Casino rules

[Viscus]

Poker generally, and hold'em specifically, is my main gambling game. Used to play on PokerStars and Full Tilt as a full time job in college before Black Monday. However, on my last cruise, the hold'em table was almost always empty (probably due to a crazy non-capped 10% rake), so I broke even in blackjack.

 

My question is, will they allow me to have a detailed "correct play" chart with me at the table? Some casinos will, some won't, and I'm trying to learn "other blackjack skills" currently, too many things to keep track of at once.

[stobe1]

This doesn't really answer your question, but in blackjack, I always just play basic strategy then manage my money by starting with min bet then as I win hands I add half my winnings to the next hand and keep doing that til I lose a hand, then I start over at min bet. You'd be surprised how quickly you build up a bank roll doing it that way.

[Viscus]

Progressive betting systems on games that pay 1:1 aren't terribly profitable. I just can't enjoy myself playing heavily house favored games, which is why I gravitate to blackjack if Hold'em isn't going. Also why I'm trying to work on my Hi/lo game in blackjack.

[cb at sea]

Yes...the BJ charts are allowed everywhere.

[Doug910]

...Simply, yes you are allowed a chart at the BJ table.

 

...While the PokerPro table does take 10%, it is capped at $6 (or $7, I forget right now) which is fair. First started playing on the ships when they used real dealers. That was a disaster! Untrained dealers and had to stop every hand to count the pot so they could take their rake. Believe me, even though I dislike the electronic tables, it is a much better game now.

[cantthinkofanythingfun]

Poker generally, and hold'em specifically, is my main gambling game. Used to play on PokerStars and Full Tilt as a full time job in college before Black Monday. However, on my last cruise, the hold'em table was almost always empty (probably due to a crazy non-capped 10% rake), so I broke even in blackjack.

 

My question is, will they allow me to have a detailed "correct play" chart with me at the table? Some casinos will, some won't, and I'm trying to learn "other blackjack skills" currently, too many things to keep track of at once.

 

Gambling on a ship is generally awful. The rules and odds are nearly comic. I wish more people would play hold'em on the ship. I'd play even with the ridiculous rake. Most people on a ship wouldn't be solid players and I think I could pay for my cruise at the least. It would be like the old days in Atlantic City when the movie "Rounders" came out and everyone thought they could be professional poker players.

 

If you are trying to use a simple +1,0,-1 count system on Blackjack, I wouldn't even waste my time. Most ships use a 6 deck shoe with a continuous shuffle. I've never used a count, but I have always done well at visualizing the flow of the shoe and using that to determine when to raise my bet, when to double, and when to go against basic strategy. You can't do any of that with a continuous shuffle. Carnival has a game called "Fun 21". It's Spanish 21 with the exception that instead of taking the tens from the deck, they remove the queens. They don't tell you this. You think it's Blackjack with some crazy player favorable rules. I played for a few hours and won quite a bit of money, then I started losing. It took me about four hours to realize there were no queens in the deck.

 

I wouldn't even think about slots I'd buy a wad of scratch offs at home and rub them out at the casino bar before I played a slot machine. Land based casinos have to compete with other casinos and are state regulated, so they have to publish their payouts. They try to compete with one another to get slot business, so the payouts can hit in the mid 90 percentile. Cruise ships know you can't jump overboard and swim to another ship to gamble, so they turn those machines way down. If they are paying out 80% I would be surprised.

 

I love gambling, but I just don't have a desire to do much of it on a cruise ship. It's almost like a charity firehall casino.

[thephillykid]

Is there any restriction about playing poker in the card room with quarters?

A bunch of us on my sailing would like to play low stakes crazy wild card games.

Do you think anyone would give us a hard time?

[vwrestler171]

Is there any restriction about playing poker in the card room with quarters?

A bunch of us on my sailing would like to play low stakes crazy wild card games.

Do you think anyone would give us a hard time?

 

A few of us played in the library and no one said anything.

[clcjdn]

Gambling on a ship is generally awful. The rules and odds are nearly comic. I wish more people would play hold'em on the ship. I'd play even with the ridiculous rake. Most people on a ship wouldn't be solid players and I think I could pay for my cruise at the least. It would be like the old days in Atlantic City when the movie "Rounders" came out and everyone thought they could be professional poker players.

 

If you are trying to use a simple +1,0,-1 count system on Blackjack, I wouldn't even waste my time. Most ships use a 6 deck shoe with a continuous shuffle. I've never used a count, but I have always done well at visualizing the flow of the shoe and using that to determine when to raise my bet, when to double, and when to go against basic strategy. You can't do any of that with a continuous shuffle. Carnival has a game called "Fun 21". It's Spanish 21 with the exception that instead of taking the tens from the deck, they remove the queens. They don't tell you this. You think it's Blackjack with some crazy player favorable rules. I played for a few hours and won quite a bit of money, then I started losing. It took me about four hours to realize there were no queens in the deck.

 

I wouldn't even think about slots I'd buy a wad of scratch offs at home and rub them out at the casino bar before I played a slot machine. Land based casinos have to compete with other casinos and are state regulated, so they have to publish their payouts. They try to compete with one another to get slot business, so the payouts can hit in the mid 90 percentile. Cruise ships know you can't jump overboard and swim to another ship to gamble, so they turn those machines way down. If they are paying out 80% I would be surprised.

 

I love gambling, but I just don't have a desire to do much of it on a cruise ship. It's almost like a charity firehall casino.

 

I agree 100% with your logic, which is why I play video poker on the ships. While the pay tables are not as good as land based casinos, I have found the NCL ships to offer games in the 95% payback range. With optimal strategy based on math, probably the best electronic games to play while at sea......

[ccartman2]

I've played poker a couple of times on a cruise, but never on the electronic tables. My experience though, during the poker boom, was it was real easy to take money from people. I'd played it all day, every day, but it was painfully slow (like 10 to 12 hands an hour). The table was great for solid play, but the ROI sucked because you just didn't see enough hands, which was much lower than a standard casino.

[Viscus]

Has anyone seen an active video poker table on a cruise in the last few months? It seemed really dead on our last trip.

[cantthinkofanythingfun]

Has anyone seen an active video poker table on a cruise in the last few months? It seemed really dead on our last trip.

 

I have only seen them active for tournaments, and I really don't feel like spending a whole cruise stuck to a tournament schedule. If I ever cruised solo I may try it.

[Viscus]

Buy-in seems super high variance for them too. $125 to win a seat on a cruise you have to purchase a ticket for?

[Davey Wavey]

Not many play the tables. I have even seen them empty during tournaments. Outside of random people sitting there reading the screen, I think the only time I've ever seen them used was during a premier casino cruise.

[cantthinkofanythingfun]

Buy-in seems super high variance for them too. $125 to win a seat on a cruise you have to purchase a ticket for?

 

The ones I have seen will comp you the next cruise. You will still have to pay for taxes and port fees and whatever it takes to get you to the boat. You aren't going to find serious tournament players in a cruise ship tourney.

[MadManOfBethesda]

Has anyone seen an active video poker table on a cruise in the last few months? It seemed really dead on our last trip.

 

Yes. I was on the Glory in November and the Conquest in December and on both ships the table(s) were busy every night with 1/2NL cash games. In fact, I was only able to play two nights on Conquest because by the time I got out of dinner, the table was full and stayed full most of the night. On Glory I didn't play much either, but that was because the one table that was going every night was the smoking-allowed table, and I didn't want to play surrounded by smokers. Occasionally, both tables would be running and I sat in the non-smoking game.

 

BTW, the rake on both ships was 15%, not 10% up to the max. (Which is another reason I didn't bother to push to get into a game.)

 

In fact, since the table counted uncalled bets as part of the pot, the rake could be even higher. If, for example, you tried to steal the blinds with a raise from the button after everyone else had folded, the table counted $2 of your raise as part of the pot (making a total of $5 in the pot with the SB & BB), and then raked 75 cents. IOW, if you tried to steal the $3 blinds, you lost 25% of it to the rake because you ended up with $2.25 and the table took 75 cents.

[Viscus]

The only reason I even want to sit with a 10-15% rake is because of just how soft the game should be on a cruise ship. I'd need a full table, however, for it to be anywhere near profitable though.