Party Poker Hits the High Seas Home > Features > Trendwatch > Party Poker Hits the High Seas
Far from kitchen tables and the back rooms of bars, beyond glitzy casinos and televised tournaments, poker has morphed from a fringe game to an uber-cool international lifestyle that's become a centerpiece on cruises traveling all over the world.
In poker's genteel reincarnation aboard ships, there's no swearing, spitting or smoking in the card rooms. Players neither cheat nor wave guns. Instead of carrying Colt .45's, they pass around Coppertone SPF 45 on the sun deck, glide by each other in the pool and sweat it out together in the steam rooms.
I cruised onboard Holland America's Westerdam to get an inside view of the world's richest floating poker tournament, a $5.2 million limit Texas Hold 'Em affair. It was a delightful week that began with cheers for a charming young couple who had found romance playing cards in cyberspace and ended with applause for a quiet college student who found a $1 million fortune under a starry Caribbean sky.
Along the way, participants on the PartyPoker.com Million V Cruise from Ft. Lauderdale visited ports such as Ocho Rios and Grand Cayman. Among the fellow gamblers? There were high-stakes pros and old-time rounders, savvy amateurs and lucky novices, players and their families of all ages and many nationalities who felt a sense of community in their common affinity toward a card game.
Tournament poker is a sport without athletics, a marathon that doesn't move. It takes skill and luck, math and feel, and it's captured an audience of millions of players and TV viewers of all ages. Hollywood stars Ben Affleck, James Woods, Tobey Maguire, David Schwimmer and the many other celebrities who play in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas -- more than $100 million worth of games that go on for six weeks of day and night sessions each summer -- have given the game a cachet that has carried over to the high seas.
The rules are deceptively simple: There are two cards down; a round of bets; the flop of three community cards; and more bets, checks or raises. Then there's fourth street (otherwise known as the turn card), fifth street (or the river card) and chances to bet after each one -- the best five cards out of all seven taking the pot. The blinds, mandatory bets put in by the two players to the left of the rotating dealer button, go up as the day goes on, raising the stakes and the pressure.
The beauty of it is you don't have to be so cool or so brilliant at poker to have fun on a poker cruise, meet fascinating people and, with a little luck, make money. My wife Christine and I are proof. Neophytes at Texas Hold 'Em -- though I played plenty of other poker games and covered the World Series of Poker last year before retiring as a sports columnist for the Associated Press -- we came back from the PartyPoker.com cruise with a few thousand dollars in our pockets. Credit goes to Christine's inexplicable win against 27 much more experienced players in a media tournament while the big event was on a break.
Gambling as an Art Form
There was a striking harmony and an absence of rancor or vulgarity among the 523 players who started the event, and more than 1,000 others who came along to watch or play blackjack, bingo and cash poker games. The buy-in for the main event was $10,500 and the total cruise package was valued at $17,500, though most players won their entry fee and passage in PartyPoker.com online "satellite" events that cost as little as $11 to enter.
Chris absorbed a half an hour of lessons from poker expert and Card Player Cruises co-founder Linda Johnson -- then used her people skills to "read" her opponents perfectly. I busted out in the second of three rounds. Chris called bluffs, got away with a couple of her own, and won at the final table in her first limit Hold 'Em competition.
"Beginner's luck," she said, dismissing the idea that she might have the makings to turn poker into a career.
More than merely an offering of big bucks and sumptuous feasts, this voyage of pleasure succeeded on levels that went beyond the 11 tastefully decorated decks of Holland America's gleaming white, gigantic Westerdam.
Some busted out early, like high-rolling pro Barry Greenstein, unlucky at Table 25 in his first session. Greenstein is called the "Robin Hood of Poker," because he takes from the rich and gives to the poor, donating millions from his tournament winnings. A mathematician who holds a doctorate in computer science and who once was an influential software developer in Silicon Valley, he plays cash games at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, where he can win or lose $1 million in an evening. This time he didn't make any money for his favorite charities, but he did enjoy a week at sea with his family.
For Greenstein's opponents and fellow voyagers, the onboard poker fest offered an extra plus: a chance to sit down at the same table with one of the world's best and most courteous players, and engage him in casual conversation on the sun deck or in the dining room. I had the pleasure of sharing a lively discussion with him for a couple of hours in his spacious cabin suite, on a range of subjects from poker to politics and his personal life.
Whether playing, lounging in the sun or spa, joining in karaoke at the Queen's Lounge, or dancing into the wee hours in the Crow's Nest disco, the players and their families shared a sense of civility that might surprise outsiders to this seemingly hedonistic scene. Poker players have to stay sharp mentally, and there was far less drinking than might be expected by outsiders who hold a seedy image of the game.
As my pal Nolan Dalla, master of ceremonies at the World Series of Poker, says: "Poker is not a gambling game; it is a social game, much like having dinner with family or friends. Knives and forks are replaced by cards and chips."
Gambling Cruises: How They Work
Card Player Cruises, the leading company offering poker tournaments and cash games on the high seas, generally chooses Holland America or Carnival Cruise Lines ships because they meet certain key qualifications. The most important factor is plenty of public area so they can set up a Las Vegas-style poker room, which requires about 110 square ft. of unencumbered space per table, plus room for players waiting to play and the cashier equipment.
Card Player Cruises brings all of its own equipment, other than chairs, for the four or five cruises it runs a year, in addition to the PartyPoker.com Million. That huge tournament requires 50 to 60 poker tables (while the other cruises have 11 to 25 tables). Here's a tidbit: Holland America is the only cruise line that allows for the number of tables required for the PartyPoker.com Million grand event.
Curiously, despite the intense competition in the card rooms on the lower decks, non-players and those who busted out could laze on the sunny Lido deck, attend an art auction, take digital photography lessons, work out in the gym or luxuriate in the spa, quite oblivious to the drama unfolding below. The ambience was different from a regular Caribbean cruise only in the sense that the poker brought people together more and tapped into a passion they shared. For this cruise on the Westerdam, where the whole ship was chartered by PartyPoker.com, everyone was either a player or a friend or family member of a player.
The ports have to be interesting enough to draw poker players, who are looking for more than just a good game. Whether the port has casinos is irrelevant because, says Card Player Cruises partner Mark Tenner, "Our passengers have an opportunity to play a lot of poker and can also get their fill of casino gaming on the ship." As most folks know, cruise ship gambling facilities are closed when vessels are in port. As such, Card Player Cruises prefers itineraries with port of call schedules that involve docking in daytime and sailing at night.
In Ocho Rios, Jamaica, for instance, many players and their families made their way, holding hands, up the steep climb to the stunning Dunn's River Falls. My wife and I preferred a lazy raft trip along the picturesque White River, poled along gently by a Jamaican gondolier. In Grand Cayman, we snorkeled among coral, luminous fish and friendly stingrays, then did a little duty-free shopping.
Most cruises run about a week, though one "boutique" cruise per year is longer and almost always features a more exotic itinerary. A major factor Card Player Cruises considers is price and at this point the party poker craze has not extended to luxury lines.
"The very expensive and upscale lines and ships, unfortunately, exclude themselves from consideration because of the cruise price," said Tenner, who notes that he needs to attract 250 to 500 people (including players and non-players) to the average themed cruise. As a result, he noted, "the cruise price needs to be able to fit every pocketbook."
Back to Playin'
The new champion on the PartyPoker.com Million V turned out to be a remarkably restrained and level-headed University of Minnesota senior, 22-year-old Mike Schneider, who's been playing poker seriously for four years and making a good living at it the past two.
The final table had all the makings of a quirky movie, and it was these types of unique personalities that made the cruise special. Wearing a black cowboy hat, popular California pro Kenna James looked most like a figure from central casting. In fact, James, who raked in $700,000 as the runner-up, was slated to begin shooting a film called "Deal" soon with Burt Reynolds.
"It's kind of like 'The Color of Money,' except with poker," said James, 42, who is married to longtime pro Marsha Waggoner. "Burt Reynolds plays the older statesman of the game, mentoring a young up-and-comer. I play the heavy that gets in between them. They call me 'the Cowboy' because I wear a cowboy hat a lot of the time."
The affable Scott Buller, a 49-year-old freight train conductor for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad out of Lincoln, Nebraska, wore a cast on his broken left foot the whole trip but limped off smiling with a tidy $500,000 third-place prize. It was his second final table in the Party Poker Million tournament.
In his day job, which often turns into a middle-of-the-night job, Buller lives as straightforward a life as possible, going from point A to point B with no fooling around.
After hauling loads a few hundred miles and settling in at hotels on his route, Buller turns into a party animal, or rather a PartyPoker.com fanatic, booting up his laptop and playing computerized cards with strangers in cyberspace. When time permits, he takes his love of poker to the high seas.
Drew Chitiea of Denver made for one of the most heartwarming stories at the final table. A pilot despite severe rheumatoid arthritis that has left his fingers stubby and gnarled and recently led to the amputation of both his feet, Chitiea invested $150 in a Super Satellite event online to win a seat in the tournament and took home $300,000 for fourth place.
"My wife has a list of items she'd like, but I have my eye on a cute little red biplane," Chitiea said. "I picked up arthritis in my mid 20's, more than 30 years ago, but I can hold the cards, I can button my own buttons, and I have flown 88 or so different model aircraft. I can still fly. That is my primary love. If there comes a time when I cannot fly as a profession, then I'll step right into the poker tournaments and work that."
Most players qualified online on PartyPoker.com through various tournaments. Satellite events ran for more than six months, ranging from $1 to $32. The entry to Super Satellites ran as high as $300. A total of 99 players were paid, with the minimum amount $16,000.
One lucky couple got a free trip, courtesy of PartyPoker.com. Gary Suffir, 28, and Jackie Johnson, 27, met a year and half earlier while playing a $30 buy-in Omaha high-low tournament on the site. She was an aspiring artist living in Las Vegas, he was an attorney in New York City. One online chat led to another, then another, and finally a real date that turned out to be love at first sight.
"It's kind of incredible to me that we found this love through Party Poker," Johnson said.
When they wrote to PartyPoker.com to tell them how their online romance had blossomed into an engagement -- they married on March 7, 2006 -- the company invited them to honeymoon on the cruise. PartyPoker.com also threw a grand party for them on the beach at Grand Cayman.
The Social Side of Party Poker
One of the nicest aspects of the tournament-cruise combo is the fact that ordinary people and professionals sit down together, party together, and get to know each other in a way that's different from all other tournaments, where the schedules and environments are less conducive to conversations away from the tables.
There were as many players in their 20's and 30's as there were in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. One afternoon, walking around the ship, I found Las Vegas poker pro and author Barry Tanenbaum giving a private, in-depth lesson to Elaine England, 51, of Richmond, Virginia. She described herself as a recreational player who has been on numerous poker cruises.
"I usually bring my son and my parents," she said. "It's a very good vacation for a family. Neither my husband nor my father play poker, but they certainly enjoy the cruises." Lona Rubenstein, 72, a novelist and real estate columnist for the Southampton Press in New York, won a seat in the tournament for the third straight year. One of my most enjoyable times on the cruise was a fascinating conversation with her over a brandy late one evening in the ship's library.
"I would never have imagined that I could compete on a professional level with the best players in the world," said Rubenstein, known back home as the "Gambling Granny." "I could compete at that level when I was younger, playing on the U.S. table tennis team and winning three world championships. Now I can use my competitive spirit again in my 70's."
If most players were Americans or Canadians, there were more than a few from Scandinavia, England and Australia.
"I wish they had something like this in Australia," said John Sullivan, 46, of Sydney, who qualified by winning a satellite tournament after three $11 buy-ins. "I'm having a ball. I know a lot of my mates in Sydney would have a ball. You have a cruise, play poker, meet like-minded people. The age groups vary, a blend of youth and maturity. I love it."
Win, Lose or ... Cruise!
Interested in taking your own card player-themed cruise? Check out the following poker cruises for 2007:
Southern Caribbean Seafarer Cruise, March 15 - 25, roundtrip from Ft. Lauderdale aboard Holland America's Maasdam
Alaska Explorer Cruise, June 3 - 10, roundtrip from Seattle aboard Holland America's Noordam
PartyPoker.com Million VI, October (itinerary and ship under negotiation).
Sydney to Auckland, November 4 - 18, aboard Holland America's Statendam.
Mexican Riviera, November 30 - December 8, roundtrip from San Diego aboard Carnival Spirit
Far from kitchen tables and the back rooms of bars, beyond glitzy casinos and televised tournaments, poker has morphed from a fringe game to an uber-cool international lifestyle that's become a centerpiece on cruises traveling all over the world.
Card Player Cruises, the leading company offering poker tournaments and cash games on the high seas, generally chooses Holland America or 
The new champion on the PartyPoker.com Million V turned out to be a remarkably restrained and level-headed University of Minnesota senior, 22-year-old Mike Schneider, who's been playing poker seriously for four years and making a good living at it the past two.
One of the nicest aspects of the tournament-cruise combo is the fact that ordinary people and professionals sit down together, party together, and get to know each other in a way that's different from all other tournaments, where the schedules and environments are less conducive to conversations away from the tables.
Southern Caribbean Seafarer Cruise, March 15 - 25, roundtrip from Ft. Lauderdale aboard Holland America's 
