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Poker, snorkeling, late night beach parties, conch fritters, and more poker. What could be better? Well, it is hard to top — that’s for sure. The World Poker Tour has been having poker camps for quite some time now. The hallmark Vegas destination took a turn for the better this time: Nassau, Bahamas. Not only did I miss my departing flight, but I also forgot my passport. If things like this have to happen, at least I managed to do both at the same time. Probably not the best start. I guess sometimes you are meant to start late. Hmmmm…. Somehow, I think it is better just to show up on time, but you never know.
Anyway, eventually we arrived. Once on the island, things began to find their natural stride. Orientation was followed by the actual poker school. I was wondering who would make the 10am start time. I guess mostly everyone. Wow! I have long believed that waking up before noon is sort of unnatural. Even more so for a poker player.
Poker school. It was cool enough. There was only one day of instruction for this camp. Most poker camps have two days for the instruction, but everyone knew that the emphasis here was the location and the nifty tourney they offered. Different instructors covered an array of different topics. All in all, the variety of instructors and topics covered were great. It was a long day, but lots of fun.
The coolest part to this camp was the freeroll event. All the students (and the instructors) had a chance to play in it. First place was quite juicy: entry to all WPT events for one year. Wow! Travel expenses added! All in all, first place was worth about $160,000. Second was a 25k entry to the Bellagio Tournament, third was a $10,000 entry to any WPT event, and fourth… I forget what fourth was.
It is rare to have a freeroll event with a great structure. The structure couldn’t have been better! Everyone started with 20,000 in chips and the blinds went up slowly at one-hour intervals. Wow! This, of course, only mattered if you showed up.
Normally, showing up to a freeroll is about as easy as a margarita (I was good at these). The only problem was that the night before I was nearly expert with the margaritas. Out of the gate, I had accidentally handicapped myself by sleeping in. Starting time was 10am and I took my first hand at 10:30 am. This wasn’t so bad. The thing that really hurt me was what happened at lunchtime.
In a flash of genius, I thought how much better off I would be if I spent lunchtime taking a nap. Theoretically a good idea. But from a practical point of view, I am not so sure. That 40-minute nap drifted into a four-hour deep sleep. By the time I had come back to the tournament, everything had changed. I was now a short stack.
Short stack... hmmmm. No fun. How did this happen? Oh yeah, I was asleep. Somehow, I turned that short stack into a medium stack and then a slightly decent stack. And then I had a big hand versus big hand moment. I was ahead for all the chips and, just like that, his ten appeared on the river, and I was out. I don’t know if it was the uncured hangover or the ten on the river, but somehow I couldn’t get up. It wasn’t all that bad. After all, I just received four days of chill time on the island.
Cleverly, I had coordinated this trip with a family reunion. My bust out was followed by all sorts of fun. Jennifer and I had arranged for the greater part of each of our families to be with us on the island. One fun adventure was followed by another. Conch (pronounced KONK) salad, conch fritters, snorkeling, more margaritas, more seafood, bombing around on motorboats, and other random island happenings.
My favorite was when we rented a huge boat for the fifteen of us and drifted about the islands snorkeling and having odd adventures. It was genius. Pure genius. There were some classic moments. One of my favorites might have been the type of story that you had to be there for… But I will tell you anyway.
Becky, Jennifer’s sister, was getting pretty seasick on our boating adventure. This was not good. She wanted to get to land and tried to stay in the middle of the boat to defend against getting sicker. However, when the boat stopped for snorkeling, Becky started to feel a bit better and thought she might enjoy a swim.
It turned into a decently long snorkeling adventure. After an hour or so into her “ocean drift about,” we began to notice how long she was gone. Just as we were commenting on it, she popped her head up above the edge of the boat and asked if she was holding things up… or would it be cool for more snorkeling.
We assured her that she could snorkel for as long as she wanted; there was no rush. With that, she replied, “Great, because there are more fish I need to see.” And without another word she dropped back into the ocean, floated around for another hour or so and then got into the boat. From being seasick to becoming a mermaid, all within the span of a few minutes. Priceless. Just priceless.
My lazy days were interrupted by an occasional visit to the tournament room area. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. But I had to see. Normally, when I bust out of a tournament, that’s it — I’m done. But for some reason this tournament was different for me. I was curious as to who was advancing, and who wasn’t.
Antonio had a run at it for a while but was eventually taken out. At eighteen players remaining, two were still instructors (Karina Jett and Crispin Leyser). When it was down to eight players, Crispin Leyser still remained.
In the end, Augie Foxx, from Idabel, Oklahoma, won the whole kit and caboodle. Chris Stadler, from Fort Collins, Colorado, came in second. The key hand was top pair versus top pair — queen kicker versus ace kicker. This had to be sort of salty for Chris, as at one point, he was the chip king in a big way. Laurie Church from New Jersey came in third.
I had a chance to meet Chris and Augie away from the table and am looking forward to seeing them again on the World Poker Tour circuit. I am also looking forward to more island poker, margaritas, and conch salad.
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