Giorgio’s Trip To Sint Maarten – Waking Up

George | October 6, 2008

Poker in Sint Maarten

Jetlagged

To make you understand the reason why this paragraphs’ title is called Jetlagged, I have to take you back in time about 24 hours, when we (my dad and I) left Amsterdam for Sint Maarten, “the Friendly Island”. After a drive from the North of Holland to Schiphol Airport, in typical Dutch weather (dark clouds and heavy rain), we checked in, kissed my girlfriend and little one goodbye and got through customs. Coincidentally I bumped into a one of my basketball teammates. Even more coincidentally, he appeared to be flying on the same plane, only we were getting off on Sint Maarten, where he stayed on the plane to continue his journey to Curacao. During our flight we saw the movie 21, where a couple of students colluded against the casino playing blackjack. It was quite a nice movie IMO.

The reason for our short trip is that my dad turns 75 years old and we thought it would be a killer idea to celebrate it together with my brother, who moved to Sint Maarten more than 6 years ago. We never told him that we were coming… imagine the looks on his face when we surprised him 🙂

After the hugs and some coffee in my bro’s office we took the car and drove to Maho to meet with friends at a restaurant called Sopranos, as well having a few drinks and some pizza. The Maho area is also the area where our hotel, the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort is located, so we were done driving for the day. At about midnight we decided to call it a night and my dad and I went back to our room to get some sleep.

Anyway, when I started writing this article it was only 6:00 AM and I was clearly awake. Jetlagged!!! Obviously, the cause is that I have been drinking a few Vodka Red Bulls. It always makes me sleep shorter + of course the fact that there is a 6 hours time difference with home.

Plans

We’re staying here until next Sunday, thus plenty of time to have some fun. Since the weather is awesome (30 degrees centigrade) and the forecast looks great, I will try to relax a bit in the morning. I found out there is a gym, so that’s where I will spend some time after breakfast. After working out a bit I will move to either the poolside or the (private) beach and do some reading. I still have to finish reading Dan Harrington’s second book (Harrington on Hold’em) and brought a bunch of poker magazines as well. Don’t worry I will make sure to take a dive into the water now and then to cool down!

Most probably I will take a siesta after lunch, so I will get rid of the jetlag and then off to my brother’s office in the afternoon to answer e-mails and get some work done.

And then there are the nights… These will kick off with a nice dinner, because there are plenty of great restaurants according to DineSXM. I personally prefer seafood when I am near the ocean. And after dinner it’s quality time… Time to play some poker! There are a couple of places I will play at and since I have played poker on Sint Maarten before, I know exactly where to go for cash games as well as multi table tournaments.

Playing poker

As you may guess, I have specially been looking forward to playing poker during my stay. I can basically play as long as I like, since my girlfriend didn’t join me on this trip. All the guys reading this know exactly what I mean, don’t ya? 😉 Our hotel has it’s own casino, Casino Royale, where you can play $2/$4 Texas Hold’em cash games every night starting at 21:00. That’s where I am heading tonight! This Tuesday they run a $2000 freeroll at the in the Atlantis World Casino, as well as a $100 freezeout on Wednesdays. In this mornings paper I saw an add for a $50 freezeout at the Princess Casino every Thursday. I will make sure to do some more research “where to strip tourists'” and create a nice Sint Maarten Poker Guide by the time I will trade the sun for the rain again.