Caribbean Poker Adventure - Day 1

Somewhere in the Caribbean Sea...

The first day of what promises to be an extraordinary week.

Almost 600 PokerStars cruise winners, guests, dealers and staff boarded the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines' Voyager of the Seas today and disembarked from Miami. From the time we set foot on the ship, everything ran like clockwork. People got into their cabins and immediately set out to explore this incredible vessel. In the meantime, PokerStars staff members, dealers, and many of the dealers' companions worked insanely hard to turn the ship's luxurious conference center into a full-fledged poker room.

At 6:30, we all had a delightful cocktail party in the Cleopatra's Needle nightclub which we had taken over. PokerStars VP of Marketing, Dan Goldman, said a few words and made some introductions while guests mingled, sipped on fruity libations, and nibbled at finger foods. But the real highlight was seeing the players who only knew each other from the online world encounter their opponents face to face over a beer and mini-quiche. "You're SuzyQ?" "Yes - SecretHamster - I recognize you from your image!"

The cocktail party ended at 8:00, but it would have ended anyway because that's when the poker room opened. It is in a beautiful conference room setting, comfortably and generously holding 30 poker tables. Mike Ward and his staff worked incredibly hard so that at 8:15 PM, a $10-20 hold'em game was already underway. And let the world note that the first hand of the first game played on the first poker cruise held by PokerStars was won by "E.T.", from Los Angeles. Within a few minutes, $6-12 and $20-40 hold'em games were running. Pot limit hold'em also started up. $30 Sit & Go's started and never stopped until after 3:00 AM and so on.

Some high-rollers wandered into the room and decided to play a $200-400 mixed game. Pretty soon, Bruno Fitoussi, Phil Ivey, Paul Phillips, Thomas Keller, Howard Lederer, and a couple more folks were playing HOE-deuce (Hold'em, Omaha H/L split, Stud H/L split, and deuce to seven triple-draw).

On the tournament side of the room, a super-satellite to the main WPT event got started around 9:00 and paid about five seats into the event. Well-recognized folks such as Bill Gazes, Chris Ferguson, and Chris Moneymaker were part of that crowd.

Finally, saving the most exciting for last, we had the first round playoffs of the World Cup of Poker. All the matches were well-played and exciting, as both the USA-East vs. Costa Rica and Germany vs. South Africa ended in 2-2 ties. This forced each pair of teams to have a playoff match. Both of these playoff matches ran for a long time and displayed excellent poker. In both matches, the lead seesawed back and forth, a couple of times seemingly unrecoverably to one side. But the tide turned, and eventually South Africa and Costa Rica won their respective playoffs and will meet later this week in the playoff for the first PokerStars World Cup of Poker title. I'm delighted that all four teams will get some piece of the $100,000 prize money that PokerStars has contributed to the event - they all played beautifully.

So another and even longer day starts tomorrow (actually, in about seven hours). We have: the first round of the main WPT event, the consolation match for third place in the World Cup of Poker and another super satellite. I get tired just thinking about it.

Oh, and one other thing - I had the honor of dealing both some of the ring games and the World Cup matches. It was a blast, and I thank the participants for tolerating my first foray into the world of serious poker dealing.

With warmest regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Manager

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7