Wheels down, tables up

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence." --Confucius

There's something about potential that makes a solitary blogger go all sappy and teary-eyed. In a matter of hours, the Bahamian airport will be lousy with poker players of all ilks. A thirty-minute $27 cab ride through Nassau's bustling downtown (a place where cruise ships pull up to the docks and let loose thousands of shoppers on any given morning) will take the players across the Paradise Island bridge and land them on a property so massive that even a person with good navigational skills stands to get lost in a matter of minutes.

There, somewhere between the beach and the road, the ambitious poker player will find potential.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Getting there

The connecting flight from a basement gate at the Orlando airport carried potential in its cabin. I found myself sitting across from Eldon, a longtime California dealer and tournament director who has taken to dealing on the tournament circuit. In front of him was Susan, a one-time Foxwoods dealer who has relocated to Florida and is set to deal for the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure, as well.

Within a few minutes, we saw what so many poker players will soon see. Water so blue, whisping with teal and reefy darkness, that sometimes it's hard to believe water can be so clean. It's an odd sight for land-locked gamblers, especially in the dead of winter when much of the nation is still trying to figure out why their plane didn't make it home to Mom's for Christmas. At the same time, it's an invitation to paradise. It's an invitation to potential.

After making it through customs and allowing our quiet cab driver to drive on the left side of the road, we finally made our way to the Paradise Island Bridge. Someone in the cab pointed across the water and remarked, "That must be it." And there stood no doubt in my mind. In fact, nothing on the landscape, save the clouds and sea gulls, reached any higher toward the heavens. It was Atlantis.

As a guy who likes to play around with words, I'd like to come up with a nice way to describe the enormity of the property. I find myself lacking. Instead, I can only relate what one helpful lady told me when I asked where I was going.

"It's about a twenty-minute walk that way," she said, her pointing finger only making it an inch or two along the marbled walkway I'd eventually find myself treading along.

The Room

Like many on their way here, though, I was more interested in finding the poker room. After several wrong turns, I found myself in a place that must be it. More than two dozen tables filled the ornate ballroom. Giant carved wood columns reached up to the ceiling where frighteningly large chandeliers hung precariously. I can only hope a bad-beat scream doesn't shake the lighting fixtures from the ceiling, because several dozen people could be hurt.

All around the room, the set-up crews were busy with staple guns and box knives. Their task was not a small one. To set up for tournament play and other games, the crew was putting together new tables from the ground up. PokerStars has put together some neat new tables with their logo right in the middle. It's here on this felt, that the players will begin this new search for potential.

Tsunami relief

After a brief tour of the room, I found msyelf getting to work, where the PokerStars staff had already been toiling for 18 hours a day. Through tired but excited eyes, Dan G. passed along the news.

In the search for even greater potential here, donations for tsunami relief in South Asia have already started pouring in. As of 1:48pm on this date, 6137 of PokerStars.com's online players have already contibuted nearly $94,000 for the tsunami relief. Including PokerStars matching money, the current donation amount sits at $187,694. That amount is expected to go up considerably in the coming days.

In closing

While I've only been on the ground for a few hours, I've already started to take note of the energy in the room. Dealers and players have been popping their head in the room all afternoon. Dewey Tomko, looking freshly tanned and rested, came to check in on what flight he'll be playing. The mainstream mass media and documentary crews will be coming in to compete with this little blog for the best stories of the tournament.

With the tournament chips locked away in a safe and nearly 400 players set to play, the empty poker room is nothing but potential right now.

And that's about as exciting as it gets.

The frequency of posts here will increase as the hours and days go on. Check back regularly for updates.