so I am drawing dead because the only K left is Kc. Sure enough the river is the Kc so my set goes down to the 8c flush. I win the last pot of the cruise for over $100 but I am down about $280 on the day and my wife loses $100 exactly.

Still all in all, bad cruise ship players make up for a lot and it was a nicely profitable trip for us.