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A Week on a Million-Dollar Poker Cruise
Partypoker.com's Million 111 hits the high seas--complete with celebs, Mexican hijinks and an unscripted Flashdance strip scene
By Sue Facter
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Getting serious: From 463 to 1 at Partypoker.com's Million 111.
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Not since swashbuckling pirates floated on the Spanish Main has so much money been up for grabs at sea.
This was the second largest event in the history of poker--Partypoker.com's Million 111 on the Holland American, starting in San Diego and sailing to the Mexican Rivera.
For a $25 investment, 463 online poker players joined 83 buy-in players--most, the best pros on the planet. (Nonqualifyers had to ante up $7,200 for the buy-in.) All competed for a cool million in Limit Texas Hold 'Em, the finals to be televised on the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour show.
It was worth it: Total prizes added up to $3.82 million. Needless to say, the champers was flowing--to the scent of the salty sea air and the sound of seagulls.
Day 1
You could have an apple martini or a G&T at two welcome cocktail parties in the plush Verneer Lounge. I didn't know a soul, but the first person I chatted with was delightful. I later learned that he was World Poker Tour creator Steve Lipscomb.
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Ship shape: The Holland American makes its way to the Mexican Rivera.
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Later, Lipscomb welcomed the guests to what was just the third PP cruise at sea, proudly announcing that prize pool for this tour would be the largest in the tour's history. "Because we have so many players," he said, "we have split the tournament into two groups." Indeed, the first started Sunday; the second Monday.
For the adventure, the American's luxurious Rotterdam Dining Room got a TV makeover--it became the Poker Room, with 40 tables shipped in, 31 initially set aside for competition, the rest for side games. As players bit the dust, tables were consolidated, and more were used for side games.
Also as the week progressed, musical extravaganzas, bingo, exercise classes, art presentations and the usual shipboard like were so poorly attended that many were canceled. People craved one thing--poker. Along with blackjack, craps and the slots in the ship's regular casino.
Well, there were a few other games being played. An intoxicated female, whose hubby was playing poker, vied for the attention of some of the Dutch officers in the Ocean Bar after the opening-night party by sitting on a table and provocatively taking her bra off from under her shirt, á la the famous Jennifer Beals Flashdance sequence. When she didn't get the attention she required, she upped the stakes and took off the blouse. At that point, the officers insisted she suit up. This, clearly, was not your grandmother's poker tour.
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