Paying for cruise with poker?
Sort of an offshoot topic. I've never been on a cruise but a guy in my room recently went on one to St. Kitts and said he played poker the entire time and that it was the easiest winnings of his life. Is it possible to pay for your entire cruise by crushing old geezers at the SS poker table?
5 Replies
Anything's possible if you want it badly enough.
Rake is brutal on cruises, and there isn't always a game running, but the standard of play is incredibly bad, so it could be possible. There's an old thread on cruise ship poker in the C...
I'd just look at the last 50 posts or so, as all that early stuff is pretty outdated these days.
+1 Garick with words ... I went on a cruise for the holiday and looked at the poker while I was there. Was the softest 2-5 game I've ever seen, but I'm not even sure it was beatable with the rake (straight 10% of pot upto $250, including if you raise pre and get folds -- and most of the dealers would count your raise as part of the pot size for the rake, if you didn't take it back). The dealers were terrible (I assume they normally dealt blackjack).
The "big tournament" started level one at like 10bb or maybe 15bb. From what I saw everyone was terrible, but it was only one table. Imagine a random bar tournament with 20 min levels, but after the friendly phase where everyone has 10bb or less but is still open limping.
Also the "casino" section was one of the sections of the ship that allowed smoking.
Would instantly label the guy you spoke to as a massive fish.
My guess is that if you split the cabin with someone else, do nothing else on the cruise and avoiding drinking, you could manage it. Of course, why would you do that? You'd be better off saving your winnings at your local room, then just pay for the cruise. As Garick mentioned, the poker table (few cruises are going to have more than 1 or 2) isn't going to be open 24/7. You may find that the game doesn't get started until the evening and only go for 5-6 hours.
Also, can't believe I forgot this but they rounded up when taking rake so you raise to $15 and BB calls the pot is $32, you cbet $20 and get a fold and they take $4 (or $6 if the dealer decides to count your bet).
Also people weren't buying in for more than $500.
Maybe if you found a great ship with a bunch of bad poker degens who buyin for the max ... but would assume it's unbeatable, without a lot of data.
Edit: FWIW this was on Norwegian, glancing through the thread linked by Garick it appears some of the other cruise lines have slightly better rake, and better staff etc.
