I can't imagine it doesn't get chopped with the huge jumps at the top few spots.

Go on cruise. Enjoy sights and nice weather. Play 140k tournament.

Hey, I bought an entry into this tourney on E-Bay. Its supposed to be a $150k tourney. Don't cheat me!

On a serious note, I have been on several cruises and always won money playing poker, despite the horrendous rake. Its juicy and fun. Also, I thought I would summarize the 1/2 NL rake structure for the various cruise lines I am aware of (based on my own experience and previous posters):

Royal Caribbean: RCL Ships with live dealers are 10% up to $15; RCL ships withPokerPro E-table are 10% up to $10.
Holland America: 15% up to $6 (E-tables only, and no rake if only 2 or 3 players).
Carnival: 15% to $6 (E-tables only -- no rake if only 2 players).
NCL: 10% to $25 (Live dealers).
Celebrity: 10% to $15 (e-tables only).

Although I like live dealers, the e-tables (i.e., PokerPro on most ships) are preferrable to me because of 1) lesser rake, 2) more hands per hour, 3) no tipping, and 4) no rake (generally) if you have only two, or sometimes three players. My favorite game was headups on a Pokerpro table against a guy who was clueless. What fun!

Im sailing out of Miami on Norwegian Epic this Saturday. I will scope out the table and see what it's like before i decide to sit. Since I am going with the family I will play after they call it a night, which judging by this thread, games don't start till later anyways.

Will post a TR when I return.

This thread has been pretty informative :P

Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean
Ship's Name: Oasis of the Seas
Date of Cruise: 3/2/13-3/9/13
Number of tables: 3
Live or e-table: e-table, 9 seated
Blinds: $1/$3 NL
Buy-in structure: $60 minimum buyin, up to $500
Rake structure: 10% up to $10
How often did the game run: I think it ran every night. I only played 3 nights though. The game usually got started around 9pm and often went until close. The casino closes at 2 or 230am, but the host would let the poker table keep going later than that since it didn't need a dealer. Most I ever saw running was two tables, so if you get all 3 going, consider yourself lucky.

They offered and promoted (in the activities planner/flyers) $100 sit and go's every night, but mostly that had little interest.


Play in the $1/$3 cash game was very basic. There were lots of Europeans with money on this cruise, but mostly a bunch of Americans sat to play. I think if they offered a $2/5 game with no cap buy-in, there would have been more players. As it was, players were very friendly, numerous limped pots, $3/$6 bets on flop/turn/river. But if you get in there and start raising pots preflop, the action will get moving and you can clean up. I won $300 the first night and never looked back.

Carnival Glory, maybe 5 years ago, drunk dude started betting or raising $50 every hand on 1/2 NL. Get another drink, put more money in, etc. Finally he got mad at the poker pro table and smashed his fist into it and broke the screen. He left, we called the manager. I am sure they found him, can't hide too long on a ship.

Did they replace the screen or was the poker table broken for the rest of the week?

It was broke the rest of the week. The rest of the table still worked , just down one seat.

Here's an interesting one.

My girlfriend is very into labor rights and such things, and cruise ships are NOTORIOUSLY bad at taking care of their workers. Does anyone know of a cruise that has poker AND takes care of the crew? We could finally agree on something!

I'm getting ready to go on a cruise to the Caribbean to try poker on a cruise ship. I'm not a great player; I'm a smart player. Whenever I play, whether it be in a casino, or online, I never call pre unless I have At Least a T/T. From what I've been reading on the threads about playing on cruises is that most of the time good players win, unless someone tries to win with a high card, and scores on the river, in which case, the good player gets screwed. I live in the U.S. so I can only play for fake money on Poker Stars, so the quality of player is usually not as good as if it was for real money. One thing I've noticed about when I player is 75%+ of the time, if I 1) only call with either A/A, A/K, A/Q, A/J, K/K, K/Q, K/J, Q/Q, Q/J, J/J, or J/T, and 2) fold if I don't have AT LEAST a pair by the flop, I win. I'd probably for every 10 hands, I only play 1, but when I do play that 1 hand, I hit it big. I would like to get some feedback from guys who have played on cruises before about how they think this strategy would work.

what happens when you flop top 2, and Villain has bottom set...

play the man, not the cards.

The typical player who is winning big on cruise ships is, at the very least, a player who has a decent understanding of preflop strategy. Right now, you don't have that.

There are some pretty big holes in your plan here that would get cleared up either via cash game experience or reading a basic NL holdem book.

veazeykyle,
which cruise are you going on? from what port?

I agree that he doesn't have a reasonable understanding of preflop strategy, but the one time I went on a cruise the play was so bad that I think veazeykyle would be an average to slightly better than avg player that he will play against.

I'm looking at going on Norwegian. I called them, and they said they have live dealers. Probably going to leave out of Miami.

Norwegian is horrible for poker. The live dealer is great BUT they can take up to $25 per hand take, no joke. Do a search on it and you'll see.
The reason I asked which port is that the people who leave out of Miami are worse than other ports in my experience. There is more of a machismo thing going on with guys trying to impress their girlfriends and others at the table.
With that in mind, you still might be able to win with your tight style, but when you win a big hand, play tight for an orbit, say you have a show to catch, then gtfo...

Right after I posted I was looking at Norwegian, I saw on another thread that Norwegian was bad cause of the high rake. So far the one I see most people talk about well is Royal Caribbean. Any experience with them?

You're right. I was on a cruise on the Norwegian Epic a couple years ago. The rake is terrible at 10% up to $25, rounded to the nearest quarter! In my case, that didn't stop the game from being very profitable. While each cruise is different, the Epic is big enough that the game should still be very juicy.

The Epic was a pretty large disappointment when I recently went on it.
The whole ship felt cheap, the food was bad (routine mix ups with orders, food coming cold etc).

Never even bothered with the poker after seeing how disgusting the rake was.

We even somehow managed to completely miss a port with no weather problems.

Honestly the best line for poker is Carnival. Granted I haven't cruised on all of the lines, but they have a max rake of $6. The have poker pro tables which speed up the game immensely and make it less intimidating for new players. Overall a really good poker experience imo.

I've been on Royal's Majesty of the Seas a couple times which is a three or four night cruise out of Miami. It's an older ship that they'll probably sell soon. When I was on they had a live dealer for their 2/5 game. It was very profitable even with the rake. again, the players out of Miami suck.

I was on Liberty of the Seas where they had an electronic table, but it wasn't PokerPro/PokerTek. It was some other company and it was pretty poorly designed.

I'll be going on Royal's Freedom of the Seas June 2nd for a week, hope to do well.

I agree, they may take 10% max to $6 in $0.25 increments, but comparing that to the local casinos with their "jackpot drop" it is pretty similar.

I go on 2-3 cruises a year; trust me when I tell you that the pasengers out of every embarkation port suck. Miami is no different than Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, New Orleans, L.A., San Diego, Seattle, Vancouver, etc.

BTW, if you want to save on rake, do what I do and bring along your own chips/set-up. I usually go to the casino and play there the first 2-3 days, then I get the players names and cabin numbers and we arrange to play nightly in the ship's library, card room or some other convenient space. This works best on the longer cruises that I usually take (14-30 days).

Why not just use chips from the casino instead? Yeah, you need cards, dealer button, etc., but lugging chips in my luggage sounds like no fun.