Trip Report: Casino Boat and Marchron Monday

[CrMenace]

For this trip report, I've decided to start my own thread here rather than detract from Marchron’s excellent TR. Make sure you read his first. then come back to mine.

My poker weekend actually started on Thursday before Labor Day when I started my vacation in Florida and continued the hottest hot streak I have ever been on . Pretty much every decision went my way – call down ace high? WINNAR! Make a slim gutshot call? WINNAR! Basically it was an absolute tear to the tune of 12BB/HH or so.

But Friday was the day for live poker. My mother-in-law is retired in the Daytona area of Florida and is 60-something. Since gambling is illegal in Florida, and right-thinking people the world over want to gamble, there is always a work-around. In florida, it is a gambling cruise, and we went on one Friday. Being in a retirement community, casinos come to you, and so it wasn’t hard to find a free bus from her community to Port Canaveral to catch the cruise.

A little history here. This gambling cruise has become a mini-tradition for our Florida visits. But my mother-in-law, being 60-something, isn’t very poker aware. So last year we planned to go on a gambling cruise and insisted that she find one with Poker, because LOL, I don’t play any gambling games without an advantage. So last year we get on the cruise and THERE WAS NO POKER. Seems mom was confused – there is 3 card poker, and that kinda-cool Hold ‘em table game, but no poker. Worse yet, the blackjack tables have perpetual shuffling machines, so I’m not able to beat that game either. So I travel over an hour each way and now I’m trapped in an enclosed casino ship with no escape until we land at 4:00 without being able to play any winnable games. It’s my private version of hell. So what do we do? My wife call uncle and decide to play unbeatable blackjack and proceed to beat the boat to the tune of $800. We just couldn’t lose – It was one of our top-3 casino performances that year.

So this year we select the world famous Sun Cruz gambling boat. I approach the cruise this year with some skepticism. I figure even if there’s poker, which M-I-L now swears there is (because her friend Jim told her so), there’s a good chance it’s a variant I don’t know well, aimed at the retirement set, like stud or, hell even 5 card draw. But no, our one-hour bus trip was not in vain, we get through the security line and a woman is taking down names for the various poker games they will host – ½ no limit, 5/10 limit, lolmaha, stud, etc. They have a list of about 20 for limit, a shorter list for limit and no-one for anything else. My wife leans to me and says “We’ve never played 5/10 before,” which is true as I’ve been trying to demonstrate skill building up a bankroll to move past 2/4 but based on the replies to my NC post , I’d decided it was time to move to 4/8 anyway. But my mother-in-law, who’s Italian-American and a very emotive worrier, was distressed, and started crying (in her thick Boston accent) “Ah My gahd! They’ah all going to be professionals in they’ah. You’re going to lose all your money fast!” I was like sure, mom, professional gamblers are hanging out in Florida on gambling cruises where they can fill like two tables. So I put on my bravado “I think we’re going to get rich fast!” I put my name on the 5/10 list and my wife put her name on 5/10 and 1/2NL (My wife plays poker, as all gambling games, for the emotional thrill ride, which NL satiates much better than LHE). We get on the boat.

For those of you who have never been on a gambling cruise, it’s a bit of an experience. They take a fairly decent-sized ship and fill it full of gambling stuff. Or I should say they did do this, circa 1980, because everything is pretty dated both on this cruise and last years. The majority is slots, of course – this boat had 4 gambling decks and fully two of them dedicate to slots plus the extremities of all the other decks. There’s one table-games deck and the top deck, which was half slot machines again and the other half poker room. And I was shocked to see that there was even a sports book on this cruise – if I had to guess, I would have had to say that 20 more slots would be almost infinitely more profitable for the cruise than a sports book. On the first deck, there’s a crummy stage with a guy playing guitar backed up by his computer and a pretty cute red-headed singer. They also have space dedicated to THE WORST BUFFET IMAGINABLE.

Anyway, who cares, let’s play poker! Except you can’t – the boat has to be 3 miles off shore into international waters before it is legal to gamble. So you have time to go around and explore the whole layout, and then make your way to the poker room. Here we found out that indeed, there were not enough players to fill the NL game. So the NL players would be forced to play 5/10 with the rest of us. Shorthanded at that, with 8 players to a table. I have to give them credit for persistence, though… the NL players continued to ask once every 20 minutes or so for the next 5 hours if they could get a game going. No, since there were only six, that would leave the 5/10 games with 12 players so they couldn’t accommodate 2 and a table of 6 for NL. There’s only two dealers, you see, who stand up every hour or so and switch tables with each other. They also keep the big box of chips at their feet so they can reload their own chip racks when they need to.

While waiting, I learn that all the rest of the players know each other. I’ve been to poker rooms where the dealers know a player or two at the table, sure, but these guys were like “hey, how come you weren’t here Wednesday?” and “Hey, what did your daughter say about buying my car?” and so on to every single one of the other players. Also judging from the crowd, I can say with some confidence that THESE WERE NOT PROFESSIONALS. They were pretty much made up of the donkeys you see at all poker rooms – old folks with walkers, kids who don’t know what they are doing, and the like. One guy was like “I was assigned the 7 seat so I sat here” which turned out to be the 4 seat because he had counted the wrong way around. Another guy raised the very first QJx flop, bet the 4 turn and the 4 river, showing K4o for runner-runner trips. A third guy made it clear why he liked NL so bad – he liked to bluff. He’d bet or raise absolutely every flop, improved or not. It was a beautiful sight. Only one guy seemed good – a younger guy who works Fed-Ex at nights and casino cruises during the days. He was duly rewarded for his skill by flopping a straight flush out of his BB and being paid off by the person who flopped A-high flop next to him. Plus he won the high-hand jackpot of $150. He ended up the day $400 up plus his jackpot.

For the first hour or two, all was bliss and I thought I was going to continue my on-line hot streak off-line. I got AJo, raised, and all the fish cold called like they are supposed to, the flop was J-high like it’s supposed to be, and the fish call down and I win just like I’m supposed to. Poker is easy, and my wife and I are up over $100 each. Then the chief donkey leaves and the tables turn. I bet down A8s from the SB with an AAx board into a guy with AQo who didn’t raise preflop. My 2’s full are beaten by 10’s full. My pocket jacks are donked by a woman who cold calls any two pf but only donks top pair on a Q-high board. Pretty soon I’m stuck $150. But my wife, who plays an intuitive form of poker, where she will call or raise because she “has a feeling” (I’ve managed to teach her some basics, which is feedback she DOES NOT APPRECIATE, because wtf, what’s the fun of learning to beat a game?) is back on top and offering to give me lessons. At a normal casino, you could play a little longer in hopes of getting unstuck. But on the boat, you re-enter Florida waters at 4:00 and you’re done, the 5/10 professionals having robbed you of 15 big bets. You go watch the old people dance in front of the crappy music show and scratch off the tickets to win free vouchers for your next cruise, which unfortunately expires long before you’ll ever return to Florida.

I then went home and proceeded to win $60 over the course of 200 $0.50/$1.00 hands on Stars.

The next night’s poker match was some penny-ante, dealer’s choice stuff where I’m winning a tremendous profit against my in-laws. Nothing notable here except for when my wife did a standard check raise against my mother-in-law and got scolded. “You can’t do that, not against friends. Never in my live, never(!), have you been allowed to check-and-bet your friends! Maybe against strangers in a casino, but against your friends! I wouldn’t have played if I knew that was allowed. What about you, [M-I-L’s boyfriend], have you ever…” All this over a move that cost her $0.04. I agreed on a rule change to no c/r’s, as long as bluffing and slow playing were not allowed either. All three moves are meant to conceal your true holding, after all.

Finally, the weekend is almost over and it’s time to return to SW Michigan, where I have been consulting to a company for the past 9 months. Since Marchron is available to play Monday night, we agree to meet up for what I figure will be two hours, tops, of live poker. I also figure I’m liable to have my flight delayed, so it might not happen at all.

Four Winds casino is similar to other Indian casinos that I have been to. It has a Mohegan Sun-type décor, which is essentially exploits a generic Indian imagery like buffalo icons even though it is nowhere near buffalo country. Marchron’s map of the drive in is 100% accurate. His map of the casino, with the big blue circle was notsomuch, but it didn’t matter since there’s signs everywhere that say “Poker this way, LDO.”

I sup bro Marchron and am met with total indifference to the extent that I wonder if I’ve walked up to the wrong guy in a “sup bro” hat and Notre Dame t-shirt. But after the next hand or two completes, he turns and lays eyes on me for the first time. Marchon’s right, I am about as menacing as a puppy. I actually hate my moniker, but I figure there are just certain things you can’t change in life, like being short, having a small penis, and your 2+2 handle. Oh, well. FWIW, I’ve always thought Marchron looked like Samuel L. Jackson, so he didn’t quite meet expectations, either.

I sweat Marchron for ten or twelve exciting folding hands and then take my place at the table. I win two big hands within an hour, and I think I played both of them wrong. My very first hand I flop two pair, 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] on a 982 board. Turn is a 10 and a villain raises me. Marchron is like “oh [censored] this guy just hit a straight,” but I call down anyway. Villain had ATo, ship it. Then a few hands later, I’m dealt K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] in middle position. I raise and am 3-bet by Tina. She’s called (beautifully) by several players at the table. The flop comes T92, all diamonds. Someone early bets it for me. I call to Tina who raises. Several drop, I reraise. Tina caps. It’s now Tina, a donator and I to the turn, and it’s imminently clear to the entire world that Tina has AA[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Except, I stupidly check and call the turn and the river, as does the donator, and win with the K-high flush. I still sit up at night thinking about all the bets I lost not c/r’ing the turn.

Playing the electronic poker is an experience everyone should try. There are some quirks, though, and I provide lots of helpful feedback to Marchron, since he now knows the owners and everything. Marchron has his blowup hand and we retire to the buffet, where we meet Marchron’s friend the morbidly obese touchy-feely waitress who proceeds to tell me all about her friend’s troubles, which involve said friend’s fiance’s baby by his ex-girlfriend. March and I sit and chat about what it’s like to live the lives of well-respected posters such as ourselves, how the noobs will never amount to anything, and about all the funny posts he’s made (like “I has a boat!” and “I will always call you farty”) and how I’ve posted, well, basically nothing funny. Meanwhile, March is a poster child for the Atkins diet, eating a truly distressing amount of prime rib and a plate of blue cheese dressing garnished with a little salad. I drink water and tell our waitress friend that we’re doing just fine roughly thirty times.

March and I head our separate ways, down the same windy entrance road from whence we came. Since I work days and he works evenings, there’s a good chance that we will never see each other again, but it was fun while it lasted.

Holla.