Subject: Trip Report...PPM2 and the WPT(Very little poker content and long) From: "Steven Evans" Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker Date: Sun, Mar 9, 2003 2:47 PM Message-ID: Hello, The wife(Susan) and I left a few days early to Florida to visit with some good freinds on the gulf side where we golfed, swam and basicaslly relaxed and got adjusted to EST. On Saturday morning, the day of the cruise, we jumped in our rental car, a shiny new black Mustang convertible, and drove across the state on back roads. Susan and I logged 200,000 miles over 2 years traveling the US installing data communications from 99 to 01 and it was good to spend another day as the "Roadawgs" we used to be! We arrived in Port Canaveral, returned the car and got a shuttle to the boat. It was a great site to see, 600 poker players chomping at the bit to get onboard and start playing...it was great to see Berj again, back onboard to attempt to duplicate last years 2nd place finish, Rick Charles, BobbyB and greatbrit, to name a few. We finally got on deck and by the time we finished dinner the cards were in the air. My wife and I love to cruise, but only if there is poker to play during the sea days as shuffleboard, shows and formal dinners are not on our list of must-do's when we decide to take a vacation. For those of you who have never cruised with CPC(Card Player Cruises) you should know that they run, by far, the best cardroom I have ever played in. Their dealers are handpicked from all over the US, and they are very efficient, freindly and work hard while having a great time to boot! They have a "no abuse" policy and are non-smoking....all who play are on vacation and should be having fun, which helps create a fun, loose atmosphere condusive to a "good" game. My only complaint would be that they usually did not have any stud or stud H/L games in the smaller limits I like to play so I only played a little O/8 and a HOSE or HOE when we could create an interest list. But I still got to play 4 or 5 sessions on the ship and did OK, had 1 losing session and 3 winners, all small. The wife played O/8 and HE and did alot better than me. The Party Poker Million 2 was a great success, despite the fact I did not qualify or play in it, mainly because I suck at holdem. You will have to wait to hear Mike Sexton on TV state that it "ran like a Swiss watch" due to CPC compiling a team of Matt Savage, Dave Lamb and Jan Fisher working out all the details. The levels were 1 hour long and they got to level 19 before it was over so I heard of no complaints from the participants about the structure. Susan and I were priveleged to be asked to help during the TV taping and we jumped at the chance. She got a great job running the overhead camers that would zoom in to capture the flop when there was one. I had the the job Jan Fisher usually does, keeping a stat sheet recording every move made during each and every hand from start to finish. Jan had her first shot at announcing the final table for the audience, which she shared with Linda Johnson. I heard many comments from cruisers stating how well she did, and in a few cases, people said she did a better job than Linda, so WTG Jan! They had 2 big screen monitors so the audience was always able to follow the action and the announcers kept everyone informed about chip count and the like. I got a great front row seat and worked with Chris Ferguson who was also entering info into his computer...he was very good to have around as he helped me alot to keep me from screwing up too bad as the pace for keeping stats sped up alot as the final table got to 3 players and then heads up. Thank you Chris for being patient while I was busy getting exasperated, we recorded about 140 hands at the final table. Congratulations go out to Howard, Chip and "Cowboy", as well as all at the final table...they put on a great show. Susan and I had alot of fun being able to participate on the "inside" of the TV show, even if it was on the fringe and will do it again if we are ever asked! Whoever posted the joke here on RGP about the 3 guys in a sauna, I wish to thank him/her. I looked thru the last couple weeks of posts and could not find it so am unable to give them credit here, but I told that joke to the audience during a break in taping and got a good laugh as well as got a nice Citizen watch for doing so, so whoever it was, thanks, and no, you can't have the watch! Party Poker had a great team on board and were very visible and had a couple meetings during the week to allow anyone to voice concerns, make suggestions and generally feel out their online players as to what they would like to see implemented on the site. Some of the people they had on board were Vikrant, the GM, Nitin, ops manager, Kedar, the CTO,Adys, hostess,Amy, Senior Creative Spec., and Anurag, who is a board member from IGlobal Media. And last but not least, one of the highlites of the cruise was meeting Lucy Jones, Customer Care Manager extrodinaire! I know that she is revered here on RGP for her great problem solving skills, and I told her she deserves all the accolades she gets! She is a genuinely nice person in person, as I knew she would be from dealing with her thru cyberspace. I was very impressed with the Party Poker Execs and how they all worked as a team and how much they were interested in the players and their feedback. I think they and Mike realize that the recreational player is they backbone of their site and I feel the site will see alot of changes for the better as they implement some of the suggestions the players made. Ports of Call We went to St. Maarten, shopped and walked along the beach in the morning and stayed on the Dutch side...drank a few baby Heinikens and soaked up the sun and took in the atmosphere, which was good as there was a subtle smell of ganga every where you went! Could have stayed there longer! In the afternoon we signed up for a shore excursuion where we went out into the bay and raced in some of the same yachts that competed in the America's Cup in 1987. It was very exciting and Chris F and fellow RGPer Andy Bloch did a gret job as grinders and were on the same Canandien True North4 that lost to the Stars and Stripes....we were told that they cheated! Next stop was St. Thomas, V.I.. We were invited to a small beach to snorkel in the AM, alot of locals and some good frozen drinks...the snorkeling was awesome, got there before the crowd, water was calm and very clear, and I cursed myself for not getting a mask with corrective lenses before I went as what little I could see was very beautiful, better than I used to see while living on the Big Island during the 70's. So next time I will bring the right tools! CPC chartered a whole catamarran for almost 80 to go out in the afternoon to Buck Island, a bird sanctuary, to snorkel and party hard...which I think happened, but not sure as I always drink too much rum punch on those things...8-), but did see some beautiful coral and fish, sea turtles and stingrays...the water was getting a little choppy so the snorkeling was more of a challenge. I was given an award on the last nite of the cruise for supposedely asking if the turtles were real, so Linda, for the record, I never said that! But I never get credit for the majority of all the stupid things I say, so thank you for the recognition anyway! Our ship then decided to have some generator problems which kept us from leaving on time out of St. Thomas and when we did leave we limped toward Half Moon Cay so slow that the captain decided we had to skip that port in order to arrive back in Florida on time. It was dissapointing to say the least, as we had a great day planned for that little oasis in the Bahamas...hope to get back there someday. The last nite of the cruise CPC and PP had an awards ceremony where Howard recieved his accolades for winning and where Robert Williamson was given the Brian Saltus Award, and I saw a more than a few people cry while Mike Sexton explained what it meant to know Brian. Afterwards, they hosted a dinner in the Italian Restaurant on board for all the final table participants, along with all from CPC, PP and The WPT. Our thanks to Linda for the invite and to all who helped to make our vacation a memorable one! We met many wonderful people on our cruise, as well as a few who make playing on the internet a pleasure(you can take that both ways, they both are correct...lol!) If this trip report sounds like an endorsement for CPC, PP or the WPT...it is, because I think it should be. Regardless of any affiliation I have with these companies, they have shown me what you can accomplish when working as a team for the betterment of poker. I wish them much sucess in the future. Nuff' said... Steve