Texas Hold Em

[SalSandy]

I will be taking my first cruise next year on Celebrity. I have spoken to a cruiser on another line who told me the ships have cash and tournament play however the "rake" on the cash games is extremely high.

 

Does anyone have any expeirience with this on Celebrity?

[wecruiz]

I have not played - just watched. Luck and games of chance are not a profitable mix for me. However, remember the cruise lines are not in the business of providing services without some type of reimbursement. If I remember correctly the buy-in for a Texas Hold-Em Tournement is say $50 each player. A table seats 6 players and the dealer. Prizes are 1st Place is $150 and 2d Place is $100. No other prizes. Doing the math that leaves $50 for the "house". Don't know if that would be considered "extremely high", but remember if you are playing to make money - the "house has all the advantage anyway. Play the Stock Market at least you have a fighting chance!

[Married on Enchantment]

On the Summit in November, I was told that the house will only make money if there is more than four players at a game. They had texas hold'em 3 times a day.

[Desertbelle]

When we were on the Mercury (and every other ship we have played poker on) the rakes have been 10% up to $10.....which is ridiculous. When you are playing $5-10 limit poker (we've not seen No-limit on a Celebrity ship yet), it's near impossible to win any money when the house takes $10 of every pot. If you play with 10 people, 30 hands an hour, that's $300 of your money ($30 each person), that the casino takes in every hour!! Compare that to a Las Vegas casino that takes $4 and you can imagine the difference.

 

So far in our experiences, the tournaments are No Limit, which is good. We have also experienced that the casino managers and dealers are not familiar with poker and the rules and procedures they use are often times crazy. Hopefully that will get better as more and more people demand Texas Holdem on cruises

[pmfm]

Last month on the Constellation my husband entered some of the Texas Hold 'Em tournaments. They had them for either $50 or $100 with ten players at the table (which is computerized - no dealer). He won first prize in two of the $50 tournaments. First prize was $250 with the house taking 10% so he got $225. Second prize was $150 and third was $100 with the house taking their cut. Double the figures for the $100 tournaments. They were always no limit games.

 

They had sign up sheets in the casino for the tournaments. Make sure you find out as soon as possible about them because people sign up fast. They always had the ten people they needed plus a waiting list.

[Jonas Grumby]

Having played in some of these tourneys on Summit (and having won one), here's the breakdown:

 

Summit has a regulation poker table for ten players. They take sign-ups at $50 a pop, plus rebuys in the first two rounds of blinds. The house takes 20 percent of the pool for themselves, and gives 60 percent of the remainder to the winner, 40 percent to second place. So, with a full table and no rebuys, $500 pool - $100 to the casino = $400 in prizes, with $240 for first and $160 for second.

 

The problem with the hold-em tourneys is that the levels last exactly ten minutes apiece, and blinds double with each succeeding round. The goal appears to have the table break within one hour. That means if you don't catch early, you won't be around late.

 

As for cash games, we never did get one started aboard Summit. I'm told that the rake is 10 percent, capped at $10 for limit games and $15 for no-limit games. (The 10 percent is in line with Vegas and California card rooms, but the cap is usually $4 or $5.)

 

It's not the best place to play poker (especially given that most of the dealers weren't particularly skilled but the clock kept ticking just the same), but I think every tournament drew enough players to go on as scheduled ...

 

Gary

[SusieV]

The tournaments really aren't worth playing in unless you're just playing for recreation. The levels are too short for any skill to come in. And the rake in both tournaments and cash games is insane.

 

That doesn't mean that the games are unbeatable. The players are frequently very weak, recreational players. I won a significant amount of money playing $5-$10 limit on Galaxy with a 10% rake to $10 (double the rake at my local casino) and had no losing sessions in 11 days of playing every night.

 

I have heard that some ships spread no limit but have been unable to find out which offer it. I would love to book!

 

We had no problems with dealers or ignorance of the rules on our sailing.

[kitty9]

Summit had sign up sheets for Texas Hold 'Em play, but not many seemed interested. I played Three Card Poker, which was right next to the Texas table, and it was usually empty. I spoke to a lot of card players and their main complaint was that Celebrity took too much in their rake, so unless there was a tournament, no one wanted to play. And, when they did have their tournaments, they seemed to go really fast, as if they wanted it over as quickly as possible.

[raudacruise]

Just got back from Milli 14 nt TA yesterday. They had a 10 heat tournment with a final where winner got 50% of the entries ($50). 30% was split between 1 and 2 place winners in heat and 20% was the house rake.

 

There were also some sit/gos and open play but not really well attended.

[jeffkauf]

On the Constellation: 10 seat computerized. We had $50 and $100 tournaments every sea day (sometimes 2 $50 and 1 $100 per afternoon). We never played in the evening. With 10 players there was a 50, 30, 20 division after a 10% rake on both the $50 and $100 tournaments. A few times the game went off with 8 players with a 60, 40 split and a 10% rake.

[SusieV]

On the Constellation: 10 seat computerized. We had $50 and $100 tournaments every sea day (sometimes 2 $50 and 1 $100 per afternoon). We never played in the evening. With 10 players there was a 50, 30, 20 division after a 10% rake on both the $50 and $100 tournaments. A few times the game went off with 8 players with a 60, 40 split and a 10% rake.

 

 

jeffkauf- is it only the tournaments that are computerized? Crap, that's nowhere near as fun/interesting as hand dealt if cash games are like that too. I don't plan to play anything but cash games.

 

Are the cash games limit or no limit and what are the stakes? We're on Constellation next month so I'm very interested.

[Desertbelle]

On our last cruise, a Carnival ship (one of our worse cruises ever....but that's a different story for a different time) they used the PokerPro tables. Very strange to play like that but it beat dealers who didn't know the game. It seemed people were afraid of the automatic table, so it was hard to get a regular game going....tournaments were always full.

 

Here's a link to read more about those tables. http://www.playpokerpro.com/

 

 

[SalSandy]

Lots of responses. That's Great. Thanks. I assume they will not allow you to organize your own cash game? What's the sense of having such a high rake if no one is going to play. Sounds very difficult to overcome.

[Desertbelle]

How and why would they stop you from organizing your own game? We have had our own games going on a few cruises. We have never had anyone from the cruise line tell us we couldn't. Of course we don't make a big deal of it and keep it friendly.

 

On one cruise there was another family who had a dad, uncle and a couple of sons who wanted to play and we had a regular game nearly every day. We found a nice place in one of the lounges that had tables and chairs and was close to a bar. People walking by noticed us and soon we had others who were interested in joining us. On another cruise we used a couple of tables in the buffet area. We have found the card room on most ships not to be the best place to have a poker game, but you might feel differently.

 

We always bring cards with us, and it's easy enough to get either money or chips to play with from the casino. I always bring a big bag of quarters and dollar bills. Once my husband brought poker ships, but that was unnecessary and they add a lot of weight to your luggage. Playing for cash works fine.

 

We keep the stakes low when we have our own games, as we don't want to have anyone losing a lot of money and getting upset. :D

 

On our last cruise we could have easily had a regular game going as there were 10-15 regulars at the daily tournaments, but we just didn't feel like organizing it.

[kitty9]

You can organize your own games, but not in the casino. You could probably reserve the card room on the M class ships, and then bring your own cards and chips.

[txsloth]

Just back from Constellation. We had a nightly $1/$2 No-Limit cash game--our table was completely full on most nights from around 10pm until around 1am. The rake is high, but didn't keep our core group of degenerates away. The tournaments were more of a fun social time, the structure is a joke and after the first 2 round, all skill goes out the window--but you have a 30% chance of making the money!

 

At first I thought I would hate the lack of cards and chips with the automated table--many others voiced the same concern, but it honestly was not an issue. It really makes sense to use this in such a small casino.

[JULES_M]

We are just off the Constellation, and my beloved seemed to find a game every night at the automated machine thingys. I think he scoffed at first, but they ended up enjoying it nontheless.

 

Are any of you players people we might know from the ship?

[txsloth]

Are any of you players people we might know from the ship?

 

OK, I've put my detective hat on...based on another of your posts, and your location: tell Michael that Billy & Sunny say hi!

[JULES_M]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but we have already booked another cruise for the same time next year, how about you guys?

 

Michael says, Howdy back--wish we were on the ship playing

[txsloth]

Not booked yet, but we're officially hooked so we're on the lookout. You're going to Chile right?

[JULES_M]

We had a change of heart after we got home and checked out the shore excursions for Chile. So we are doing the Mercury leaving Dec 5 to the panama canal. Gosh it would be so fun to see some familiar faces, Michael is always on the lookout for some poker players.

 

did michael give you our email?

 

m j maglinte at verizon dot net

[Yahtic]

On our recent Century Trans Atlantic, they had a live table (dealer) with a $1/$2 no limit game nearly every evening starting around 10 PM. Rake was 10% with max of $15. Much higher than Nevada casinos; but hard to go across the street. LOL

 

They had 8 sit & go tournaments that they called freeze outs, $60 to enter with $10 pp going to the casino and $300 to first and $200 to second.

 

Some dealers well versed but in general a lack of understanding of rules and situations, some had a hard time reading winning hands. Management also not well versed in Hold'em. A lot of home game types that don't understand the casino rules coupled with dealer inexperience and lack of setting the ground rules up front caused a few heated situtations. Dealers did not enforce players annoucing their bets, betting out of order, or putting chips across the racetrack and then pulling back. Some of the players would have gotten their hands slapped hard in Nevada.

 

One group did get a private game going in card room each night for $1/$2 limit game.

 

The best way to beat the rake is to get the private game going, that is what we did on our Trans Pacific Sapphire Princess cruise. We had tables in buffet area and staff set them up for us every night and the game would run from 8 to midnight and sometimes two tables. That ship had the PokerPro and no one liked it. The casino lost a lot and we saved it. A group of us from the Sapphire are going to do it again next October on the Diamond Princess from Beijing to Bangkok.