Schedules for upcoming Card Player Cruises!!

Card Player Cruises has been rocking over last few years with lots of fun vacations at sea including great poker action. Partners Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, Bonnie Damiano, and Mark Tenner made a personal goal to ensure that every cruiser will have a great vacation. To make a successful trip, they
host welcome-aboard and farewell parties, organize exclusive excursions for their passengers, offer free lessons and seminars, conduct poker tournaments, maintain a wide variety of games and limits, provide a professional, friendly staff, and run a no-abuse cardroom. Card Player Cruises was the first cardroom to go nonsmoking (about six years ago), and still maintains that policy.

Now after a long period, in November, Card Player Cruises will return to the high seas aboard the 138,000 ton Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines’ Explorer of the Seas. Destinations over the next year for the cruising company include Alaska, the Mediterranean, and Mexico.

The nine-night Canada and New England Fall Foliage cruise will depart from Cape Liberty Cruise Port in New Jersey in November and steam up the eastern seaboard of the United States. Ports of call include Portland, Bar Harbor, Saint John, Halifax, and Boston and the cruise starts at $550 per person.

Besides everything, the other main attraction on the cruise will be its poker room. 100 to $200 buy-in poker tournaments will abound, with many private seminars and free poker lessons also taking place. In addition, passengers can play as much as they wish for, they can also enjoy a rock-climbing wall, ice skating rink, miniature golf course, basketball court, disco, spa, fitness center, pools, Jacuzzis, and shops.

Here is the upcoming schedule for Card Player Cruises:

Canada and New England Fall Foliage nine-night cruise – October 15, 2009
Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas
Departs from Cape Liberty Cruise Port, Bayonne, New Jersey

Mexican Riviera seven-night cruise – November 15, 2009
Royal Caribbean’s Mariner
Departs from Los Angeles, California

Western Caribbean seven-night cruise – March 7, 2010
Royal Caribbean’s Voyager
Departs from Galveston, Texas

Mediterranean Venice 12-night cruise – May 15, 2010
Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance
Departs from Barcelona, Spain

Alaska seven-night cruise – August 27, 2010
Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody
Departs from Seattle, Washington

Eastern Caribbean seven-night cruise – September 25, 2010
Royal Caribbean’s Oasis
Departs from Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Mexican Riviera seven-night cruise – December 5, 2010
Royal Caribbean’s Mariner
Departs from Los Angeles, California

Prices for the above schedule vary between $448 per person and $1,719 per person. The cost covers food, cabin, nightly entertainment, and use of the ship’s amenities. According to Johnson, the majority of players who board a Card Player Cruise are recreational and several are celebrating milestones like birthdays and anniversaries.

It seems to be one delightful vacation, so if you searching for fun-filled vacation spots, this could be your answer.

Bon Voyage!!!

Shuffling of cards :

Most often, players face a lot of problem in randomizing the cards, and this can create a huge problem when they are playing at a table with out a professional dealer. This mostly happen when they play home games or as a self dealt game where-in each player gets a turn to shuffle and deal. Players who cant shuffle face problems as shuffling is one of the key criteria for any kind of card game.

The main objective of shuffling is to change the order of cards in the deck.

As time passes, people have started shuffling in various ways such as The Overhand Shuffle, Table Riffle Shuffle, In-air Riffle Shuffle, Faro Shuffle, Hindu Shuffle, Weave Shuffle etc. The way one shuffles differs, it is interestingly, country dependent. Overhand shuffle is most widely used in European countries and riffle shuffle in USA. In Europe, people find it difficult to Riffle shuffle, they feel its too fancy and prefer to carry on with Overhand shuffling.

Everyone can’t shuffle properly without practice or experience. You can learn it only by observing and then practicing until your hands get used to the motion.

You can view some online videos to master this art.

Kalooki Basic strategy

Rummy is one of the most popular card games in the world. It has many variations,  one of them is Kalooki. It’s a pretty exciting card game played by 2 to 4 players. It’s very popular and mostly played in UK. If you want to learn to play Kalooki, you should be aware of some basic strategies. Your Chances of winning can be doubled by following these simple rules and strategies.

Kalooki is played with a 2 deck of playing cards with 2 jokers in it i.e 106 cards in total. Each player is dealt 13 of these cards and take it in turns to get rid of them. The winner is the first one to do so.

The ability to draw right cards from the stock is the most important while playing this game. While discarding the cards, one should notice that your opponent shouldn’t get any benefit or it should not be utilizable.

Most important, you should always keep your eyes open and focus when your opponent discards and picks the cards, this can tell you a lot about the hand of your opponent.

If you meld a joker, make use of it. Make sure your opponents won’t replace it with another significant card.

Normally a player won’t be able to Go Kalooki if his/her opponents have already laid down their melds.

I am busy mastering Gin Rummy Read this space for the latest tips and strategies..

Two player card games

Two player card games

I always had this penchant for card games.. so, I thought why don’t I write down some basics regarding them…

Two player card games are very easy to learn. There are two types of two player card games – “Classic two player games” and “Specialty deck card games”.

Classic two player games are played with a normal deck of cards.These types of games include Go Fish, Piquet, Cribbage, Speed, Crazy Eights and Bezique. In specialty deck card games, special deck cards are used. The games such as Uno and Phase Ten fall into category of specialty deck card games.

Bezique is played with 4 sets of 32 cards. The Rubicon Bezique is a most popular form of Bezique. In this game, each player gets nine cards and the remaining cards become the stock. Different combinations of cards have different points. Pinochle is also a card game, which is derived from Bezique.

Cribbage is played with a deck of 52 cards. Each player gets six cards. A player has to achieve up to 31 cards. The Cribbage Board is used to keep the scores. Each player scores points for each series. Piquet is a popular card game, which is played with a deck of 32 cards. You can score points if you have cards that are in a sequence, in highest order or in a suit

Go Fish is especially popular among children. It’s a simple game where in one player asks his opponent for cards of a particular class. The opponent has to produce all the cards of that particular class, if he doesn’t have them he‘ll say Go Fish…

Another game is UNO; it’s easy to learn but offers players plenty of twists and surprises. It is one of the most popular card games in the world and is played with a specially printed deck of cards. Each player receives seven cards. The player has to play a card that matches the special symbol of the exposed card. Draw, Wild, Reverse and Skip are the special effects in Uno and are used to improve your chances of winning.

Just don’t forget to say ‘UNO!’ when you’re down to your last card.

Phase 10 is based on a variant Rummy. It requires a special deck and can be played by two to six people. To be the first player to complete all 10 Phases is the object of the game. There are 108 cards in a deck which include 96 numbered cards, 2 Wild cards in each of the same colors and 4 blue Skip cards.

Nowadays in the world of Internet there are scores of online two player games available.

Such online game is played against an online opponent or the computer. These games have an good user interface, personalized graphics, excellent sound and scoring sound and scoring selections.

Two of the most popular online two player games are Ecarte and Euchre.