OK .. Need to use your whole brain for this one ...


1) Gun Lake stopped awarding REWARD DOLLARS for Slot and Pit play some time ago .. and didn't really tell anyone 'officially' unless they asked.
2) Gun Lake has mailed out flyers indicating that any remaining REWARD DOLLARS will need to be used by January 1st.

3) HOWEVER .. The Poker Room has been and will continue to 'award' $2/hour comp going forward.
4) Via Gun Lake internal Memo .. Any REWARD DOLLARS/comps earned in the Poker Room WILL NOT expire and WILL carry forward beyond Jan 1st.

5) It remains to be seen if they will rename or rework the kiosk screen after Jan 1 to show 'Poker Dollars' instead of Reward Dollars.
6) All Patrons have been and will continue to receive TIER CREDIT POINTS for slot/pit play. These points do not currently expire as long as you 'play' once every 6 months or one year (not sure).

7) In lieu of the expiring RD 'they' are promising more personalized comps and offers .. which I assume will have expiration dates on them to force you to come into the casino.

What you should do ..

A) Check your Reward Dollar balance ASAP .. especially if your balance includes both poker and 'floor' experiences.
B) Text yourself or track somehow each time you use Reward Dollars until Jan 1st to make sure that you either use up the whole 'today' balance by then or you know how much you should have beyond Jan 1st (just in case the IT folks don't know as much as they think they know).

C) Perhaps 'rush' in there and gobble up any merch you may want before there's a mad rush on the store and your size and/or preferred styles are long gone!

While I don't like the fact that they just stopped awarding RD without telling most patrons .. forcing them to go to the Rewards Desk and deal with those folks .. I do trust that they have a much better handle on their intentions than they did this Summer when all of this started to leak into the public. GL

no way to look up your current Reward Dollars online, is there?

Reward Dollars are no longer available on the App. I'm not sure if you can call the Rewards Desk and get the info from them.

I only trust the kiosk and what the cashiers tell you when you make a purchase .. sorry.

GL

I noticed GL has been running 1/3 with bomb pots. Hopefully the increase in stakes from 1/2 to 1/3 catches on.

Higher stakes doesn't mean more action.. Slightly higher 'allowed' buy-ins, yes.

What are your top 3 supporting points? I like these discussions.. GL

Just from what I've observed across the US: sure 1/2 can have just as much "action" with loose calls but 1/3 has larger pfr size, still tends to have loose play, and more pots above the $50 rake trap threshold.
Plus 1/3 can make omc blinds-nits uncomfortable and less likely to join. They can stay in their 1/2 games...

This most likely will be the last week of poker at Westgate this year .. and perhaps even a few weeks into January. I was told that there was a charity issue in December and that January license approvals were pending. There is also plenty of 'dust' out there that there will be another Supplier transition at this Location. No matter the issue(s), you will need to make sure that they are open before you go there .. AFTER this week. With Christmas and NY on Mondays it may have been difficult to lock in a Charity .. I've seen both 'dead' and overwhelming poker being played around holidays. Some Players use their time off work to play more as well as potentially drive farther down the road .. so you never know what the Player pool has in mind.

The licensing process at MGCB is deliberate, some would say down right cumbersome, so the ability to rework a Supplier/Location calendar is nearly impossible in an 'emergency' situation. In favor of the Dealers who may be caught up in the middle of these internal and external 'administration' issues you may want to consider and extra day to play or perhaps extend your normal session this week at WGate.

Remember .. if you played slots or table games at Gun Lake you 'should be' losing your Rewards Dollars on January 2nd. You 'should not' lose any RD earned playing poker per both Poker staff and an email sent to Poker Management. No matter what day you think may be your last at Gun Lake in 2023 make sure to check AT THE KIOSK for your balance just in case there's an IT issue on January 2nd.

Gun Lake will continue the Wed 'day' and Sat 'night' High Hands in December .. $500/hour.

Looks at is FKeepers has backed off the Promo blitz in December with only Dec 16th and Dec 30th as $1000 High Hands form Noon to 1am.

The only 'really' high Royal is at GLake with the Spade being over $7K. All the other Royals at both GL and FK are 3K or less. GL

Westgate Charities have secured licenses for the 1st and 3rd-5th week of January. Only Tuesday to Thursday (2nd-4th) in the 1st week .. and I'm assuming the 4th will be the $125 First Thursday Tournament.

Remember to either use or take a look at your Reward Dollar balance at Gun Lake before the end of December. Those RD are supposed to roll over for each RD earned in the Poker Room.,

Gun Lake has continued to ride the Wed 'day' and Sat 'night' High Hand train .. check Bravo for info .. Spade Royal was creeping up there!

FKeepers has BIG New Year's Plans .. Sat 30th will be $1000 High from Noon to 10pm and the 5th Sunday $500 on the 31st. It will be very interesting to see the turnout for this one .. run deep, miss party? At least you'll have one last score for the year?

King's has been doing really well after 6pm .. could still use some interest Sat/Sun during the day. Thu/Fri 'day' has been either straight PLO RxR with a NL game starting between 2-3pm.

I've been posting a lot on Facebook under the West Michigan Poker Group. It's a private group, which means that only Group members can see the posts .. so they don't show up on your normal timeline. I like this since I don't want poker all over my timeline. I had also joined the Team Michigan Poker Group, but they are a public Group, so I only read .. no posting.

I know there's a few who lurk here, but between here, FB and X that's a lot of 'typing' .. GL

Latest from Gun Lake .. Per Management ..

A) Reward Dollars for the whole casino will expire by Jan 2nd at 3am (close of Jan 1st business day)
B) Balances for all Patrons will drop out of the system (most likely)

C) IT has committed to help restore all unused RD earned in the Poker Room as quickly as they can .. possibly up to a week
D) Based on your interest .. check your balance at a kiosk one more time before Tuesday

GL

this is helpful -- thank you

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.