Battle of the Season Pass III

I was back from Arizona only a few days when I had to repack my bags to head down to the Dominican Republic for the Battle of the Season Pass III. This is a WPT Boot Camp and kind of their year-end main event. Whereas most camps have up to five instructors, this one has around 20.

The idea is to have the student-instructor ratio at around 10-to-1. This allows for learning labs with a pro at each table. The pro deals hands out and the students play them as they would in a tournament. At the conclusion of each hand, the pro goes over it and how it was played. The pro discusses each hand with the players and gives advice as he/she sees fit.

This is a great learning format, as it provides the students an opportunity to ask the instructor questions. Then, the students move on to another table with another instructor. It's about as close to one-on-one as is feasible at a camp.

As I said, the camp was held in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti (the birthplace of voodoo, Papa Doc, and Jean-Robert Bellande; yikes! I'm not sure which is the scariest of these three). We were at the eastern tip of the island at the beautiful Bavaro Princess Resort.

The Bavaro Princess is an all-inclusive resort, which means leave your money at home (or save it for the casino), because most everything is free. They can do this by charging around $200 per person, leaving them a nice cushion to turn a profit. That's the case with most people; you see, this resort included alcohol in the all-inclusive package. With the likes of Gavin Smith, Hoyt Corkins, Ken Hale (my cousin), Clonie Gowen, and me, they're lucky we didn't drink them out of business!

Alcohol was free everywhere, except the casino, I should say. The geniuses running this place do the exact opposite of every American casino (and everywhere else on the planet, for that matter). Drinks are free everywhere in the resort until you step into the casino, and then they charge $7 for a premium shot! Go figure.

Besides that and the food, I loved the place. The Montezuma's revenge factor hit a few in our group, and the general quality of the food was pretty bad. They overcooked every piece of meat, and then put it in a storage bin for hours and hours.

Once, at dinner, Matt Savage ordered his steak well-done. I told him he should expect a pile of ashes to be served to him. They may have been afraid of undercooking the meat and exposing their guests to food poisoning, but I think the problem was that they were just sacrificing quality for speed with so many customers to serve. With 12 restaurants and a few snack bars, you'd think they could solve this problem.

It's up for debate as to where this event will be held next year, but I hope it stays on the island. The beaches were as nice as any I've seen (and I grew up in Hawaii for a good while), and the ocean was like bath water. We weren't all cramped in a giant hotel, either; this resort is more horizontal than vertical. The whole compound must take up more than a hundred acres.

We were situated in small two-story buildings, with eight suites per building and almost 100 buildings! In between the buildings were lush vegetation and cobblestone walkways. There were also passenger carts driving around along the paths, so you could catch a ride if your destination was too far away to walk.

The middle of the resort even had some kind of nature reserve. It was kind of a cross between a swamp and a rainforest, with a lighted bridge crossing over it. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of turtles, and all kinds of birds - tropical chickens, domestic chickens and roosters, pink flamingos, storks, geese, and all types of ducks.

The Dominicans are great at preserving nature while allowing tourists to enjoy it. Another example of this is a nightclub that's aptly called "The Cave." It is situated literally in a series of caves! Imagine a mini Carlsbad Caverns, except with a dance floor in the main cavern with six vents blowing air from the outside onto the gyrating bodies inside.

We arrived at around 11:30 p.m. and were the only ones there. We explored our way to the rear caverns, and discovered that this place is so big that they had a separate techno club at the other end of the caves. By the time we got back to the main area, the place was packed.

When we went to get drinks, we found that the bar wouldn't accept cash, only chips that we had to buy at a cashier. Tournament director Matt Savage collected money and purchased about 40 of these chips for us. He went to the bar to get us some drinks, and was paying like seven chips. I came up behind him and told him not to play so tight. "Move all in," I told him, and he did. We got several bottles of Grey Goose and some local rum. It was a great time at the coolest club I've ever visited.

As I said, I hope the event stays here, or at least close to it. The director, Ron, says that it's likely to stay in the D.R., but at a more upscale resort. Yes! (Oh, D.R. is short for Dominican Republic, or as Matt Savage interpreted it, Diarrhea Run!) I hope to see you there next year.