November 1st

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November 1st, Auckland
8:30pm
Last full day in Auckland today, which is sad because I won’t get to see much of it during the contract because it is our embark day so I will only have a few hours off to sight see and grocery shop.
I made a stop at Esquires again this morning for breakie and internet (I rhyme!) for an hour or so, and then wandered around the waterfront for a bit. I came back to the hotel and packed up a little bit in preparation for signing on tomorrow.
I then headed back out to the casino as there was another poker tournament at sky city. There were about 45 players today and I decided to play a little differently today. I played a big first hand and missed the nut flush draw and lost half my stack, oh boy! I grinded for three hours, surviving two all ins and made it down to the last 12, but I was short stacked and only had 5 times the big blind. I survived another all in when I hit a 5 on the river to make a wheel straight which gave me one more life. That next life came two hands later as I had A 3 of spades and had to push as I only had 3 times the big blind left and again my opponent had the ladies. The flop produced another lady and I was drawing dead. So I am improving, and I think if I had another couple of cracks at it I could win one of these things, at least the little games on the ship will seem very easy now.
Lunch at burger king was uneventful, except the food is so much better down here at burger king for some reason! I spent another hour wandering around downtown, which was a little annoying because there were a whole lot of people from my favorite part of the world doing the same thing!!
I am going to spend tonight in, get a good night’s sleep because I don’t know if they will put me to work tomorrow or give me a day to settle in. The rundown is on the movie channel right now so it is movie time!!!

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