West Michigan Poker
Interested in getting people perspective as to the live play in and around the Grand Rapids area.
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 Po
I've only been able to play once at gun lake in last few months so haven't been by firekeepers yet since April . If we earned status at Firekeepers Jan-june, do we still get access to the Aurora Lounge for the rest of the year still or did they get rid of that with the new change?
I'm not sure if it was a hard deadline of July 1st or not. LOTS of Players have stopped going and I imagine that they would still be going there if they were still getting the 'free' food. But on the other hand why wait to 'protest' the change.
FK did have a tremendous turnout for Labor Day .. full house with 50+ on the list for their 30 min 1k HH promo. GLake on the other hand didn't have Players nor Dealers from what I was told on Labor Day.
WGate $125 tournament is tomorrow!! Call the room to sign up for the first 60-70 spots. Triple-round will return next week.
Too busy to go to King's the last couple of weeks, but they are still having 3-4 table tournaments and 1-3 cash tables.
Summer's over, and with that comes football .. and generally an up tick in poker. FK will start Sattys for the October MSPT event this weekend. A local Player held the Day 2 chip lead for a bit before bowing out in 19th in the East Chicago tournament over Labor Day.
Remember only MGM remains for casino poker in Detroit. There's rumors they will move the room back upstairs so they can add table.
SEagle action has been good also this Summer .. and only gets better in the Fall. HH and match stack NL games with some PLO mixed in. GL
If we earned status at Firekeepers Jan-june, do we still get access to the Aurora Lounge for the rest of the year still or did they get rid of that with the new change?
I heard some players say they were still allowed in Aurora until years end as long as they qualified in Jan-June but you can't earn tier points playing poker anymore.
The room is not very busy most weekdays partly bc the $500 HH's were discontinued in favor of the weekly $1,000 HHs. It leads to "feast or famine" attendance, maybe by design?
I hit the Western Michigan charity room trifecta yesterday. That would be Westgate, Kings and Muskegon – all new rooms for me.
Got to Westgate (which is located inside a bowling alley on the north side of GR) around 2:30. There was 1 cash game going – RxRxR – which turned out to be rounds of ‘1/2 NLHE, 1/2/5 PLO and $5 Bomb pots. Was third on wait list and we stared a second table 4 handed about 20 minutes later. Played 4 or 5 handed for an hour and left down $38. Dealers were good. Lots of action.
Drove to Kings on the south side. It is attached to a bar in a small shopping center. Nothing going when I arrived a little after 4 but 3 waiting. Another guy showed up in about 15 minutes and we started‘1/2 NL 5 handed. Played 4 or 5 handed til about 5:15 when the game filled up all at once. Left around 5:45 up $25. John the manager/dealer was great. There was a lot of conversation about how bad it was to play on Friday nights. Evidently lots of drunks and noise.
Headed for dinner at Dr Rolfs BBQ in downtown Muskegon. Decent pulled pork and brisket.
Got to the Muskegon room (which is also inside a bowling alley) about 7:45. Parking lot was jammed as were the lanes – league night I suppose. Poker room was in a room off to the side and not particularly noisy. They had a 3 table NLHE tournament going – had started at 6 pm. Per the manager you could buyin for any amount from $30 to $110 and get 10,000 chips for each $10. So 30,000 to 110,000 starting chips. Have not seen that before.
Settled down to wait hopefully for a cash game to start after enough bustouts. Got a 4 handed game going about 9:30. Got to 5 handed once before I left down $35 at 10:30 for the 2 hour drive home. Nice group of players. Good dealer.
Thursday was probably not the best day for action anywhere however it is the only day when all 3 rooms are open.
You're a Trooper! Don't think I've ever waited to play poker unless I was eating or something else. But I have been very lucky to set up my poker schedule to arrive before the rush .. and I'll play any game, so that helps get the session rolling at casinos.
'Steady as she goes' for Charity poker lately .. no real unusual news coming my way.
PLO has pretty much gone private except for the RxRxR at Westgate on Thursdays (except 1st Thursdays). FK still gets some going on Thursday and Saturday PM and maybe another pop up table.
Don't forget to start planning for MSPT October at FK. Sattys have already started on Saturdays and run straight through Oct 4th-11th with the ME Oct 10-13th .. $1110 direct. NEW FEATURE .. Two Sattys on Thur and Fri (115pm and 615pm).
ALSO .. FK has teamed up with the WPT to run Sattys for the December 'World Championship' at the Wynn. What a great opportunity to possibly play along side some 'known' names in poker .. AND if you run well possibly turn as little as $140 into a min cash of $15k or more! Nothing wrong with Vegas in December either!
WSOPc has a 'Regional' event in each Sept-Oct-Nov. Check wsop.com if you want to grind some tournaments .. including at the Horseshoe in Indiana starting tomorrow.
With football and Fall in the air poker usually has an uptick .. GL
Well I was in Muskegon on what was most likely a onetime trip and didn’t see any point in leaving without playing.
Agree on having to be flexible with game choices – only games going on my recent trip to Kentucky were a 10/20 Omaha 8 or Better in one place and a 1-2-5 PLO with a $10 mandatory button straddle in a second place.
Hit some charity rooms around Detroit on Saturday. Have seen some other comments on Detroit area in this thread so will go ahead and post this. Sorry about the formatting – tried to copy headings from excel and then add comments in Word. Can’t seem to fix the formatting.
Trip to Detroit Suburban Charity Rooms
Sept 14, 2024
THOMPSON POKER ROOM
100 ECORSE RD
YPSILANTI
AMER LEGION POST 282
Poker Atlas showed it opening at 11 am. Got there around 11:20 and no one there and place locked up tight. No notice posted. Need to call first next time
LANGAN'S ALL STAR PR
257 LADD RD
WALLED LAKE
ALL STAR LANES
Not in separate room – on floor of bowling alley. 8 handed game going and seat open when I got there. ‘1/2 Pretty good action. Good dealer Lost 63
ONE EYED JACKS PR
48922 VAN DYKE AVE
SHELBY TOWNSHIP
BAR
AKA Rounders – located in “gaming center” in shopping center. Tourney finishing and 2 cash tables going when I arrived. One table broke and most left. Was 2nd on list – got seat after 20 or so min. ½. Lost couple of draw outs Lost 91. Decent ambience. Good Dealers
Dinner at Big Bad Brad’s –food was not to bad but plastic decor. there was $4 upcharge for brisket – not a fan of that
DICICCO'S PR
52963 VAN DYKE
SHELBY TOWNSHIP
POKER LOUNGE
PA said opens at 5:00. Got there at 4:45 Nice room on second floor of office building. ‘2/5 Game scheduled for 6:30 but list was full according to manager. Said crazy pineapple tourney scheduled for 7:30. Couldn’t wait that long so moved on.
WATERFORD CR @ 300 BOWL
100 S CASS LAKE RD
WATERFORD
BOWLING ALLEY
In separate room attached to bowling alley. Full ‘1/2 Game going about 5:30 and enough waiting to start new game. Horrible game – 3 players taking forever – one guy took over 5 minutes debating whether to call $80 reraise. Dealer finally called clock on him – he ended up folded. Got me tilted so I left after 2 orbits – down $39. Just stupid.
LEGENDS POKER PLACE
3546 S LAPEER RD
METAMORA
Freestanding room out in the boonies. Google routed me down some dirt roads and then put me across the street from the building. Had a big tourney going and manager said there wouldn’t be a cash game til 9 or so. I went on to the next room which was about 25 minutes away.
Came back about 9:15 and there were 4 waiting for cash. Jumped in and we started up ‘1/2. Filled quickly. Most people knew each other. Friendly game. Good Dealers. Nice vibe. Got rivered twice and left down $78.
This was poker room number 595 for me.
Left at 11 for 3 hour drive home
BURTON EAGLES POKER ROOM
3317 E BRISTOL RD
BURTON
EAGLES CLUB
In back hall of a rundown club also out in the boonies. Had 1 table of ‘1/2 going 10 handed and I was first on list. Got in after about ‘1/2 hour. Won a decent sized pot and lost a few – lots of action.
They played $5 NL double board bomb pots seemingly randomly. Guy sat down with $200 buyin right as they called one. Kept asking questions and really didn’t seem to know what was going on. Ended up 4 way all in (including him) So about $1k pot and he had only flopped second pair on top – no real draws. One of the craziest hands I have ever seen, Winner had A3 spades for flush on top and a chop on bottom.
Then it got really nuts as the $200 loser raised randomly trying to get his money back. It was time for me to leave to get back to Legends so I left down $20.
Interestingly at Legends they announced that starting next week they were going to stop dealing bomb pots on the weekends because so many players were busting out on them that they could not keep the cash game going for more than an hour or so. They will be allowed on Thursdays when per the dealer everybody brings $1-2k
Westgate RxRxR today ..
FK $500 on Sunday
WSOPc ME starting today? Day 2 is Sunday .. $1700
Cash at King's is bonkers most nights
Muskegon tournament still going .. cash is a bit of a struggle lately but still can go before and after the tournament busts start.
GLake HH was super slow yesterday but still going .. GL
As the weather cools the poker traffic has picked up .. football too!
GLake is winding down the current 'Made Hand' promo and will try to launch new promos early November. Look for more HH opportunities but I'm told that the Royal Bonuses will remain.
As was anticipated when the HH madness started .. Rooms are doing whatever they think they need to do to generate traffic, and that means promos. Didn't work at Motor City, but they had competition 2 blocks away. 'Businesses' are constantly looking for ways to increase profits and that can also happen when cuts are made in the most inefficient areas.
PLO has run during the day on Wed at GLake the last 3 weeks .. we'll see if this can keep going. It's nice to see that game at that location once again. MGM usually has 2-3 tables going by Noon and runs 7 days a week. Rivers in Chicago is another high volume PLO room. Even Poto in Milwaukee has more games than GLake. Sure, large cities ..
WMich did have a some very good showings during the MSPT event at FKeepers. GL
what is going on at FireKeepers today??? they have 20+ tables this afternoon
debating on playing GL tomorrow or if Firekeepers is busy AF, i'll head there instead
There was a high hand promo, which was $250 every 15 minutes. They have been doing promos 2-4 times per month, with about $1000 given each hour. In dedicating more funds to HH, the bad beat is fixed at $7500 now. Seems like the High Hand really packs the room every time.
Been a minute .. or five .. Poker seems pretty strong in WM this winter .. odds and ends .. I'll try to keep things short so you keep reading!
1) Westgate's Thursday 'triple round' is still going fairly strong. Two strong tables for sure from 3-7. They are moving the RxRxR to Wed the week that the 1st Thursday $125 takes place, so plan accordingly.
2) A bit of speculation as to how fast, and where, poker will end up at Gun Lake. One extreme thought is that they will/need to temporarily suspend poker until a new location is created .. probably down by the current valet. Valet is moving to the hotel side and there's even talk of closing off the current entrance to only casino staff. IMO they could 'easily' put poker back in the 'now available' old high stakes room (last poker room) and provide a little privacy again. They are having both a Floor and Dealer meeting on January 20th so we'll see how fast the information leaks out from that.
3) PLO is back! Wed/Sat day games at GL, even some Sun/Fri too.
4) King's Room cash games are going strong. Tournaments are maybe one table shy of 'normal' but chip sales are still very high!
5) Use the Bravo App to check for Promos at GL and FK. GL has reduced their 'Made Hand' promo in lieu of more HH offerings on various days of the week. Rollovers or not, make sure you know what's going on as they change for each event.
Seems like there should be more to comment .. but if you have FBook you can join the private West Michigan Poker group and see some comments there too.
