GLC continuing to impress me. Great games and have been seeing some high hitters traveling across state to play 5-10 PLO.

If you have time for a stream today on Twitch.tv at 130 EST ... JLee is at the HPT Final Table today at AmeriStar. He's 6th/9 in chips but has close to 40bb, which is plenty to play with. He had the field crushed after Day 1 and also had a pretty decent lead at least once later in Day 2 but lots of chips change hands with the HPT structure.

GLake had a short-handed 1/2 RxR last night until about 1200 and then I think there was still 4 1/2 NL going strong until I left. The have overnight $100 HH promo. The 1/2 action was pretty lame, not sure if people are just sitting on hands putting in their freeroll hours or just bad cards.

The WSOP freeroll promotion will include any Players who put in at least 200 hours by March 31. A freeroll tournament will take place on Sunday April 7th and include a $15K package for the WSOP ME in July plus I think at least $15K additional prizepool cash based on the number of entries. I didn't really see any promotional posters/flyers in the room, but I didn't look very hard either.

Made my semi-annual trip to SEagle Saturday. I was excited to see a 2/5 RxR open but it was already broke by the time we finished our dinner plans and arrived at the casino. 1/2 action was very good with some very bad (good) stack punts when Players were the PF aggressor and kept betting. I didn't really get any of those chips and one call was super light so I'm not sure I would've seen it without any history with the Player. Short session but things are 'normal' from what I could see ... average age was 45+ for sure and on a Saturday night that's not good for Poker long term. GL

Good showing by JLee, finishing 4th at the HPT yesterday ($50K?). After being pretty card dead he gained some chips when his KK held against a double Flop draw and some other well timed aggression.

I missed his bust out hand when his opponent 'trapped' with AA on A96-4-6 (?) and Justin got caught check-shoving the River with TT. Not totally sure on the full details as it was one of the first hands after a break. He was 2nd in chips at the time so his stack was deep enough to make a move I don't think he makes if he's a little shorter on the River.

This is his 2nd deep tournament run in less than a year. His 6th place at FKeepers Spring MSPT got him over $40K. Could be the start of a banner year for yet another WMich Player. GL

A note on the GL WSOP Freeroll: The word I've received is that players in the Freeroll will have options for $100 re-buys during the tournament. Up to 3 times per player. That is in part how the room is guaranteeing an additional $15K prize pool outside of the $15K WSOP package. I don't think this information is well known so far among those who are trying to make it to 200 hours of play. I'm also not 100% sure the room has settled on this aspect of the tournament. Talk to the floor if you want to know more.

I agree and have seen nittier play since the 200 hour promo began.

This seriously devalues the freeroll, obviously. I had heard you could rebuy unlimited times in the first hour, so I agree that it sounds like they are still figuring that all out.

#1 Answer20 is scared

#2 look at number 1

turtle creek closing down its poker room in march :/

How's life in the Pitts JZ?

Turtle Creek is closing poker on March 31st. They are scheduled to begin promos on March 1st to deplete the promotional fund by the end of the month. The promos 'have' to be cash game related according to who I spoke with. They are still putting details together on how this is going to happen. GL

Another good tournament run for a WMich Player. BradO finished 5th at MSPT's return to the Majestic Star in East Chicago. He was the Day 1B chip leader and came to the FT 2nd in chips. Brad plays pretty aggressive and that served him well until the player on his left stared to get hit by the deck and they ended up in a bloated pot as the big stacks. This player shoved into Brad's lead Turn bet and Brad folded away his two overs and gutter. Dropping from 2nd to 5th in chips he ultimately ended up losing when his A6 lost to a pocket pair.

The tournament drew 309 players, which is like a normal Day 1 at Keepers, but will return in August I believe. MStar's new poker manager came over from the 'shoe and is trying to build the room back up. I think it had been at least 7 or so years since MSPT had been at that venue.

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Word that FKeepers is adding a 2nd hotel tower came across the chat during the FT. Not sure what they hope to gain with that without also expanding the gaming floor as well. Perhaps they will match SEagle's lead and offer a free night per month to vets?

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I still haven't set foot in GLakes garage .. maybe this week with the weather. Stay safe as 131 can be a mess with east-west winds and drifting. GL

Well, if you brave the weather ..... you will be rewarded? Normally not the case, but the GLake BBJ hit last night at a 1/2 table. Word is that one of our favorite sushi chefs can now buy a new set of knives as his quad 9s got straight flushed to the tune of over $90k!! (40% of 228k) Bravo has not been updated as of yet with the new target, but I think it was fairly large .. maybe $40K?

I saw two 1/2 and a RxR (so no 2/5) at around 8pm ... so that is a pretty slow Monday. The table share would've been around $13k if it was full, which I assume it was. GL

Well .. about the only thing I got right about the BBJ was that it actually did hit! Per the Gun Lake Facebook pictures both the 'winning' player and hand were wrong in my other post. It's pretty sad that I didn't really recognize any of the players shown in the FB pictures either. It was hit 7-handed as well, so the table share was sweetened a bit. Reset was around $50K ... so GLake should pass FKeepers pretty fast as to who has the largest BBJ. GL

I have to imagine that it’s been a pretty slow week, I keep seeing alerts from MDOT reporting awful road conditions, on 131 especially.

Nice payouts tho

Looks like Westgate is back into the poker world!! Had to do a little checking and I stopped in since I was nearby ... The return of Lori and Brian via the Rounders Supplier license. Looks like they will run Sunday to Wednesday. 2-3 tournament tables and a cash game going on a Monday was pretty good I think after what they described as a rough start due to a charity issue and the weather.

Originally I had thought that King's had started up there as a 2nd location, but then I saw that there was a Sunday overlap which really didn't make sense. Certainly more convenient for me on the north side of GR during the week ... I failed to ask if they were getting a cash game going right away before tournament but the licenses show that they start at 300 ... for now the phone is 231-580-4929 but it may change. GL

I had a reminder today of how cash game players and tournament specialists live in different worlds.

People seem almost shocked when I tell them I only play tournaments. Too much variance. Having to sit in an online tournament for eight hours or more. Playing cash makes you a better player. The gist is that I better learn to play cash if I know what's good for me. I could give you a bunch of reasons why I chose to play only tournaments, but when I do, cash players just look at me like I'm crazy.

I was chatting online with a rep from Juicy Stakes Poker a few minutes ago. It was a great example of how the two sides don't understand each other. I was asking about rakeback and he kept talking about pots and drops and calculations that aren't relevant in tournaments. I told him that the only rake was on a tournament buy-in and that the rake amount is on the tournament page .

All I needed to know was the percentage. I said three different times that I only play tournaments before he gave me the rakeback percentage. I'm still not sure that he understands how tournaments work. I have no idea what he thinks about me. It really was like we were speaking completely different languages.

1) I didn't know you could get rakeback from tournaments .. good to know and good for you!

2) LOTS of phone reps don't have a clue about who they work for. They just have a flow chart of Q&A that hopefully leads to a resolution for the caller. Plenty of Dealers either don't pay attention or don't grasp how to play poker, but they are really good at their job.

3) Plenty of thoughts out there on cash v tournament. I think a tournament 'should' have a cash feel to it for the first 4-8 levels .. or how ever long they can set up a structure with an average of over 80-100bb. Once you get to an average stack under 40bb then the 'charts' need to start taking over your thought process a bit more IMO. I've not had the success I'd like to have in tournaments and it comes from both giving Players too much credit in 'cash game' spots and some pretty bad coolers ... and of course I've made my fair share of 'interesting' calls as well only to find out that a hand was played in an even more 'interesting' way by the opponent.

Good to hear from you Clif .. You need to get down to GLake on a Thursday for the $80 tournament ... I'll give you $10 for a 10% stake and make sure you're well fed off my comps!! GL

[QUOTE=answer20;54821897]1) I didn't know you could get rakeback from tournaments. good to know and good for you!

MTT rakeback on Juicy Stakes is 36%. Not too shabby.

2) LOTS of phone reps don't have a clue about who they work for. They just have a flow chart of Q&A that hopefully leads to a resolution for the caller. Plenty of Dealers either don't pay attention or don't grasp how to play poker, but they are really good at their job.

There is a lot of that going around. I've always thought that clueless reps are that way because they don't get the training or autonomy that they need to fix a simple problem. I remember an ACR tournament where, because of technical issues, some of the tables in my tournament were lagging but others were not. While we were chatting I was giving the blow-by-blow description of what I was seeing in real time, I asked the guy (it's always a guy for some reason) to look at the tournament for himself and I gave him the T#. He wouldn't, or couldn't, do something as simple as that.

Comcast reps are the same way. They are so wed to a script that they can't get past telling me to make sure that that the TV is plugged in and to check the connections, even though I'm telling him about what is happening on the screen.

3) Plenty of thoughts out there on cash v tournament. I think a tournament 'should' have a cash feel to it for the first 4-8 levels .. or how ever long they can set up a structure with an average of over 80-100bb. Once you get to an average stack under 40bb then the 'charts' need to start taking over your thought process a bit more IMO. I've not had the success I'd like to have in tournaments and it comes from both giving Players too much credit in 'cash game' spots and some pretty bad coolers ... and of course I've made my fair share of 'interesting' calls as well only to find out that a hand was played in an even more 'interesting' way by the opponent.

My preference is always to play deepstacked, so the way that you describe optimal play is exactly right. I like having a lot of time for chip accumulation so that I can bully the players who register late for just a few buy-ins. I'm always up for a 10-hour MTT, which gives me an edge. By about hour 7 or 8 players start complaining about being tired, I have to get up for work in the morning, etc.


Good to hear from you Clif .. You need to get down to GLake on a Thursday for the $80 tournament ... I'll give you $10 for a 10% stake and make sure you're well fed off my comps!! GL

Good to hear from you as well. I've been down for a few months. Lots of technical problems (including major internet issues), two eye surgeries and other things that have limited my ability to play.

Thanks for your kind offer but money isn't really the issue. Well, it kind of is because I'm a big bankroll nit and I never play an online MTT when I don't have 100 buy-ins. Last year I decided to stick religiously to those 100 BI, every time, for every tournament, which is why I only played online the entire year. I am going to start playing live again very soon. After all of the technical issues online, I know that I need live options as well.

The other thing is that my wife and I are life bankroll nits as well. That's why my wife and I live in a paid-for double-wide where our only payment is $400 a month for lot rent. We only have one car. If you've read the book, "The Millionaire Next Door" that's us. We aren't millionaires yet, but we save and invest a lot of our money.

After all of the online technical issues, I know that it's time to open up more options. I will probably take a shot at Gun Lake sometime in March. I'll PM you and we can set a date when we can both be there for the $80.

Hey guys, I’m an online poker pro from Lansing. Any other online pros from close to this area?

Is there a Skype group or discord group for online poker. This page doesn’t seem very active

You have 4 posts lol.. Gun Lakes busiest day is still Friday. Lots of great action as usual..... I continue to see new faces trying the room out

The WM and FKeeper threads are mainly live Players with the exception of Poker Clif. I think there are some online guys in the Detroit thread, but you may want to do some more searching on this site to find "LOTS" of online guys you can get involved with ...

... You do realize that you entered a 'Live Poker' - 'Venue' sub-forum? eh?

Welcome to 2+2, if you look for it, it's here ... including folks who live stream their online play I believe. I don't go to that area of the site very much. GL

As the gentleman above you mentioned, I have 4 posts because I’m hopelessly lost on this site. No clue what’s going on. Just looking for other professional poker players in Michigan cuz i know no one local

Nice long session at GLake ... There's about 60+ folks near 100 hours (there's about 33 names per screen if you don't want to count) so depending on how many of those make a push ... and actually show up for the 'end of Spring Break' freeroll ... there's probably a maximum of 80 people/entries that could be looking for that WSOP ME seat. With 5 full weeks to go there's plenty of opportunity to make a push. It'l be tight for me since I'm just pushing 90 as of last night.

I was told that the seat package and $15k 'other' cash is coming from the poker room itself, not the promotion fund. BUT should anyone choose to re-enter the freeroll for $100? that money will go back to the casino and not increase the $15K additional prize pool. I didn't really read any of the fliers to see how the language was exactly worded, but my first assumption was that it was all promotion fund that was feeding this 'promotion', so that' a positive IMO. I'm not sure how to fully alleviate 'mis-information' but I think they should be playing this up more than they are to pat themselves on the back. GL

Could you give us an idea of what you're looking for? Strategy? How other players handle differents area of poker (bankroll management, issues with playing at home, tax laws for poker players)? There might be a specific thread with information on whatever you want to know.

Woke up and thought about getting some hours in at GLake. Called at 530 to find out that the one table was only 5-handed and that the HH had just hit for the 'whole' night's amount of $700!! Needless to say I abandoned that thought and per Bravo the game broke shortly after 700. With more weather rolling in today/tonight it looks like Wed is a bust as well. GL