The Kid Part 1
By By Debbie Burkhead and Susie Isaacs

We recently had an interesting situation come up on a poker cruise. On cruises there are two seating times for dinner, early and late. You are generally seated with friends or family that you are traveling with and occasionally with total strangers but always with other poker players from your group. Friends are made quickly at the dinner table. These poker players come from all over the country and all walks of life. Meal times are fun and interesting. Regular cruises are wonderful. If you have never taken a poker cruise, we highly suggest you try one. They are a lot of fun and there is always plenty of time for poker on the high seas.

Our ship set sail from San Diego at 5:00 p.m. and we were scheduled for the late dinner seating at 8:15 along with Debbie's Mom (Dot) and her Dad (Jim). When we arrived at our table we had been assigned a table for 10. After every one had been seated we recognized four of the six other members at our table. There was a young couple we didn't know, so we introduced ourselves and asked where they played poker. We were all a little surprised and confused when they announced they were not poker players, were not with the poker group, and knew very little if anything about the world of poker. Our table consisted of four dealers, two seasoned players, (myself and Susie) and two novice players, (Dot and Jim) and the young non-poker couple. We thought there had been a mistake in the seating assignments, but they were very pleasant and we all enjoyed each others company.

We thought it our duty to recruit these nice young people to our poker world, so we all shared some of our poker stories and wisdom and suggested they drop by the poker room on board the ship for a beginners lesson. The lessons are a nice touch, provided free of charge by the staff, for novice players. These lessons are given by one of the dealers on his own time.

As the conversation continued throughout that first dinner, the young man seemed interested and even bought one of Susie's books and had her autograph it. The autograph was of course, addressed to a novice poker player, with encouraging words: "You don't have to be great to begin, but you must begin in order to become great."

The next morning, as we entered the poker room, we had a pleasant surprise; there sat our nice young man from dinner at the $1 & $2 beginners hold'em table. We couldn't have been more thrilled to have recruited such a nice guy and he was beaming over his $11 win. He had bought into the $1 and $2 hold'em game that is offered to the beginners at the end of their lesson. He was reacting like a kid with a new toy.

Debbie had observed him play a 9-6 offsuit in early position. She didn't say anything at the time, but made a mental note to mention it to him later with the intention of explaining it was not a hand to be playing from any position much less early position. He lost his $11 and his original buy-in and said he had fun and he would be back later.

That evening at dinner he was chattering about his first time visit to a poker room and how he had played, won $11 but eventually had lost it back. He seemed excited about playing and announced that he was going to make it his mission to win his $20 back.

We were thrilled to have introduced a new player to our poker world and couldn't wait to share the news with our groups leaders. After relaying our story to our poker cruise leaders, there seemed to be some confusion as to who these two people were and where they came from. Our dinner table was supposed to be made up of members of our poker group. We figured there must have been some mix up by the ship's management and left it at that.

The next day we didn't get to the poker room until late afternoon and we were told the nice young man had advanced from the beginner's game to the $4-$8 hold'em. It appeared as though the kid was putting his poker lesson to use.

We didn't have the pleasure of his company at dinner that night so we didn't get a report on his $4-$8 poker session.

Now here comes the really weird part ...

Stay tuned for our conclusion to this poker mystery in Susie's upcoming article this month.