Can anyone comment on the state of poker in GR?

I don't live there anymore but I pass through a decent amount. I'm seeing the GL has an active card room now? Last time I was there that was not the case.

I used to slum around a west side bowling alley, but last time through there was nothing there. Info would be helpful. Thanks all.

Poker in GR is still 'very' available with 3 charity rooms still up and running in the shadow of Gun Lake's 15 month run.

1) Westgate Bowling runs Mon-Thur
2) King's (old TJ's) and Lincoln Bowling/Golf run Thur-Sun

Of these rooms King's probably has the most traffic but it's no where near the traffic that you would've seen previously. Gun Lake typically has 1/2 going from 10 AM to ??, if not all night. PLO caught fire in GR 2-3 years ago and is played basically daily at Gun Lake ... generally going by Noon and also running through ?? daily.

In an interesting move, Gun Lake will be downsizing the poker room this Spring as casino management has determined the (larger) space is needed more for the High Rollers than poker. This move will drop the room from 14 to 8-9 tables at least in the short term as Gun Lake moves through their next expansion of the building.

I assume a vet like you has the Bravo App on your phone and can take a look at Gun Lake and Firekeepers most any time. Charity poker opportunities can be found by searching for 'Millionaire Party Locator' online.

I may have to check out your 'journal' and see if I might be a V in any of your posts. Can't imagine that we never crossed paths. GL

What do you think needs to be done to get a sustainable 2/5 or 1/3 NL game going at GL? I know there is the occasional 1/3 match that runs on Monday and Friday nights for a couple hours. I find it surprising that there can 5+ tables of 1/2 but a sustainable 1/3 game can’t happen. Thoughts?

Thanks!


I’m always surprised when I learn that anyone knows about or reads that PG&C haha.

Once I’m back up and playing regularly again I’ll post a lot more. I just got a promotion at my job about an hour ago so I’ll have a better schedule and more $$$ to work with. Good times!

'Sustainable' next level NL cash games will be hard to do IMO ...

1) I don't think we have a deep enough Player pool (that's available to play) for 'regular' 2/5 NL.

2) The buy-in ($3-400) and action in the 1/2 games is usually plenty good/deep for the somewhat more conservative WM mentality. With Detroit (and Hammond?) limiting the max 1/2 BI to $200 it opens up the door for bigger games. I think keeping things at 1/2 helps the Player base play more/longer ... which is better for the rake as well as keeping the room busier, which drives action as well IMO.

3) The 'action' Players that are able to play 2/5 don't want/choose to play against the other 'action' players if they don't have to ... why pile on each other when there's enough chips/action on a 1/2 table? Take a look at Pittsburgh's poker scene ... You'll find 8-12 1/3NL games going on a Saturday night and not even 6 on a list for 2/5 and that area is much bigger than WM. The sharks/good Regs would much rather only have 1-2 similar Players at the table rather than a whole table full of the same. (Granted the occasional free-for-all is fun, it's just not something that is good for bankrolls as a whole.)

4) IMO the Players that do play deeper are seen as very tight and 'serious' and although the allure of bigger stacks is there ... well, folks like to have fun and gamble it up a little bit. These are supposed to be cash tables ... but have the feel of tournament 'final' tables in a lot of cases.

5) The eruption of PLO cash in WM takes a number of Players away from NL. Even when there are HH promos going on they don't really want to play RxR. You can thank the influence of the home games for that and as the charity rooms started to offer RxR it very quickly turned into a PLO only table.

6) We'll see if the push of 1-3-10 at FK has any influence back on 131. Not sure how they did Saturday, but they did have 2 tables running Sunday (4PM start) during the FK500. This 1/3 'effort' seems to want to go right around 2/5 and offer the allure of the larger stacks without having to jump into the variance of PLO. The 'match the stack' gives Players just sitting down the opportunity to jump right into the frey without having to pain-stakingly build their stack up from the initial $2-300 BI cap.

In it's shortest terms ... IMO the more conservative (and possibly less 'rolled) WM Player pool is smaller than in Detroit or Hammond and I really don't want 1/2 to go the route of the smaller BI. Obviously if the Player base pushed for it and got GLake to agree to lower the limits of 1/2 then I do think you would see a larger game running much more often than now, but at what ripple effect? GL


PS ... The FK500 seemed to end in an 8-way chop around Midnight. The Bravo App showed a 'true' chop value of just under $15K each which is pretty good for 12 hours worth of work!! There were just over 400 entries ...

... Monday morning report ... Had a basically open weekend so got in a few extra hours at GLake this weekend. No specific reason for not going to FK, GLake was busy enough for me to not even consider making the extra drive.

Not exactly sure that all the 'plans' at GLake are final due to the expansion. At some point in time a very large curtain barrier will go up from the west entrance (131 lounge) all the way down to the existing HR room (soon to be the poker room). This is a major disruption to lots of slots ... and probably had a large influence on moving the HR room away from all that dust and noise into the poker room.

All 'tier card' benefits at GLake have been extended through Jan 31st instead of rolling over on Jan 1 as expected. IMO it's possible this will happen again on Feb 1 depending on the progression of the expansion. This really shouldn't have had much affect on poker Regs that were Gold cards, but the Black cards appreciate the gesture.

There is a new $10 'to go' box now available at the buffet. This cost drops down to $5 for Black cards .. just no carving station or crab legs allowed!! This is an excellent idea IMO to lower the burden on Sand Hill 'bag' orders. I think it actually took less of my time. Granted I eat at the table ... some of you may not.

Excellent turnout for the Sat Noon Bounty tournament at 60 entries. It's too bad that any momentum tournaments may built up will all be lost once the room moves and is dropped down to 8-9 tables. It will be very interesting to see how cash games are affected ... will limited supply increase or decrease demand?

I did stop into SEagle before New Year's ... Pretty much the same. There were 3-4 brand new Dealers in the room, all of whom did pretty decent jobs at NL. They were talking about how one of the Dealers dealt the BBJ in just their 2nd down every .. and almost mucked the Board, not really knowing how the BBJ worked!!

Interesting tournament chop spot that went down as well. I thought I posted about it and maybe it got deleted for some reason so you'll have to get that info in person or DM me. I wish the Mods would contact you when they make changes to a post so you don't go through the mental anguish. Perhaps I put it in the Detroit thread? GL

Are black cardholders allowed to bring a guest to the buffet for that same price?

The website still shows the 50% discount for 2 adults in the fine print. But they do have a relatively new food service manager and things are changing. They don't show the buffet 'togo' box on the website yet for one example. GL

This week's word is that the poker room move is delayed again with no set timeline. They are still discussing where that wall is going to go for the high rollers too.

Also a little chatter on a revamped Tier Credit system starting Feb 1st, which is why there was no roll over on Jan 1. I did see somewhere to 'stay tuned' for exciting announcements. The current system awards 500 'comp' points and 200 'tier' credits for every hour played. Gold tier status required 20K credits (100 hours) every 6 months (Jan-Jun, July-Dec). Black tier status required 200K credits .. a much tougher task for sure. Obviously you can earn tier credits out on the floor as well playing slots and table games. GL

It was nice, at first, when 500 points in the poker room counted as 500 comp points and 500 tier credits as well.

Gun Lake Poker downsizing tonight 4-7 tables. Also heard no more tourneys Management at GLC does not have any idea how to run a casino

Firekeepers is the real tournament casino. Gun Lake the better cash game option.

Welcome Shawn ... I'm going to play a little lawyer with that statement and speculate that the room indeed may be downsizing, but not necessarily moving. It's possible that they have decided to allow poker to share the room with the high rollers during construction and 'the wall' will separate the two once constructed.

Short term elimination of tournaments was unavoidable, but it's possible that it could be a long term issue depending on the future location of the room. I even hate to mention (knock on wood) that SEagle eliminated poker for a period of time as well during it's early growth. (And don't tell me it moved across the street. I'm referencing a different time period.)

There's plenty a thread/post on this site about what the 'value' of poker is to a casino and Gun Lake is no different. LOTS of the poker players at Gun Lake never set foot in the place before poker was offered, so the residual affect of poker on 'the floor' can actually be measured with some accuracy ... and possibly to the detriment of poker. They can measure exactly what the new Players are doing outside poker, but they can also measure how much they've 'lost' due to 'original' customers now playing poker part of the time they're in the building. That's only a portion of a management's thinking process with each expansion with the key being to enhance the experience of the bulk of it's patrons ... and that doesn't come in the poker room.

Let's be optimistic that the overwhelming support for poker so far at Gun Lake can only enhance it's future. But let's also not be blinded by what really turns the crank of a casinos coffers. GL

It's been a little noisy at times this week. Heard a story from the overnight crowd that it was pretty annoying one night ... but the game went on and carried into the morning. I think there are a few Players who are overreacting a bit ... They very easily could've shut poker down for a month or two during the switch. While this would've perhaps helped a bit with the timeline I think it's better to keep things moving as much as possible. (See every McDonald's putting in the double drive-thru.)

It seems (obviously) they are working on half the room so they can move HR into that area and then move the poker room into the vacated HR room ... then finish off that half of the room. Certainly makes sense.

PLO kinda fizzled for a bit yesterday afternoon, but when it go going there were no less than 3 Dealers at the table working on their game. Nice to see. GL

The temp wall is down in the poker room and new carpet was laid in the open area. I'm told that things are ahead of schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the tables/slots are moved from HR very soon.

Still no solid information on the new rewards program at GLake. I was told that the information was 'out' but then they gave me a big blank look at the Rewards Desk. I've heard that your current level will be maintained for at least the rest of this year but it will be much harder (again) to get to Black after that ... with possibly an even bigger drop in tier credits while playing poker down to 50/hour (from 200 ... from 500). We'll still get $1 comp/hour somehow, but not sure how it fits into the new system. There will be a new 'elite' invite only tier in the new system as well.

A few new faces at PLO ... figuring the BBJ 'has' to hit and learning the game while they wait for a 1/2 seat.

I don't see any HH for GLake this week ... just progressive hands.

Remember that next Friday FKeepers will have their first '5th Friday $500 High Hand' promo starting at 4PM through 2AM Sat. They are also having $500 HH on Monday Feb 17th for Presidents Day.

Nice run by a well known FKeepers Player in the HPT. Ran super bad at the Final Table, but got to be on stream none the less. WSOP ME champ Greg Raymer took down the event after being down to just 4 BB on Day 2 ... you never know with poker!! GL

There is a list (13 on it right now) for 5/5 PLO slated to get going around 4 PM at FKeepers today, Friday. Doubt they will get a 2nd table going for PLO (like the 1-3-10 NL) but you never know and I assume if this is a planned event that it will run for quite a while. GL

There is not enough money in the area to sustain no-limit and pot-limit poker, the player pool will over time dry up.

They would be better off also offering limit hi-lo and limit Omaha hi-lo (O8) maybe with a kill. It will be easer to sustain and they will make more money. The pots at limit 4-8 with a kill or better reach maximum rake more frequently than no-limit. The players will better off, but many will beg for no-limit, because they don't know any better. Take a good look at Canterbury Park, Minnesota, or Talking-stick, Arizona for successfull poker rooms.

But I am sure they will not take my advice. I've seen to many casinos fail when they don't offer limit poker I am sure Gun Lake will not be far behind.

Legal big bet poker has been in West Michigan for something like 15 years now. It's not going to die.

But I'd be thrilled with some sort of mid-stakes limit action and would cry with happiness for mixed limit games at any stakes.

Combo prof—-everything you said I disagree.

Apparently GLC doesn't accept players points for alcohol anymore. Thumbs down for that

We should play more LO8 instead of NLH or PLO has to be the most old man yells at clouds post I have seen in a while. Those games are only popular in MN and AZ because of state laws that prevent them from running true big bet games, hence all the spread limit crap there.

Low stakes no limit games are going nowhere. Bigger games will come and go, but NLH is no worse for the poker economy than LO8. Like you said, the rake is the same or more, which has more of an impact than the game types offeres.

They do (can) offer it .. no one signs up for it. Are you going to tell a customer that their favorite 'sandwich' is no longer available since it's better for their (and your) long term health to eat a different one?

Not sure how they were getting away with this to begin with. It's possible that their liquor licenses were slightly different than others in Michigan or they were just getting away with it unchecked somehow. Michigan law doesn't allow 'free' alcohol and a comp is essentially a form of 'free'. I know of one bar that almost lost their license when they were 'awarding' draft beer to the winner of their trivia contents.

So you'll have to go through the extra two steps of playing your points on 'Red or Black' and then converting those chips into cash in order to get your free drink. Extra work, but within the system. GL

The High Rollers have arrived! It's possible that poker may move as early as tonight .. but nothing confirmed. There are four tables ready to go but I can't see any additional tables ready in the next 24 hours since they would have to remove HR slots first. My guess is that poker gets the short stick of 4 tables until they can directly move the slots into renovated space .. which will take at least a week IMO.

The new rewards program rolls out tonight at 3AM .. but no brochures until 2PM according to the rewards desk. GL

New GLC Rewards program is out ... mostly. Now 46 hours/week of poker to maintain Elite status without other action (slot/pit). One year window. Possible free slot play 'welcome' could be available. Roll your current status (so I stayed Black (Elite) even though I wouldn't have under old program)

No mention of poker comp but I've heard $1/hour ... otherwise it'll take 10 hours of poker to earn a $1 comp. Don't panic yet. GL

Looks like room is currently moving .. they want to be up and running by 10 AM .. probably only 4 tables until the renovations are completed and slots are moved. GL