High Tech on the High Seas
The Carnival Fantasy was hurtling through the Gulf of Mexico at top speed, just over 20 knots — only about 23 mph, but still pretty darn fast for a 70-ton cruise ship trying to make up for lost time. The poker room finally opened at about 2am, and almost immediately, five full tables of cash action — mostly $1/$2 and some $2/$5 — were running strong.
Players were on board for the Carnival PokerPro Challenge, held in early October. It would be the first multi-table championship to be played at sea on electronic tables. And “Challenge” would seem an appropriate name for what organizers were hoping could become a recurring event — not so much because of any particular hands played on the digital, dealerless setups, but more so because of unexpected obstacles that would challenge even the most seasoned tourney directors and event planners, starting with a departure delayed by ten hours, leading to the cancellation of the first of three carefully scheduled Day 1s.
Computers were down at the Port of New Orleans, and thus 2,000 passengers had to be manually processed before embarkation (taking credit card and passport numbers with pen and paper, for example) just to get everyone on the ship. And because the Fantasy had just come out of dry dock, delayed a couple weç s by Hurricane Ike, the crew was scrambling to finish last-minute preparations before setting sail — everything from testing critical operating systems to laying new carpet in the super- luxe owner’s cabin reserved for event hostess Clonie Gowen. This being the boat’s first time out to sea for months after a major overhaul, there were lots of kinks being worked out throughout the cruise. But inside the Forum Lounge — loaded with ten electronic PokerPro tables made by PokerTç — you could hardly tell that anything was amiss.
Electronic tables have been a hot topic regarding poker’s future ever since PokerTç introduced the PokerPro back in 2006, and even more so when the Excalibur converted to an all-electronic, dealerless poker room earlier this year. While plenty still lament what this may or may not mean for the future of live action, an event like the Carnival PokerPro Challenge showed their capabilities in a real, non-gimmicky poker event — and this ever-festive donk-party at sea wouldn’t have been possible without them.
A total of 168 players were competing for a $70,000 prize pool, the biggest ever in an allelectronic multitable event. All had won their cruises and entry into the Main Event via $150 single-table satellites — mostly on other cruise ships, but some in land-based casinos — to form a field that was split into three Day 1s, each playing down to fifteen who would move on. But with the Fantasy still in port for the entire first day of the cruise, the first two Day 1s had to be run back-to-back — casino action can only legally occur while at sea -- and be done before the boat arrived in the next port at Progresso, Mexico.
“Once we smoothed out the schedule, the tournament ran better than expected,” says tourney director Meredith Campbell. She had to accelerate the blinds early and shorten level times, but indeed, after Day 1c — now en route to Cozumel — all seemed back on track.
However, the accelerated blinds threatened to turn the event into a crapshoot just as real money prizes came into play. So Campbell made the unusual move of actually scaling them back a few levels — “Take the chip leader’s stack and divide by 50,” Gowen advised, “that should be your big blind” — to ensure the big stacks maintained an advantage going into Day 2 and the winner would still be determined by skill.
The Carnival PokerPro Challenge was more than just a tournament. Adding to the organizational fray, it was five days and four nights of activities for poker players and their guests, including second-chance tourneys, mini-WPT boot camps, special happy hours, and non-poker-related shore excursions — and keeping all the side action running smoothly was key to the event’s overall success. That required further on-the-fly improv.
For example, it was a simple solution to move Gowen’s mini-boot camp into the poker room when schedule changes created a space conflict. But that meant working with an untested AV setup, and sure enough, when the microphone crapped out and computer presentations froze up, she had to turn the class into more of a poker town hall meeting, which actually made for even more personal interaction between her and the players, much to their delight. And because there wasn’t enough time for a second “Beat Clonie” multi-table tourney as planned, any gripes were quickly assuaged when she threw together a $100 sit-ngo, where the winner got to go on a $500 private dolphin swim with the TV pro in Cozumel.
That go-with-the-flow attitude went a long way toward keeping the tournament afloat. Day 2 of the Main Event would also be unexpectedly delayed — some additional safety checks in Cozumel kept passengers who got off the boat from getting back on for a few extra hours, and subsequently moving back the tournament re-start. But players and tourney staff again adjusted their schedules accordingly, and the remaining field of 45 would play down to a final table of 10 who were in the money.
Carnival is the world’s largest cruise-boat corporation. Though they began adding poker to their casino offerings early in the poker boom, they quickly started to conclude that save for private chartered poker cruises (like the Party- Poker Million) these games simply weren’t worth running. A single table of small-stakes cash action required multiple shifts of dealers and floor supervisors, and in addition to these cumbersome staffing costs, because not all seafaring Hold’em dealers had much live game experience, frequent player disputes arose over pots — not something cruise casino staffs and purser’s desks were used to handling.
Poker-related frustrations had Carnival ready to pull the plug on poker altogether when PokerTç approached them — offering a high-tech, cost efficient solution to their poker woes. For PokerTç , still facing skepticism and regulatory obstacles with land-based casinos, cruise ships seems like a perfect untapped market. For Carnival, the new technology was a way to keep poker availiable in their casinos. But would players really take to the electronic game?
Sure enough, PokerTç has since placed 23 of its tables on Carnival-branded ships, 60 on boats worldwide. With qualifying satellites running throughout the year, the Carnival PokerPro Challenge was a chance to show how these tables could handle multi-table action, and what kind of passengers these bigger events could bring aboard.
“I was amazed at the camaraderie amongst the poker players. They were such a friendly and social group, like they all spoke a special language and had a bond,” says Carnival VP Rodney Dolfort, who was on this cruise to take part in the big tournament firsthand and assess its long-term potential. “There were a lot of unusual issues on this ship, and yet no one complained about any of it. It’s like once they were immersed in [the poker room], they lost sight of everything else going on. There was no stress whatsoever in that room, even when the schedule kept changing.” (Poker players stress-free and not complaining? Unusual indeed.)
The final table of the Main Event kicked off at noon on the last full day at sea. With cash games and sit-n-goes still running on the periphery, more than thirty people filed into the Forum Lounge to take their seats on an elevated tier, allowing them to better see the action. The tables are equipped with video hook-ups so the center display and other stats can be broadcast on any TV screen. But the 1990-christened ship’s technology wasn’t quite up to date with the PokerPro hookups, so staff again improvised, using an old fashion video camera and projection monitor so the crowd could see what the players were seeing (hole cards withstanding, of course) as Clonie and another emcee announced the action.
Bad beats, big pushes, screams, and applause ensued, and when it got heads up, Canadian hardware salesman Matthew Hutt held nearly a 7:1 chip lead over David LaRoche, a retired fireman and former state representative from Rhode Island. La Roche asked Hutt if he wanted to chop, he politely declined, and just a few hands later they got it all in. La Roche hit the flop and had outs on the turn, but Hutt’s K-10 held up to award him the title, a bracelet (of course), and $45,000 in first-place cash. (LaRoche won $15k for second.)
It was Hutt’s biggest win to date, and also a win for PokerTç and Carnival. Dolfort confirms that indeed, this would be the First Annual Carnival PokerPro Challenge — and in coming months his company will be working with PokerTç to figure out logistics and scheduling for the next go. As the festivities wrapped up, the Fantasy crossed over the Tropic of Cancer on its way back to New Orleans, and after a challenging but enjoyable weç at sea, it was all smooth sailing from there.
