The Card Player Poker Tour (CPPT) has wrapped up another successful Caribbean poker cruise. It was the fifth time that CPPT teamed up with Card Player Cruises for the seven-night Western Caribbean cruise, giving players a chance to not only enjoy some exotic scenery, but to also participate in a little poker action. The cruise took passengers on a tour of spots such as Nassau in the Bahamas, Mexico’s Cozumel and Roatan Island in Honduras, among others, but the biggest highlight of the cruise was the tournament with a $25,000 guaranteed prize pool.
The field for the $450 buy-in event grew to 116 players, causing the prize pool to swell to a whopping $45,008. By the time it was over, Mark Stephen Edwards was awarded the tournament trophy and the top prize of $8,027. He won the title after a four-way chop with finalists Jim Meeks, Karina Jett and Jim Welsh, who also split the remainder of the prize pool.
Edwards has earned almost $600,000 in live poker action. He owns three WSOP Circuit rings and, prior to his Card Player Cruises win, picked up $13,632 for his first-place finish at the $400 NLHE Double Stack Turbo event in the WSOP Circuit at the Seminole Casino in Coconut Creek, Florida. Edwards’s largest pot to date was $107,730, which he won when he took down a WPT Regional event in Jacksonville, Florida in 2012.
This cruise was just one of several on tap for Card Player Cruises this year. On November 5, it will set sail on board Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas for a six-night Cuba cruise and poker tournament. Following that, a 14-night New Zealand Cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas will make a journey around Australia and New Zealand.
The CPPT has been staying active, running tournaments on both coasts, as well as on open waters. It is in Florida at Saint Petersburg’s Derby Lane for a festival that will run through October 7 and dropped in on the Bicycle Hotel & Casino in California for the Big Poker Oktober festival. That series will run until October 21.
