I figured the best way to do this was chronologically, so I am going to start covering things day by day to make sure I don’t leave out anything. My flight arrived about 12:30 or so and was on a puddle jumper from Miami which only took about 55 minutes inthe air. My wife and I had invited 2 friends of ours from Nashville to join us on the trip so we arrived about 45 minutes before they arrived. There is a little shop in the airport so we had some cold Kalik (the local Bahamian beer) waiting for them upon exiting customs. We then hopped into a cab and headed on a 30 minute trip across the island, through downtown Nassau to Atlantis, which is on a separate smaller island called Paradise island connected to the Nassau area with a bridge. We were expecting the cab to be a $27 fixed price as PokerStars told us, but there ended up being surcharges for the 3rd and 4th person (the default is only good for up to 2 people) as well as “luggage charges” for each bag. All told, $38 total. I made sure to ask him for his rate sheet, and the charges were legitimate, so I paid and checked into the hotel.
Check In was uneventful, but since PS had us on a set block of rooms, they weren’t allowing us to check in until 3 PM. Since it was about 1:30 after check in, we decided to hang out in the lobby of the Coral Tower (which is where the default rooms were) while we waited for our room to get ready. As we walk in the lobby and sit down, we notice a ton of people with laptops and sure enough, almost everyone is playing online via the wifi in the lobby. I see folks up to 9 tabling on these tricked out laptops, but it seems almost everyone is 4 tabling. It looked to be a preview of the rest of the week, poker poker everywhere.
While my friends waited in the lobby, I wandered down to the grand ballroom which is where to poker room was located to register for the main event and pick up my “goody bag”. The bag itself was a bit higher quality than the one the gave us in Vegas for the WSOP this year, but didn’t have as much cool gear. There was a bunch of PS logo wear including a fisherman’s hat, a button up PCA shirt, a rubix cube, some flip flops, a pair of blue blocker type sunglasses and a tee shirt or two. They also had a ton of those MoneyMaker millionaire T shirts I guess left over from Vegas that anyone who wanted could grab.
I headed back to the lobby where my friends had ordered the first of many ass expensive drinks we had on the trip. It was about $6 for beers and $8-$10 for other drinks which was consistent for everywhere on the Atlantis resort during our stay. Since PS gave us a $1150 credit, we really weren’t watching our pennies too much to start. We did stop by a liquor store on the way to the resort and pick up a case of Kalik beer ($39) since we figured things would be expensive on the resort. This was a good plan and saved us some money those nights we felt like pregaming in the room. After a drink or 2, our room was ready so we headed up. Our room was on the 6th floor with an ocean view and while not as new as the Royal tower, was very nice. They did have 2x full beds instead of queen size, so my 2 friends got to be closer than they liked most likely lol.
After we got situated, we walked around the resort for a bit exploring before the cocktail party at 7 PM hosted by PS started. My wife took this shot of me and my 2 friends who came down with me. (I am in the middle)
The poker room didn’t open until 9 PM so we explored the resort a bit. This place is really incredible. We had been here about 10 years ago and it has changed so much since then. I have a bunch more pics I will put up, but it really lives up to its reputation as a beautiful place and is even better than the pictures on the web site. We then went to the cocktail party where I ran into Timex from 2+2 and drank as many free drinks as I could (taking into account that I was playing in the morning). We saw several of the PS pros at this party, including Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hatchem, Isabelle Mercier and Barry Greenstein. We also ran into Wendell, who was at the final table of the WSOP Circuit event in Tunica this past year. We would end up talking with him a bunch during the trip and he is a hell of a nice guy.
After the party ended, we were heading through the casino on the way to the poker room and I snapped a pic of my friend with Greg. My friend said “Hey, you are wearing your bracelet” and he replied “That’s why I won it”.
It wasn’t quite as star studded as the WSOP was this year since almost all of the Full Tilt and UB guys weren’t there, but there were still a fair amount of poker celebs present. The poker room reminded me of a mini WSOP, a big ballroom with about 50 tables in it.
It got off to a slow start that night since their cash game permit didn’t start until the following day so only SNG tournaments and the $200 rebuy mega satellite to the main event was running that night. My friend didn’t want to play in the rebuy so we headed over to the casino and my friends played a little video poker while I played a little craps. I wandered around for a bit and quickly found the one to play at. I was at one end of the table and on the other were Joe Hatchem, Robert Williamson, and Antonio Esfandiari. They were betting huge as expected and we actually had a pretty good game. It looked like Robert was teaching Joe how to play since I heard him say “This game is easy! ” as he collected some winnings LOL. I got up about $500 pretty early at the table and ended up about even after playing for a while. The table got cold towards the end and I left with everyone else. At this point, it was about 11:30 PM so I headed in for the day since I was playing the next day.
More soon….