To celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, last week I surprised my wife with a seven-day cruise on Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas. It's a massive ship that is capable of carrying roughly 9,000 passengers and crew. In exchange for my undivided attention during the days and early evenings, my wife let me go for 3-4 hours each night to play poker in the ship's casino. 
Unlike previous cruises that used PokerPro electronic tables, Oasis actually features two standard nine-seat tables, chips, cards, and live dealers. Chips are ceramics and seem to be decent quality if a little plain in design:
In addition to the daily tourneys (which I didn't play), the casino ran a 2-5NL cash game each night from 9:00pm until they closed the table games, which was typically around 2:30am. The table filled immediately on opening each night, and there was a wait list for the first 1-2 hours. Only one night, the list got long enough to open the second table.
The rake was astronomical: 10% up to $15 per hand. Starting stacks were really short on chips. What you see above is a $500 buy-in after going through the blinds, and I don't think I ever got more than $50 in red on a buy-in.
The good news is that the game was decent. I played with mostly the same people every night: several rec players and newbies typical of casino 1-2, a couple of party animals with deep pockets, a couple of OMCs, a couple of TAG "grinder" types, and one player who seemed like a solid 2-5 reg and probably gave me more trouble than anybody else all week. It was a really friendly, fun group (as you'd expect on a ship), and I would enjoy having most of the players in my low stakes home games anytime. Even the quiet, cranky 2-5 reg who I initially disliked actually turned out to be a really friendly guy once we spent a little time chatting away from the table.
The bad news is that the dealers were horribly inconsistent, and a few of them were also just plain horrible. They could shuffle and fling cards reasonably well, but they didn't enforce rules consistently. Some allowed chops, some didn't. Some strictly enforced the bet/fold line and required chips to be placed in a single action, others didn't. Some couldn't calculate side pots or chops and needed to be helped/corrected by players, and there were a higher than expected number of board/hand reading mistakes at showdown. It was pretty clear that they were table game operators with very basic poker training rather than the professional dealers we're used to in a casino.
In one hand on the first night, there was a bet of $10 and a call. A third player silently placed a $25 chip in front of him, and the dealer announces "raise to $25." The original bettor folds, the second player calls, and the third players sees the call and says, "No, I was just calling the $10." The dealer tries to roll it back but player 1's cards are already in the muck, and all players involved are annoyed. The dealer says, "Forget it, the hand is cancelled," and pushes chips back to the three players. Of course, this goes over like a lead balloon.
Another time, a player to my left drops his cards in front of him preflop, and a corner of one card touches the betting line. The dealer says, "Fold," the player protests to no avail, and after the fold claims he had aces. Considering the amount of time we'd been playing together and the fact that he was pretty grumpy about it for a while afterward, I believed him.
I also found it mildly annoying but more just plain weird that the game was raked in increments of $0.50. They had chips specifically for this purpose, and some dealers allowed these chips to play while others only allowed them in increments of a dollar:
In spite of the above complaints, I had a great time playing in this game. It was a fun, friendly group to play with, I got to use real cards and chips on a cruise ship for a change, and I won enough to pay my shipboard expenses with a few hundred left over. While some of the dealer problems could be alleviated by using PokerPro tables, I think a traditional game was more fun and attracted more players.
As an aside, while playing one night I spotted a $500 chip on the floor and picked it up. I won't lie, I briefly thought about just sticking it in my pocket and not saying anything, but I did end up turning it in. My biggest concern is that I didn't want to cost an employee their job if they had lost it. The casino host took my name and stateroom, and I asked what would happen if no one claimed it and they weren't able to figure it out from video review. He told me that the money would just go back into casino funds. Nicely played, Royal Caribbean. (n) :thumbsdown:
Unlike previous cruises that used PokerPro electronic tables, Oasis actually features two standard nine-seat tables, chips, cards, and live dealers. Chips are ceramics and seem to be decent quality if a little plain in design:
In addition to the daily tourneys (which I didn't play), the casino ran a 2-5NL cash game each night from 9:00pm until they closed the table games, which was typically around 2:30am. The table filled immediately on opening each night, and there was a wait list for the first 1-2 hours. Only one night, the list got long enough to open the second table.
The rake was astronomical: 10% up to $15 per hand. Starting stacks were really short on chips. What you see above is a $500 buy-in after going through the blinds, and I don't think I ever got more than $50 in red on a buy-in.
The good news is that the game was decent. I played with mostly the same people every night: several rec players and newbies typical of casino 1-2, a couple of party animals with deep pockets, a couple of OMCs, a couple of TAG "grinder" types, and one player who seemed like a solid 2-5 reg and probably gave me more trouble than anybody else all week. It was a really friendly, fun group (as you'd expect on a ship), and I would enjoy having most of the players in my low stakes home games anytime. Even the quiet, cranky 2-5 reg who I initially disliked actually turned out to be a really friendly guy once we spent a little time chatting away from the table.
The bad news is that the dealers were horribly inconsistent, and a few of them were also just plain horrible. They could shuffle and fling cards reasonably well, but they didn't enforce rules consistently. Some allowed chops, some didn't. Some strictly enforced the bet/fold line and required chips to be placed in a single action, others didn't. Some couldn't calculate side pots or chops and needed to be helped/corrected by players, and there were a higher than expected number of board/hand reading mistakes at showdown. It was pretty clear that they were table game operators with very basic poker training rather than the professional dealers we're used to in a casino.
In one hand on the first night, there was a bet of $10 and a call. A third player silently placed a $25 chip in front of him, and the dealer announces "raise to $25." The original bettor folds, the second player calls, and the third players sees the call and says, "No, I was just calling the $10." The dealer tries to roll it back but player 1's cards are already in the muck, and all players involved are annoyed. The dealer says, "Forget it, the hand is cancelled," and pushes chips back to the three players. Of course, this goes over like a lead balloon.
Another time, a player to my left drops his cards in front of him preflop, and a corner of one card touches the betting line. The dealer says, "Fold," the player protests to no avail, and after the fold claims he had aces. Considering the amount of time we'd been playing together and the fact that he was pretty grumpy about it for a while afterward, I believed him.
I also found it mildly annoying but more just plain weird that the game was raked in increments of $0.50. They had chips specifically for this purpose, and some dealers allowed these chips to play while others only allowed them in increments of a dollar:
In spite of the above complaints, I had a great time playing in this game. It was a fun, friendly group to play with, I got to use real cards and chips on a cruise ship for a change, and I won enough to pay my shipboard expenses with a few hundred left over. While some of the dealer problems could be alleviated by using PokerPro tables, I think a traditional game was more fun and attracted more players.
As an aside, while playing one night I spotted a $500 chip on the floor and picked it up. I won't lie, I briefly thought about just sticking it in my pocket and not saying anything, but I did end up turning it in. My biggest concern is that I didn't want to cost an employee their job if they had lost it. The casino host took my name and stateroom, and I asked what would happen if no one claimed it and they weren't able to figure it out from video review. He told me that the money would just go back into casino funds. Nicely played, Royal Caribbean. (n) :thumbsdown:
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