The hands of fate

So, I've alluded to this already, but it bears some repeating.

No one has ever dealt a legal hand of poker in the Bahamian islands. No one. Ever.

Heretofore, the green felt has been reserved for the blackjack and craps tables. Now, the entree of PokerStars.com to Paradise Island signals something other than just another poker tournament.

Tonight, just after 9pm, tournament director Mike Ward assembled his staff of 39 dealers. As he introduced himself and the rest of the PokerStars staff, the dealers learned a lot. They learned they'll be working ten-hour shifts for the next seven days. They learned the poker room will open every day at noon and stay open until 3am the next day. They learned that because of Bahamian gaming regulations, no dealer is allowed to participate in any form of gaming. They learned that some of them will be dealing the final table for a televised World Poker Tour Event.

But as Mike spoke, he revealed one more interesting piece of information. One of the assembled dealers will be dealing the first-ever legal hand of poker in the Bahamas. As a guy schooled in the arena of media, I suspect this is going to be quite a spectacle.

Tomorrow night, just about this time, the players will be making their way from an introductory cocktail party to the poker room. At 10pm, as the first satellite tournaments begin, someone will take the first step toward, perhaps, making poker a legal game in the Bahamas. As poker explodes across the globe, legality seems almost an inevitability. It only makes it more exciting that this event could set the legal process in motion.

These dealers have come from all over and hold in their hands more than cards. Beyond remembering all the tournament rules, keeping both close eyes and ears on the game, and handling the cards with grace, they will hold fate in their hands. It's a mighty responsibility, but one they seem excited to accept.

Tomorrow afternoon is the remaining travel day for players. By 7:30pm tomorrow, everyone should be on the island and ready to play. After some meeting and greeting, the cards will be in the air at 10pm with a $200 buy-in ($200 rebuys) main event super satellite, single table satellites for the main event, and single table Sit & Go tournaments from $30 buy-ins to something they call a "you name it + $10."

This is apparently it, folks.

So, strap in, because much like the 75-degree-drop water slide down the road from here, this tournament figures to be quite a ride.

Stacking up

Eastern Standard Time, that venerable old time zone, refuses to show mercy. Even in paradise, the sun sets at 5pm. The tradewinds blow in the darkness and the beaches go empty. So, what does a blogger do when the sun goes down and the poker room is still void of the shuffling of cards?

Well, he goes in search of the one thing that everybody here wants:

Chips.

I'd been told earlier in the day that the newly-minted PokerStars tournament chips were under lock and key, behind double, maybe triple bolts in a safe. I could see the safe. It sat right there against the wall. But nobody offered the combination and since I'd only be on the ground here for a few hours, I didn't feel comfortable asking for the keys to the castle. Plus, under some obscure work permit law, I'm apparently not allowed to do anything with the chips anyway.

Still, like anybody might, I wanted to see them. Call it a poker player's nature. Call it primal curiosity. Call it being nosy. I wanted me a look-see of the one thing for which everybody here will be fighting.

Then, glory be, tournament director Mike Ward got it in his head that the chips needed to be racked. Where I come from, they call that opportunity. With the care of a man who knows how to handle new chips (that's handle with care, respect, and a sense for how a $1,000 chip likes to be handled), Mike racked them, stack by stack. What's more, he didn't protest one inkling when I got close enough to smell the racks.

I'm funny that way.

"We had to order some $10,000 chips this year," he said. I think I saw a look of reverence in his eye. Then again, Mike's been around the block enough to not get to misty.

As he stacked and stacked, I took the opportunity to steal a look inside the safe. As a poker player, I should've been able to count how much was there, but frankly, there were just too many checks. It's one thing to look across the table and count a guy's stack for him. It's another thing entirely to see enough chips to fund every one of the nearly 400 players' buy-ins.

I didn't want to seem too googly-eyed. A blogger has to maintain his poker face, after all. Still, I thought it might be good to snap off a few shots. You know, for posterity's sake.

The first flight of the main event is still almost two days away. Either in their rooms, on a plane, or still at home, the players are thinking about these chips. They are thinking about how they'll hold them, how they'll shuffle them, how they'll stack them. More than that, they're thinking about how they'll move as many of them as they can to their seat at the table.

Alright, enough of this. I've reduced myself to stating the painfully obvious.

And while I'm stating the painfully obvious, I might as well point this out:



That's a rack of $10,000 checks.

Okay. Enough chip-talk.

For now.

Waiting in paradise

Either the tradewinds are starting to get to my head or somebody left a whole bunch of fish in the hallway. During my wanderings, I found myself face-to-face with a lot of non-human creatures. And I've come to terms with that. What's harder to comprehend is the amount of work going on at this resort.

For those people who throw home games and consider the most laborious part of your efforts the time you spend in the snack aisle deciding whether to buy peppered beef jerkey or pistachio nuts, you might be surprised how much effort goes into organizing an event as large as the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

As I type, three people are on CB radios, talking through crackles and pops, sweating through the protocol of Bahamian gaming laws. Seven laptop computers sit open, their screens burning holes in the eyes of the tired staffers who are aching with every detail that requires attention. Half-eaten sandwiches and empty cups of coffee litter the work table, and the room seems to be running short on caffeine. And surprisingly, everyone seems to be in a pretty good mood.

It's now nearing 5pm. The dealers are all due in tonight. Some of the players have already arrived. The rest are due in tomorrow. Staple guns still pop in the tournament room where set-up crews are putting the finishing touches on the poker tables.

A couple of hours ago, Juha Helppi walked in with a smile and a contingent of followers. Minutes before he arrived, a man stood looking at the poker room with something resembling disbelief. The room looked so nice, such virgin territory, it seemed a shame that no one was sitting down actually playing cards.

Therein lies the rub for the people who have already arrived.

Understand, nowhere on this island or any other in the Bahamas will you find a poker room other than the PokerStars room currently under constuction. That means anyone who has developed a poker jones in the past few hours has no outlet. Due to gaming laws and logistics, there will be no poker played here until 10pm Wednesday night. Once that time arrives there will enough poker to choke even the hungriest of players. Until then, however, players are relegated to the pit. And we all know, the negative EV games are no way to pass the time for a poker player.

Now, I know as well as anybody, there really is no consoling a poker player who wants to play and can't. At the same time, I think most folks can take comfort in the promise of poker within the next 30 hours. And if that isn't enough to soothe the jones, there is this little fact: we're in the middle of nothing less than paradise.

You've seen the fish already, so here's no denying the wildlife here. During a brief walk around a small part of this expansive resort, I happened upon a fairly mild-mannered turtle. He seemed pet-able, but I didn't take such liberties. I've also heard tales of some sort of ray (manta or sting, I didn't ask) with a 22-foot wingspan. Apparently she's grown so large that even this place can't handle her much longer and she's set to be turned loose on the wild seas that surround us.

And the water and weather are certainly here. It's hard to walk anywhere without seeing something very blue that bears a startling resemblance to water. It's enough to make anyone forget for just a moment that they came here to sit inside and play cards. The beauty of a place like this is that even an amateur photographer can just point and shoot and find postcards on the memory card.

Among the most interesting characters around this place is a gentleman by the name of Reynaldo. The man has one job and he's pretty good at it. In a little circle of shops that hawk wares so expensive and wonderful that security guards are posted at some of the doors, a little unassuming cigar shop sits open for business. Just inside the door, Reynaldo rolls and rolls. When he finishes doing that he rolls some more, then takes a moment to greet a guy with a camera who just can't get enough pictures of the rolling.



Reynaldo can roll you a cigar that is shaped like a pipe. He can roll you a cigar that looks like a pencil. And if one cigar that sits on a table nearby is any indication, Reynaldo can roll you a cigar that's as big as an anteater's nose. What's more, if we needed any indication that this is a poker weekend--regardless of the fish and water around us--a copy of Cigar Aficionado sits on a table just inside the shop. No real surprise who is on the cover.



So, the waiting really isn't that bad. It gives the players a few hours to rest up, get a massage, and check out the big boats that have docked near Murray's Deli. I'd like to think that the winner of this year's tournament might find him or herself on the way toward the kind of riches that could buy such a vessel.

So, relax, all. Your PokerStars staff is laboring long into the night to make this an unfortgettable event. Right now, you don't have to worry about bad beats, suck-out rivers, or the nerves of making it into the money. Now, all you have to worry about is paradise. And paradise requires no worry.

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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.