| Being
There or Being Square
Part 2: Another Good Read for Richie Korbin No, I wasn't seasick; I'm immune to that particular ailment, and seasickness is very rare on large cruise ships, anyway. The lack of sleep had taken its toll, and I had a good old-fashioned miserable cold. Richie Korbin had made a good read on me, just as he often has at the poker table. Given that I had to be sick somewhere, I had accidentally picked a good time and place for it. We were spending the first two days of the cruise steaming southward, so I wasn't missing any exotic ports of call. I had unlimited free room service, which is a hell of a lot better situation than I would have faced alone in my Los Angeles apartment, and thanks to the wise reservation of an outside cabin, I had crashing surf sounds to help me sleep (I hadn't known this, but water slapping the outside of a ship makes a sound more similar to waves crashing onto a beach than you would imagine). The boat's gentle swaying motion also helped me sleep, in a manner not unlike laying in a hammock (or - I'm going more out a limb here, because the memories are distant - like being cradled in friendly arms). Finally, because I had decided to bring my laptop to write my story as it unfolded, I was able to watch my own DVDs on my laptop whenever I grew tired of watching "I'm-the-King-of-the-World-cam" (my nickname for the video feed showing the view from the ship's bow), or the satellite TV. I drifted in and out of a Star Trek-Monty Python-2001 A Space Odyssey-aided delirium. Occasionally I'd think I was Horatio Hornblower, in the midst of some sea battle with cannons roaring, only to realize I'd awakened myself from my own dreams with a thunderous sneeze. Most of the time, I rested comfortably, thanks in part to some medicines kindly provided by Wendeen Eolis, a renowned New York player whom I had previously known more by reputation as a tough player than as a Florence Nightingale, and I got through my illness as well as could be expected. I couldn't decide if the most humorous moment came during my viewing of Monty Python's "Life of Brian," or when my roommate spoke up the second morning. "How are you feeling?" he asked, softening the upcoming blow. "Your basic death-warmed-over," I moaned. "Sorry you got stuck with a sick roommate." "No problem," he said, "I usually don't catch colds. Ummm… has anyone ever told you that you snore?" Snore? Me? Gee, do you think there was a chance that a girl-crazy single lad who had been an active dater for the last 28 of his 45 years had ever heard that one before? "As a matter of fact, I have heard it once or twice," I admitted. "Hope it wasn't too bad." "No, not too bad, I don't think I'll hear it after tonight," Richard said, pulling out a pair of earplugs I think he stole from the guys who work the tarmac at the airport. Monday's Tournament Results My illness kept me from jumping into the first of two tournaments offered during the cruise, a Monday morning $120 limit hold'em event, so I missed my chance at all that luscious prize money. The 57 starters played down to the following winners: 1.
Dana Forrest, $1,938 and TOC Qualification I started feeling semi-human just about the time we pulled into our first stop, San Juan, Puerto Rico. I might have stayed on board, as I still felt a bit weak, but my journalistic integrity demanded that I cover the story, and Linda Johnson had prearranged a meal ashore for us, so I sprung, rather wobbly, into action. Dinner was outstanding, even though I wound up at Restaurant B through a mild miscommunication. Linda had reserved the entire Restaurant A, and told them to prepare for 40 to 80 people. Somewhere along the line this got translated to "40 people," and Restaurant A did not have enough food or staff for the 56 or so of us who arrived. I bravely volunteered for the alternate restaurant up the street, and received an unexpected bonus when Linda and her business partner Mark Tenner picked up the tab for the folks who went along with Plan B without protest. Thus fortified by this feast, I re-boarded the Costa Victoria, or the "Vicky," as I came to call her. I'm not exactly sure why we went for a big meal ashore, though. I checked the ship's vital statistics, and the Vicky was listed as weighing 76,000 "gross tons." I couldn't figure out why they were "gross" tons, instead of the usual kind, until I realized that at least 75,000 of the tons had to be food. I've never been anywhere before where the waiter explained that if we weren't sure what we wanted, we should just order two or three main courses each, and then we could get two or three more servings of our favorite after we figured out which we liked best. On to That Jewel of an Island, St. Thomas A short evening ride took us to an island I'd never visited before, St. Thomas. Pull out your dictionary, and I'm pretty sure that under the word "picturesque," the definition will include the phrase, "See, e.g., St. Thomas." Beautiful villas ("houses" just doesn't seem like the right word) dot the hillsides. The whole place looked like a picture postcard. Like most Caribbean islands, St. Thomas has a lovely climate, depends mostly on tourism for income, and is full of stores whose signs should read "Future American Garage Sale Bargains." St. Thomas' other specialty is jewelry: they sell a lot of it, or at least so my many married friends told me upon their wives' return. Faced with a choice of more than a dozen available pre-planned shore excursions, and only one day to take in the whole island, I decided on the one that would really enable me to savor the unique St. Thomas flavor would be the "submarine adventure," where you get to board an actual recreational submarine, and travel around underwater through reefs that could be located anywhere within 20,000 leagues. I guess I'll save checking out the actual island for the next time around. Red Alert! Giant Squid to Starboard! Nonetheless, coral reefs are pretty anywhere, and the trip was relatively uneventful until the giant squid attacked the sub. We started shaking violently back and forth, and one of the squid's tentacles broke through the hull, spraying me with seawater, and the tentacle jabbed me in the shoulder. This hurt less than I would have expected, and when it jabbed me again, I woke up to find the woman behind me poking me in the shoulder. "I didn't mind when you fell asleep and started drooling," she said, "but the snoring was scaring the fish away." Captain Nemo never had to deal with indignities like this. We had to be back on board by 5:00 p.m., and the Vicky took to sea again. Before dinner, the cruisers were treated to a poker seminar given by Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, Mike O'Malley, and me, and although this had be one of the least rehearsed multi-panelist seminars in history (preparation had begun and ended by Linda asking us each to prepare our top five poker tips, and then to wing it handling audience questions), the 80 or so attendees genuinely seemed to enjoy it, and many asked if we could do another one. We didn't have another good spot to fit one into the schedule, which was just as well for two reasons. First, I only have five good tips, and second, after everyone saw my results in the Wednesday night games, I assumed my credibility was shot. Getting Sliced Up in the Pizza Room Although all cruise ships have casinos, Card Player Cruises feature special temporary poker rooms. On the Vicky, we had a nice view from the 12th deck (one higher than the ship's main deck) in our temporary long, thin eleven-table room, which had been converted over from its usual duty as the ship's pizzeria. Unfortunately, after we had played for a while, my opponents were the ones rolling in dough, which is pretty much what I expected would happen immediately after standing up in front of them as an alleged Expert. As an Expert, I opted for the highest-stake game in the room, a 20-40 HOE game (Hold'em, Omaha eight-or-better, and Seven-Card Stud eight-or-better played in one-round rotation). I had six hands all night and got rivered on four of them, and because I was an Expert seminar teacher and hence a role model, couldn't even curse at the dealer. Actually, I never curse at dealers, and while that's a good policy for any poker player, it's especially good for a Card Player Cruises player, because the cardroom has a very strict no-abuse policy. Everyone is on vacation, and no one wants to hear foul language. The games are quite jovial, actually much friendlier than your typical cardroom games. About the only complaint I heard about the poker room was - I'm not making this up - that it was relatively hard to get food delivered there. As my own stomach was usually so swelled from the meals that one false move could have resulted in an explosion much like the scene in Monty Python's "Meaning of Life," I had no personal complaints about this one. I wasn't the only player who left that night thinking Shelly Winters had had better luck during "The Poseidon Adventure," though. On one hand, I watched fellow alleged expert Mike O'Malley - who had been playfully accused by a fellow presenter during the seminar of having a horseshoe inserted up a tender potion of his anatomy - put a bad beat on a fellow player in a manner that confirmed what I now refer to as The Horseshoe Theory, and believe me, it has nothing to do with Binion's. >> Continue reading >> 1, 2, 3 ©2001 Andrew N. S. Glazer |