December in Paradise
- michelelawson54
- Dec 28, 2024
- 4 min read
Happy Holidays and a Happy and Healthy New year! In the beginning of December my husband and I went to the Bahamas for The WSOP ( World Series of Poker) Paradise. It was held at the beautiful Atlantis on Paradise Island. If you have never been there I highly recommend it. The place is magical. It is definately a 5 star resort. Great spa and really good restaurants. Although it is not cheap, your gonna pay alot of money for food. There are a ton of things to do for both children and adults. So its a great place to have a family vacation. Ted and I stayed in the Cove we had a beautiful suite with a gorgeous ocean view. We were there for 15 nights. Lots of poker and lots of fun. I would not call this a typical poker series as the buy in's for the tournaments went as high as $500,000.00. That was way beyond my pay grade. I elected to play in the smaller ones. My first tournament was a $2750.00 buy in with a $5 million guarantee prize pool. I am happy to say I cashed 29th out of a field of 2031 players. I recieved $18,390.00 for my 29th place. There were so many players from Europe. The calibur of players was off the charts. So many players with life time earnings of $20 million and above. So many players that I have seen on tv. I was definately in awe. In the beginning it was a little intimidating I won't lie but after a while I just tuned that out and played my game. After my first win i decided to play the $25,000.00 buy in with a $50 million prize pool guarantee. Sadly to say I did not cash in that tournament. The last tournament I played in was an invitational. Only bracelet holders that played in the $25,000.00 buy in event or GG Poker tournament qualifiers were invited to play in this event. Needless to say this had one of the hardest fields. There were 487 players that entered this event. I made it to the final table and ended up taking 8th. I recieved $19,400.00. It was really kind of funny when I look at the pictures of the final table. I am 4'5" and the two guys on each side of me were extremely tall I don't think I made it to their shoulders. So here I am a little old lady (67) with a head tremor, playing next to these professional poker players. It definately was a lot of fun! I even got interviewed by a Russian website. A whole new experience one I really enjoyed. I learned alot at these tournaments and hope to implement some things into my game.
When it was time to go home we asked the casino cage to give us a check for us to take home for the winnings. Unfortunately their protocol is to wire it to us. I did not have my banking information on me so we elected to take it in cash. So here we are going home with $50,000.00 in cash. Ted was carrying it in tote bag with other things. When we got to customs we declared it because if you don't they can confiscate it. After customs we boarded our first flight to Miami. When we got to Miami we had a 1 1/2 hour lay over so we decided to go the American Express lounge. For those of you who don't know the lounge gives you free alcohol and food. The food is always very good. Ted had a few glasses of wine and seemed to be a little tipsy when we boarded our 2nd flight to Jacksonville. When we got there he told me to go get the car and he would get the luggage. When I got to the car I called him to ask if the luggage had come out yet and he sounded a little confused said he didn't see the flight at the carousel. I told him to call me when he got the luggage that I would go to the cell phone lot and wait. About 2 minutes later I get a phone call from him. " I can't find the bag" I thought he was joking because he likes to do that. But then I heard the panick in his voice. I drove to the daily lot like a bat out of hell the whole time saying out loud "THIS IS JACKSONVILLE NO ONE WILL STEAL IT!". I got to the machine at the daily lot to get the ticket. Couldn't reach the ticket and opened my car door to pull it out when my purse fell out and everything went everywhere. Needless to say I was a wreck! Ted finally called to tell me he found the bag and the money was in tact. What a welcome home fiasco!
For now its back to normal life taking care of my 98 year old mother, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 horses and 1 husband. Can't wait to get back to the tables and my next adventure.
Till next time live life to the fullest and enjoy your life!