West Michigan Poker

Westgate does have a Charity for this week (Jan 8th-11th) .. 2pm open .. cash and tournaments Mon-Wed with RxRxR on Thursday at 2pm. WG is under a new Supplier 'name' but pretty much all the staff is the same. So Fast Jacksons is no longer the Supplier using the WG location.

Rumblings that a new room may open by the middle of March .. more to come if and when things firm up. Not sure hours or dates yet, but this is the most solid lead on a new poker 'situation' in Charity Poker since coming out of CV. And no .. from my understanding it's not Fast Jacksons opening a new Location.

I've gotten zero reports of issues with Poker Rewards at Gun Lake. So it appears that their IT folks came through for 'us' on this project that was really 7-8 months in the making. You still earn $2/hour of Poker Rewards (not Reward Dollars anymore) and all your unused RD from 2023 should've been converted into PR.

FK NYE $500 was 'decent' at over 200 .. the next one will be in March. (Too bad the 1st was Mon and not Sun) GL

Westgate 'Triple Round' is tonight! Call/Text to be on the list .. 616-913-8900 .. starts at 2pm and usually 2 tables by 330 if not earlier.

The Rumblings are becoming more clear .. King's Room will start to operate out of Fred's Italian Eatery at Plainfield and 4 Mile once the Location is approved and Charities get converted over to that Location. No firm date is set, but everyone involved would like to see it done by the middle of March. Tentatively they will open by 11am and run cash games until the games die out .. probably no later than 9pm. It looks like Tuesday to Friday right now. IMO with the NL games not taking off during the day it makes a lot of sense for them to move the 'day games' to an alternate Location and then go back to their normal start time of 3-330pm for the NL crowd that's just getting out of work or waking up! NO MORE BREAK to get in the way. What games? Whatever you want of course ..

FKeepers is running Mon-Thur $500 HH from 10am-3am. Pretty sure they don't roll over anymore .. so it's just surviving 'your' hour with a qualifying HH. GL

PLO tournament today at Northway in Muskegon. 3pm .. $40 rebuy .. Cash may start as early as 130-2pm also

King's still looking at March 5th to launch poker at Fred's Italian Restaurant on Plainfield near 4 mile. Licenses at Bar Down have already been adjusted for March 7th to go back to just 1 charity per day at that Location .. probably opening by 330pm .. NOT 11am.

Heard WGATE $125 broke 80 entries.. well done!

Sat 11am PLO at GLAKE hitting it's stride also. GL

King's Room still working on their Charities going into March. Still looking towards a 11am Tuesday March 5th start date at Fred's. So there's at least two more weeks, including this week, where King's on Division will have a 'Day' Charity. They are also working on getting the 'Night' Charities licenses adjusted for a 3pm opening starting on Thursday March 7th.

Westgate RxRxR will go off today at 2pm .. usually two tables by 245 with one table breaking by 8pm and the other table going to ??

Gun Lake has been getting the Saturday 11am PLO game going every week. This game is a 200-1K BI. The 1st nine Players spots are held from the previous week and then you can contact Gun Lake Poker Room using normal sign up methods to get into the 10th spot and beyond.

MONDAY $1000 High Hands at FKeepers .. 10am to 8pm with rollovers/sudden payment if needed. The 'regular' HH weekday Promo doesn't have rollovers or a final payout if not hit during the current period.

Start looking at tournaments .. There's events/series at Horseshoe coming up and probably Toledo as well. Never too early to start thinking about May MSPT. Football is over! Time to start working on your 'serious' poker game. GL

GLake is cracking down on both large bags and 'wearing' hoods, so be prepared to get talked to or having to go back to your car potentially. The hoodie issue came up a few weeks ago when a Player left the poker area to go to the bathroom and was stopped by security. Instead of just (smiling) and complying this Player made an issue out of it, even insisting that the SG take it 'up stairs' for an official 'ruling'. Well, of course it came back a hard line on 'no hoods'. Poker Room management then got involved and it was determined that hoods were 'mostly' OK in the poker area. Well, of course, Security and Compliance (with egg on their face) took it to their 'up stairs' and it came back a hard line for the whole casino. How bags got tied to I don't know .. other than some poker Players do bring in their lap tops (or food) in a large bag. As with most things, this will cool out eventually. TBC, the rules on this have always been there but have just been loosely enforced, especially when it came to poker.

No more daytime games at King's on Division .. and the night Charities are still working on getting their opening time moved up to 3pm. So it's just Thur-Sun at 6pm for now. Charities for the daytime game at Fred's are still working on securing their licenses. The MGCB doesn't like to move fast AND they don't like to make changes to something they've already completed .. so asking them to make 'a lot' of changes quickly probably hasn't been well received.

Firekeepers has their $450 BIG Black Chip Bounty this Saturday at Noon .. 30k chips, 30 min levels. The Crazy Pineapple Tournament will be moved back to 2pm that day. They are also trying to promote early morning play Fri-Sun with three $200 'Hot Seat' Drawings 930-1130.

Westgate Thursday RxRxR is still chugging along .. 2 tables .. $3 rake .. runs 2pm to 10pm or later .. GL

PS .. Folks .. it's OK to hold your ground on something, but please pick your battles and realize who your going up against .. and whom else you will be affecting by your stance.

Leap Day has allowed for a 'bonus' day of RxRxR at Westgate today .. 2pm, usually two tables until 8-9pm and then ends at ??

Looks like King's will be able to open 'early' next week .. March 7th. I think this is a 330pm start .. will try to get more information to lock that in.

WGate shows no Charity for March 11-14th as of yet .. not a huge concern, but it's getting tight.

GLake has a couple Royals pretty high .. Clubs is over $9k!

High hands today at FKeepers .. $366 every 30 minutes .. 10am-8pm .. AND $1K High Hands tomorrow, March 1st .. same time frame .. GL

Fred's .. King's North .. whatever you want to call it, did get rolling yesterday with a short-handed RxR game that did fill up and made it past 830pm. My guess is that there were 20-25 Players who filtered through the room as various times. With only 3-5 Players showing up the 6pm tournament didn't get going. For getting their license approval from the State less than 24 hours before opening I think went pretty darn good. The Charity was happy, Fred's staff was happy and the Players took in the experience of being there on Day 1.

Currently Fred's is opening at 1pm on Tue/Wed and Noon on Thur/Fri with a 6pm tournament. The hours will evolve as demand picks up. IMO they will eventually get to a 11am opening for at least Thur/Fri as the word spreads and Players actually experience the room. It's probably best to open at the same time each day so Players don't have to figure that out.

The room 'should' be easy to find, but Plainfield and 4 mile is a busy intersection so your eye is looking at a lot of things the first time you come visit. There's parking on all sides of the building but the entrance is on the left side of the front.

The food is very good. The beer is VERY cold. And pricing was well received. There's a 'Poker Room' menu and a staff member is in the room pretty much all the time. If you arrive early (or have to wait for a seat) you can certainly take advantage of the full menu on the restaurant side. There is no lacking of sauce on most of these dishes .. I will find it very hard to believe that you will be disappointed with the food and drink at this location.

Fred's has it's own phone number .. 616-370-5158

The address is 3619 Plainfield NE .. it's on the NE corner of Plainfield and 4 Mile .. across from both CVS and Walgreens .. and a Chase Bank branch!

King's Room is working on a 'state approved' website where you will be able to put your own name on the waitlist as well as other features. They hope to launch this feature very soon. I assume it will be active for both locations. This will be a ground breaking feature for a Charity Poker Room.

To be clear .. I'm not 'pro' any one room. I'm posting relevant information about the WM poker scene. I play all the rooms. Each room has it's own plus/minus features based on your own poker needs. It's great to have options .. Thursday will now have 5 options for your poker 'needs', including Muskegon. Gun Lake still had it's Tuesday PLO table yesterday .. Westgate still had cash and tournament.

Today is Wed .. Fred's at 1pm .. WGate at 2pm and GLake has High Hands from 10am to 6pm .. enjoy .. GL

"To be clear .. I'm not 'pro' any one room."

Apparently there was a bit of mud being tossed around on Facebook yesterday. I don't get pushes from FB so I didn't see any of them before they were deleted by the chat room admin.

Passion is good .. Loyalty is good .. Preference is our choice .. Influencing others is 'human' .. Reacting without all the information is 'normal' ..

I just want to play, and the more choices I have to fit games into my schedule the better. I hear/see a lot of the dust and I tend to deal with it in my own way, trying to separate what is personal and what actually affects the state of poker in general, the Dealers, the Players .. and even the Locations.

I posted yesterday on FB that there's about 14 places to get a burger on Alpine .. now we have more choices in poker too .. OMG.

I don't seem to remember anyone having issues with overlaps 'back in the day' .. Woody's, TJ's, WGate, Eastbrook, Gippers, Lincoln .. there were certainly less home games at least to my knowledge.

I try to stick to the facts. I try to look at both sides. I try to remain neutral. I am more than willing to discuss issues with both sides .. and I encourage everyone else to do so as well. GL

Soaring Eagle has announced their return to tournament poker .. 'Last Saturday' $300 for the next 4 months, starting March 30th. There's a couple pages of information in the Detroit Thread as I'm not versed on how to post a pic here! GL

Fred's is adjusting the hours to opening at Noon each day .. Tue to Fri .. starting next week. The long term goal is to open at 11am each day as the games grow. There will also be a push for 6pm tournaments to get going with information on that evolving.

Westgate RxRxR still going each week even with a few Regs not in attendance. Two tables .. $3 rake.

In general I think 2024 cash poker is a bit slower than 2023, but there are more options as well .. so that may be a factor. We are now entering tournament season as MSPT Sattys will run at FKeepers on Saturdays starting this weekend. I'm not hearing much about the nightly tournaments being down, but there are more options on those as well .. with especially the Wed pm at GLake gaining attention with Players moving from HH cash to tournament seats after 6pm. GL

OK .. not sure how this got by me .. But FKeepers held their 5th Sunday $500 a week early (Spring Forward Edition) due to Easter coming this weekend. There were 268 entries with the money hitting around 8pm and a 3-way chop past Midnight for about $18K each .. which was more than 2nd place money would've been otherwise. Not sure what you'll find on Easter .. probably a $200 event.

For those of you who might be interested in seeing some PLO tournament play there have been some opportunities on YouTube via PokerGo last week and probably more this week as well. They are holding a PGT (PokerGo Tour) PLO Series of all PLO events. It's very interesting to see the equity of hands that may appear to be junky without consideration of how they interact with the Board. There are A LOT a spots in PLO where you have 'nothing' but are a favorite to win the hand once the Board is complete. Last night a Player won when pocket 4s held up when both Players went all-in on the Flop!

Today's action is at Westgate .. good 'ole $50-500 NL 2-card with a tournament at 7pm. GL

Just figured out why they call the $265 Satty a 'Milestone' event now. So when you hit 80K in chips during a $265 Satty you will 'instantly' win your ME seat and be allowed to leave the tournament.

What an innovative way to reduce/eliminate Players from sitting on their hands with a big stack waiting around for the 20% bubble to hit. GL

Per a FB post .. The Fred's location of King's Room will no longer try to host games.

The WGate RxRxR on Thursday had a whopper of a week after a bit of a Spring Break slow down for a few weeks .. selling out of chips by 8pm after starting 2 tables by 220pm. This format continues to draw the attention of a few newbies each week to go with the Regs.

MSPT at FK is 5 weeks out .. The Sattys have been going very well on Saturdays and will run daily starting May 11th.

GLake continues to boom on Wed and Sat with HH/Tournaments. Both the Tues/Sat 11am PLO games have been running well also. Sat is a bigger buy-in .. $200-1k. A few attempts at getting a RxR mixed table going have struggled, but still getting a look from a few curious Players.

For those that travel a bit in the region .. Rivers on the west side of Chicago continues to thrive basically 24 hours a day. Poto in Milwaukee is slated to reopen their poker for the 1st time since Covid in May. And Wind Creek, a new casino brand for our region, is still scheduled to open in July and is expecting to operate a fairly large poker room along the southern I-294 bypass. There was also an expectation that Bally's will have a poker room when they complete their permanent location in 'downtown' Chicago .. not sure the timeline on that. The temporary location has limited gaming options.

Lots of options .. we'll see who survives and who services the best. Competition is good, but it also dilutes the Player Pool. Poker needs an influx of new Players and, at least in Michigan, potential Players are being distracted by online offerings of casino, sports betting and poker. GL

FYI the RxR mixed game is (5-10 limit Omaha H/L)x(2-10 spread limit 7-card stud H/L).
It runs every Sunday starting at Noon. (so more than a few attempts.)
On April 7 we had a full table of 9 and had a short waiting list. It was still a full table when I left at 6pm.
Today April 14 we only garnered 8 players and broke early at 4:30pm.

Road trip? The Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee will reopen their Poker Room next Thursday, May 2nd, at Noon. There will be 3 'Vegas' celebrities on site for a 'meet up' game at that time. Jamie Kerstetter (from Mich, now Vegas, PokerGo/WSOP commentator), the always controversial Matt Berkey and Jamin Stokes (2023 Vlogger of the year) will be rotating around the tables once play begins.

King's Room has been hopin' Fri-Sun for sure and Thursday as well .. "back to normal"

Westgate RxRxR will kick off today at 2pm. Last week there were two tables very quickly with lots of chips flying. Pretty sure at least one table made it past 10pm.

Both GLake and FKeepers are hosting High Hand events this Friday, tomorrow, along with their normal slate of HH events. Check Bravo for full details.

MSPT at FK is getting closer .. Saturday Sattys every week have been seeing good attendance.

GL

Who is Jamin Stokes?

Do you mean vlogger of the year Jaman Burton?

Yes .. still mix them up when I'm rushing. Stokes is a local player. GL

Jaman is a nice guy.

Word from Detroit .. Greentown is ending poker in June sometime. Not a shocker. GL

Looks like Greektown may close as early as June 2nd.

Lots of WMi cashes at FK during the MSPT with Mark Stump following up his Final Table run from Oct with a top 20 finish. Another 'mainly' WSOPc Player had a good showing and is now off to LA to play in the WSOPc TOC $1M Freeroll this week .. hopefully the run good continues. While you never know how many bullets some Players may have fired or if they gained entry via a Satty, it's still nice to see some cashes instead of those funds flowing other directions.

Gun Lake will have HH poker all weekend .. Sat (normal $500 6pm-2am), Sun ($300 11am-Midnight) and Mon ($500 10am-6pm)

FKeepers will have $1K HH and $500 Hot Seats on Monday 10am to 9pm

Westgate RxRxR is still a hit .. Is there a better place to start your holiday weekend than with $3 rake and a different format?

WSOP starting next Tuesday .. good luck to all that plan on taking a trip in the next 7 weeks .. GL

This Thread almost slipped into a dark abyss ..

1) Greektown did close .. Now Motor City is closing also the morning of Aug 5th at 6am. You may want to consider heading that way as there at least 70k in the Poker Promo Funds and they have to give it away in some fashion before they close.

2) WGate triple-round is back today after two weeks off. It's still been decent but the second table hasn't been going as long as Spring. Usually the game does go past 10pm or later.

3) Very good showing at the WSOP this year, especially the ME where 6-7 local Players cashed for $15-40k. The Live portion of the series is over with a Turbo yesterday but there are a couple of online events coming up. REMEMBER you can play for an official WSOP Bracelet and remain here in MI now that the Player pools have been combined.

4) FKeepers has eliminated the ability for Patrons to earn entry into the Aroura Lounge via playing poker. This went into affect July 1st. While it probably doesn't affect too many Players it has already changed some of the habits of a few Players that would go there 2-4 times a week. It's also a trend that continues to ripple across many casinos who are making Player Points less valuable unless you use them for free bets. One Player commented that it cost you double the amount of Player Points when using them on food at some Las Vegas casinos.

5) If you're not a member already .. consider joining the West Michigan Poker Facebook page. It's a private page with a bit more interaction than there is here. Only members of the Page can see you comments .. they don't show on your normal FB timeline.

6) Pretty quiet, but also still pretty busy at King's Room. Pretty standard to sell out of chips on both Friday and Saturday with at least one very active cash table and 3-4 table tournaments.

Just a bump .. this was way down my 'timeline' here .. GL

Last days for Motor City .. Unless the BBJs hit before Friday morning there will be lots of cash flying around for High Hands The BBJs will cease and there will be no more Promo drop starting Friday morning until the closure around 6am Monday.

WGate 1st Thursday 125 is this week with Aug 1st coming around quickly after the delayed tournament in July.

Kings Room staying steady with 1-2 cash games and various tournaments.

No word from Muskegon lately .. the PLO Players have gone private for the most part. We'll see how that goes once Fall/Winter come around.

Keepers is having 1500 HH on Wednesdays in Aug to celebrate their anniversary .. like usual.

You really need to stay in touch with Bravo to know what GLake is doing week to week with HH. Wed/Sat are steady, but there have been quite a few other HH promos in the last month or so. GL

Is there a casino in Muskegon? Im always looking for new places to play some PLO.

Northway Lanes (just off 31) hosts Charity Poker Thur-Sun. I don't know the exact hours but the Supplier does lurk here and may post what the current offerings may be.

Usually a low buy-in tournament each day with 1-3 tables. Cash games can be sporadic with no cash at the start of the tournament, but starting up again once Players start to bust. As I indicated above, a fairly steady 2-3 day PLO game may have turned into a Home Game due to the 20k cap on chip sales.

Northway also hosts at least one higher BI tournament a month, but I don't know when it is .. usually a Sunday. GL