The gloomy weather continues: cold, windy, and grey. The perfect excuse for staying indoors.
Squillions of activities: putting competitions, trivia, bingo, bridge, lectures, food carving demonstrations, wine tasting. And poker.
The casino has a computerised Texas Hold 'em table, that automatically handles the dealing, chip management, and determining the winner. I bought into a $60 ten-handed tournament that started at 11am.
People with little to no interest in poker can skip the next five paragraphs...
I won two decent pots in a row, the first because people didn't believe my bet meant I had a good hand, the second because people believed my bet meant I had a good hand when I didn't.
This gave me the chip lead for about 15 minutes, during which time I was dealt hand after hand of utter dreck.
About 15 minutes later three players had busted out (which was good) and the blinds were getting very high (which wasn't so good). I finally had a half decent hand and put a short-stacked player all-in. We turned our cards over and I was a two-to-one favourite. And lost, dropping me down to third. Still in with a chance.
Another player went broke, and I tried to make a move with king-ten suited with only two players to act, and one of them called me with ace-eight, hitting an eight on the flop.
Thus ended my part of the tournament. Mid-field isn't tragically bad, but it meant I won the same amount of money as the guy who went broke first: none.
Then I joined Emma on Deck 14 for pizza and an afternoon of highly vigorous reading.
The seas were getting choppier, with more and more shuddering THUNKS!!! rumbling through the ship. The whale population was getting thinner and thinner.
After dinner we set out for a stroll around the promenade on Deck 7. This inspiration faded before we even opened the doors, when we saw the deck covered with rain and sea spray.
Even the crew found the decks horrific. Emma caught one of the crew swearing in unrepeatable Polish after opening the door to Deck 7.
Time to check out the on-board entertainment: two pianists playing in different parts of the ship, a singer (Lovena B Fox, actually not that bad a singer), a dance-band in the Wheelhouse Bar, a truly tragic karaoke room (full marks for bravery, zero for hitting the right notes), and in the Princess Theatre a hypnotist, Steve Bayner.
I don't always feel comfortable with hypnotists as some of the things they have the volunteers do can be embarrassing, but this show didn't stray too far in that direction. Mainly it was telling the volunteers/subjects/victims they were freezing in -40 temperatures, or in overheating in the blistering hot Arizona sun. It was a bit more awkward toward the end, with the hypnotees howling like wolves or dancing like Chippendales. But I've seen worse, and most of it was pretty funny.
One of the passengers on stage, a women named Sue, was particularly receptive, and the hypnotist commented "I'm going to have fun with her". Which he did, suggesting that when he said the word "hypnotist" his pants would seem to disappear.
So he said the word "hypnotist", and she averted her eyes, and started giggling. Lots. It doesn't sound like much, but it was very, very funny.
At the end of the show Emma asked if I thought it was real, or if they were plants. "Real," I said, "definitely real."
We actually had confirmation on that the following morning.
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