Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Has anyone taken the carnival cruises out of Miami? I am going in August and wonder what type of poker they have. The only information I have is 1 table. I did take a cruise out of New york last year and they had 1 electronic table which was loaded for 3/6 and sometimes a game got started. Just wondering if this is how all the carnivals are.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

yeah im going on a 7 night carribean cruise through carnival in august and i was wondering if they had ring poker games or not

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

I have been on 2 cruises in the past 2 years on carnival, one out of the orlando area, the other out of NYC. Both of them game 2 limit tables ( i only remember 1 boat name, the legend). They both offered 2/4 the first night, then 4/8 the rest of the cruise. Both the rake, and quality of players was horrible.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

How much was the rake?

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

There have been posts about this before. I remember 5/10 being mentioned in one of the posts, and yes the players were said to be incredibly bad, making the game presumably beatable despite the very high rake.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

When you went on carnival was it the pokerpro tables or a dealer? Did the games keep going most of the time? Hopefully you won lots of money from the horrible players

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Im "sailing" for a week this Thursday on the carnival Miracle out of NYC. It is my first cruise aside from the Staten island ferry, so I am pretty damn excited. I have read in my research that they offered 5-10 limit, but I can not personally confirm. Just the 2 cabins with taxes and tips cost me about $6,000 so far, so I am hoping they have some NL so that I can recoup some of that.
I will post a (half assed) trip report July 7th or later

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

the one carnival cruise i was on had one table of 2/4 limit and it was video holdem

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Look forward to your report $6000 damm I hope they at least have 5/10. The one I took from New York last year (Short 4 day Canada) had the 3/6 video holdem and the players were the worst ive ever seen with the possible exception of 10/20 euro in Amsterdam.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

I paid for my Mexican Riveria carnival cruise last thanksgiving just from the poker tables. High rake, but more than enough fish to make up for it.

Unfortunately, the dealers commented that Carnival was moving to all electronic tables in the upcoming weeks, so I'm not sure the game will be as juicy with new technology and the casual player...

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

So I am back from my cruise.... we all had a good time, though I think Id rather just fly to one of the islands and stay 5 nights at a hotel rather than taking the cruise where you get very little time on each island.

The poker was fun and happily they had 1-2 NL. It was a video poker table http://images.pokerstrategy.cc/pokerpro_table.jpg
by pokertek. It worked pretty well with only one bad programming flaw (If I bet 20 and someone went all in for 22 it reopened betting for me when it came back to me).

The players were very bad as was expected, there were maybe 2 other competent players on the cruise. There were also a lot of nits who I didnt think were very good, they played way too tight and overvalued their one pair hands.
The worst part about the game was that the min buy in was $50 and 60% bought in for that amount and the rest bought in for 100 one guy would buy in for 200 but he didnt play much. I bought in for 100 usually so not to appear sharky and added up to max 200 when others had that much.

The games generally ran on and off btwn 1 pm and 5pm, but only really filled up after second dinner which meant about 1030 and ran till about 2-3am. Over the 8 day cruise I won 1500, the cashier who cashed out my account said it was the most she ever saw anyone win [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] (who knows it may have been her 1st cruise) I was happy with the amount though as it covered all the on board and island expenses

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Tell me more about the video poker table as they will introduce them to our casino in the fall. Is it like playing online poker? Are the hands per hour comparable to online poker 1 tabling? Did you discern any live 'electronic table' tells from the fish? You seem like a competent poker player so any info you can give will help lots. Thanks for the report.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

It is more like playing live than it is playing online. You get to talk with real people and there are certainly tells. aside from the usual tells, there was one glaring tell almost everyone had, they looked towards the section of the screen that they wanted to click on as soon as it was their turn, so they would look at the fold button but then decide to call, this made bluffing the next street very easy. as for the speed it was faster than live with a dealer, but slower than online, id guesstimate aprox 40 hands an hour. There were no act in turn buttons, and you still had to wait for idiots to realize it was their turn (with no dealer to tell them), also every so often people had moderate to severe problems clicking on the screen.
This table was set to rake $1 at 6/16/26/36/46/56 for a $6 max (17% max), it also dropped even with no flop but I assume that is all the casinos choice.
Of course one of the biggest advantages over "live play" was that there was no dealer to tip

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Death Valley thanks for this report. I look forward to my trip from Miami next month. Just 1 question was it always 1/2 no limit for the whole trip?

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

I've never seen one of the video poker tables until looking at the picture in your post.

Just by looking at the table layout and the way the main middle screen area where the community cards are shown, how are the players protecting/hiding there whole cards with there own personal screen?

Do you use your hands to cover them so the person next to you does not see them?

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Yea.. looking at the pic, this was the first question that popped into my head too...

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

When you place your hands over the hole cards, they become exposed. However, in my experience, this feature doesn't work perfectly and it can get irritating lifting your hands off the screen and putting them back down multiple times so that you can see your cards.

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

Yes....scratching this type of game off the list now...

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Carnival Cruise Poker
 

To expose the cards you just shield the lower right corner of the screen with your hand (which they say will show your hand) in actuality you should shield the area then tap it with your finger. If nobody is directly sitting next to you, you dont have to shield your cards just tap them, as the images on your screen cant be seen from more than 1 seat away.

It was 1-2 NL the entire trip