FK 500 went very well (see FK thread) .. one GR local who basically max late regged his 2nd bullet (20bb) ended up in 25/26th place in the money. I believe there was at least one other GR Player ITM also. There were 421 entries, 45 paid, $36K up top

Not as many GR faces as I thought might be there, but this price point with no satties might be a hurdle as well.

At least 2 cash tables were open even when the tournament started and the transition to more cash was pretty darn good .. but not until around 430PM or so when late reg ended.

Also .. YOU MUST have a Player's Card to play cash games. This had 'sort of' been an option before CV but now seems to be a mandate. We did have a Player sit down to PLO and then got up after repeated requests for his card (we wanted him to stay)! Previously you had to show a card to register for a tournament, but it appears now that if you want to spend time playing live poker you will need to verify your identity and 'log in'. There was even a case where a Player was logged into two seats at the same table and it was 'caught' immediately by the Dealer and the Bravo system at the desk. GL

At least 3 GR players in the final two tables. I made it to FT after waiting through 7 levels as alternate #148. Paid my blinds and ante upon sitting down, within a couple of hands, level 8 was upon us. Had 15Bb without playing a hand yet. We ICM chopped with 6 left.

Just a smidge of chatter that GLake has poker on the agenda of a meeting this month .. we'll see. I've yet to be there during 'classic' busy times so I'm not sure how it feels, but when I have been there (4 times) in the last few months it's just felt empty now that the expansion is open. It's probably just fine for the average patron with no one hovering over your shoulder or even just hitting your chair as they walk by but one of the allures of a casino is the action/noise of others IMO. GL

Westgate is going through the balancing act with their chips .. and I applaud them for (hopefully) making adjustments by the day based on the flow of business.

When they first opened the max BI was 500, then it dropped to 300 as they got busier each week .. and then they dropped it to 200 if there were 3 cash tables running.

There was a day last week when the chip sales were reconsidered around 8 or 9 PM and the limit was bumped back up to 300 for the rest of the night.

There is a fine line they need to walk when it comes to the Players wishes and how to maximize the 'business' of running the room for the benefit of the charity.

As with King's the tournaments do eat up some of the chips sales and as a Player pool we need to be understanding of the balancing that needs to be considered.

Westgate has the ability to run a larger BI game on Thursday since a lot of the tournament crowd goes south. If they spread the word they could offer a 2/5 or PLO game on Thursdays perhaps.

There is also the consideration that if you force action Players to BI at only 100BB then the chips will fly even more and thus create situations where sales actually go more quickly than if Players could BI in deeper. There are plenty of spots (IMO) where playing 100BB deep and 150BB deep are vastly different. If a pot gets to 60-70 BB on the Turn then the chips are going to get in there more often .. and somebody is going to need to rebuy most likely.

There's also the consideration that if the early crowd gets deep then a new Player will feel overwhelmed by their short stack and not play as long or at all.

I don't really think that every Player buys in for $300. They have those stats for sure .. but if they get two tables going at 2PM, then they could 'save' about $1000 in chips if 10 of the starting 18 Players are limited to $200.

Players like consistency, but you also have to consider that every day in the poker room is different and adjustments 'can' be made .. and as long as they are explained to the Players they should be making these daily considerations. Some Players wont want to listen .. that's their issue, not the rooms. GL

Special High Hand promo at FKeepers today and Thursday .. $500 per hour with awards at 5pm-10pm, hourly.
Presidents Day, next Monday .. $1000 HH with the first award at 11am through 8pm. I assume this one is hourly but it doesn't specifically state it.
Every Monday in March will also have $500 HH with the same hours .. first award at 11am through 8pm
They also still have the Royal Bonus going .. by suit.

Chatter that Gun Lake is discussing poker this month in reaction to 'lots' of inactive Players in 2022. Unfortunately Bonanza Bucks hit over night otherwise I may have made a trip there.

IMO charity poker is slowing a bit .. this is not typical for 'tax season' and I think there's a whole group of 'regular' 1/2 Players that aren't playing much anymore due to whatever reason. I've said even pre-CV that the GR area poker is getting older and needs an influx of young Players. I see some at Westgate trying to play 'GTO' but they aren't firing more than one bullet a session some days.

Westgate has maintained their $200 'early' cap with consideration later in the evening to bump things up if chips are available, I've not been around to see what's been happening. I don't even remember the last time I was at Westgate at closing time .. or really King's either. Does that make me a fuddy-duddy? GL

Possibly due to the 'slowing' environment stated above, Westgate is now back up to the early $300 BI max Monday to Wednesday, with a $500 max on Thursdays. I'm glad to see this, but I'm also supportive of them making 'daily' decisions based on the flow of Players into the room each day.

There may be an adjustment made at the must move table of only $200, but I'm fairly confident that you will be able to get up to $300 at one of the two main tables each day, including when you change into a main game from the must move.



King's was slower than normal when they opened Thursday (not a full table to start) .. there was also a brief discussion about moving the opening bell up to 1000 from 1100. There may be some frustration from Players who can't get onto the first table and then had to wait until Noon or later to get a seat .. perhaps waiting until later to even call in. Woody's used to start at 1000 with some success, but the same issue if you didn't make the first 9.


Speculation at Gun Lake that if they do bring poker back 'soon' it will be in the now closed Sand Hill Cafe area. I'm not there enough to track each of the three 'new' food options, but with those and the buffet still active do they really need Sand Hill? The last time I did get a meal in 131 Lounge it basically was the Sand Hill menu. GL

What a day for FKeepers! Almost a full house of cash games all day during their $1000 High Hands. I switched to PLO so I lost track, but I think at least 7 of the 10 winners was a Queen high straight flush or better .. including a chop one hour with two Players getting each getting a King high SF. The last hurrah was a Spade Royal Flush, which paid an extra $3K above the HH bonus. There was one roll-over, so that King high flush won $2k. There were a couple of 6-high SF that got their hopes crushed by the larger straights.

Remember that they will have HH promo every Monday in March along with the start of the MSPT qualifiers and satellites with the ME the 2nd weekend of May. GL

Hello Answer20, this is a little late but I wanted to give you & your followers an update & save them a trip to Horseshoe Indy at this point. I made a Thread yesterday about all the issues at this "New" Poker Room.
I know you don't live in this area but just wanted to say that it is def not starving for Poker. There are dozens of large Professionally ran Poker Charity Games locally & spotted throughout the state. An approved "organization" can play 3 days a week & this has been going on for well over a decade. This Horseshoe Indianapolis is fighting an uphill battle at this point because 90% of the other Poker choices are better ran with way better dealers, experience & etc. Hope this helps & I'll keep an eye on your Michigan Poker info too. Thanks!

Thanks for visiting 'our' thread .. I posted in the Indy thread that I (we'd) like to know if there is a tool to search for charity poker in Indiana. I've not had good luck in my limited attempts.

Michigan has a really nice feature where you can search by county or city .. GL

FKeeper March Mondays start next week. Ten $500 hourly High Hand payouts with first payout at 11am thru 8pm.
BBJ is at 155k with room share.
Diamond and Club Royals are at 4k or more.
Daily tournaments with point system for quarterly/annual freerolls.
MSPT qualifiers and sattys are only running on Saturdays starting March 19th and will run daily the week of the ME .. May 12-15 (3 Day 1s)

MGM is running various $500 HH promos, check Bravo for full details
MGM will host Brad Owen and Andrew Neeme on Saturday March 26th for a MUG (probably 2/5 NL). Sign up early as this will probably be a madhouse (why a Sat?)

Remember that Westgate opens at 2pm M-Th with $300 BI except Th ($500)

King's hasn't run daytime PLO in a bit, NL has slowed as well the last couple of weeks but games are still good and the PM shift is 'same o same o'

Four Winds South Bend BBJ is 252k with $1000 'daily' HH promo and $1000 'hot seat' Thursdays. I'm also told that they have table games now.

No new 'speculation' out of Gun Lake

The official WSOP schedule was released last Friday .. Starting around Memorial Day running well into July past the ME (basically week of July 4th). With the move to 'on the Strip' this will be a poker players dream scenario (other than parking). Bally's (to be renamed Horseshoe) will host 'all' Day 1s with the Day 2s supposedly taking place at Paris 'next door'. No official word on where cash games will be. With the exposure of the Strip, an assumed move past CV and most poker rooms reopened across the country this might bring in some record numbers once again. The BIs have been tweaked a bit IMO but there are still some bargains in there with (of course) the opportunity to move around the Strip to other venues. While there are almost always last minute opportunities available you may want to start looking at your calendar soon .. it's 13 weeks from today for Event #1. GL

Correction .. the 'Meet Up Game' at MGM with the Vloggers will be on Wednesday March 23rd .. makes way more sense than to do one on a Saturday. GL

Hot mess at Westgate?

There were changes in the wind at Westgate and it appears the 'storm' is upon us. In something we've not seen in GR, a new Supplier has emerged and apparently has the ear of the charities that have been using Westgate to host their parties. This change of Suppliers is supposed to happen on Monday March 28th but no licenses were approved by the State as of this moment for that date or beyond. This is probably because the 'party' applications need to be modified or initially approved by the State listing the new Supplier.

There are parties scheduled starting March 7th and March 21st, but no license is shown for starting March 14th. All of the approved Millionaire Party licenses can be found at michigan.gov and search for Millionaire Party Locator, then search by county or city to see the approved 'parties'.

My understanding is that there will be very little change in personnel but the tables and chips will be 'new'.

There is a HUGE misconception that the Supplier controls 'the room', 'the game' or whatever label you want to put on it. A Millionaire Party takes 2 entities, a Charity and a Location. The charity may also hire a Supplier to run the game for them. The charity must sign a lease with the Location and may or may not hire a Supplier to help them run their event. This all has to be spelled out on the Party application for the State's approval. For the most part across the state, the Supplier is at the Location week to week, but any one Charity can only 'host' 4 events per year and that is why Players will assume that it's 'the Supplier's room' since they are hired consistently for these events.

It is ILLEGAL for the Supplier to have any formal agreement (or exchange funds) with the Location. Certainly the Supplier and Location work together to provide the facility in an effort to lesson the burden on the Charity, but they are not 'partners'. Some may see this as a gray area and that may end up being challenged somewhere along the way.

The Charities typically rely heavily on the Supplier to assist them with filling out the application forms to insure that they get their approval for their events. The Supplier (with an implied verbal blessing from the Location) also lets the Charities know what dates they are available at the Location. This 'service' has value to the Charity and Location but the Supplier is doing all of this 'cart-horse' style since they don't get paid until an event actually takes place.

In reality two Suppliers could compete for dates at the same Location .. and have to potentially remove their 'equipment' from the facility between events. You very easily could think of a charity poker room like a wedding reception where the same caterer is used every single week in the same room.

Everyone in this forum knows that I have a passion for poker in WM. This is a bump in the road that hopefully will not cause too much dust, but it could. GL

No poker at Westgate next week (March 14-17)

One more scheduled week with Rounders as Supplier after that (March 21-24)

State is still working on license approval for later dates .. GL

FMP ..

On a side note, King's location licenses aren't very far out into April either. Not really something to panic about, just a bit odd.

I'm not sure what the hold up with future Westgate licenses would be. It's possible that the State needs to re-approve the Location once the new tables and chairs are in place .. which would require a very quick turnaround. GL

1) Supposed last week at Westgate for the Rounders Suppler

2) There are licenses for next week but not the week after .. but yes to April 11-14th .. for the 'new' Supplier and Lori's expected return.

3) HH has already started at FK for today. $500 per hour through 8pm. Next Monday also .. no word on an April promo.

4A) Brad Owen and Andrew Nemee will be at MGM on Wed for a 2/5 NL MUG event if you are interested in par taking in one of those.

4B) Greektown will offer $4 rake from 4PM to 10PM on Wed to try and attract Players from the MGM waiting list and others to come into their room .. which I'm told may be back 'up stairs' where it used to be, but I'm not sure what that means. GL

Just a little bump here ..

1) Supplier transition is complete at Westgate. Although you will find new chips and different tables the staff is pretty much the same as well as 'operations'.

2) Word is that Soaring Eagle is considering reopening the poker room 'soon' .. I couldn't find a timeline or anyone to confirm

3) Word is that Gun Lake is not currently serious about poker there, although it was rumored that if SE opened that they would open as well. There's actually some consideration to bringing smoking back inside to the gaming floor, which lends itself to needing to offer non-smoking gaming options that may go into areas that poker could've gone into.

4) MSPT season is here! Day 1A at FKeepers is 4 weeks from today. Get your Silver (25%) and Golden (100%) tickets by playing the Saturday tournaments. Those tournaments will be daily starting May 5th or 6th.

5) Some of the games games at FKeepers have been especially juicy as of late at the higher stake levels. GL

I have a question for you lovely people. Every year a few of us from Chicago (and near suburbs) do a little local(ish) poker weekend trip.

We've done Milwaukee, South Bend, Green Bay so far. This year we're looking at going to Michigan, perhaps Battle Creek, perhaps Detroit (though we prefer not as we've all been to Detroit a bunch and this we want to be about a smaller town), perhaps somewhere else.

My question is this - if you were doing a weekend trip to Michigan to play poker/eat decent food/drink beer etc, where would you go?

If you're taking Detroit off the list then FireKeepers is your only other choice. You will not be disappointed with weekend poker at FK with both cash and tournament options. And they have plenty of beer options in the sports book right outside the room. There have been some comments that the food at FK is not as good as it was before CV, and they still had some of the choices shut down, but I've heard that there are some other local food options in BC that are good also .. talk to the poker desk on that.

When is the trip? Poker can lull a bit during the Summer months with Players taking advantage of golf or cottages they may have, so that could steer you back towards MGM in Detroit .. take in a Tigers game?

Depending on your schedules there will be a $500 'Fifth Sunday' tournament on July 31. That usually drives some really good cash on Saturday night, but cash will suffer on Sunday until about 3pm or so .. but once the cash gets going that afternoon it's usually very good. GL

We haven't set a date this year yet, will actually depend on where we end up. We may go to Indy, we may go to Quad Cities, but yeah looks like Firekeepers/Battle Creek is favourite.

I'm going to Detroit en route to Toronto in September and have been there a ton before so prefer not to.

Now that you opened the door up to Indy .. I lived there for 3 years and it's a great place to eat, drink and be merry (until 4 am)!

All indications are that the new Horseshoe room is doing better each week and there's plenty of charity action down there if you look for it on various nights of the week.

St. Elmo's steakhouse is a must if that's your fancy. Packed in like sardines and the best shrimp cocktail sauce I've ever had .. your head will be clear for a month! GL

Disappointing to hear that there has been no further news on Gun Lake. Really is a shame, especially considering there are no good rooms in West Michigan. The demand is definitely there too. I just don't get it.

Yes, there is high interest in poker in WM. While there's always room for improvement I think we have (and have had) some of the best run charity rooms in the state .. I've been to enough for an opinion. Even when GLake was open there were Players driving to FKeepers so not all expectations are going to be met. The skill level of Dealers has certainly stepped up since before GLake was opened .. and any Player who has traveled out of the area (even just Detroit) knows that we are very spoiled in the Dealer department upon comparison.

I had a rare 'late' (after 6pm) Monday session at WGate last night and they had 3 very strong cash tables and two tournament tables running. They did pause chips sales to make sure what they could offer both the tournament and cash games. I think the charity lost track of things and needed to reset!

The 'State' was also at WGate yesterday and indicated that they were staying in a hotel and returning today. Apparently there are some new rules that were made official last Wednesday that may affect operations. Gaming has also indicated that they are going to step up enforcement, even sending in undercover Players. Your mind can wander all it wants as to why they are picking on these rooms 'again'. I was shown a 1" bound document that contains all 'the rules' for these rooms .. not the law, the rules within the law as perceived by Gaming. It's not on their website as of yet .. in fact 'the rules' on the website are from 2015, which is 4 years previous to the 2019 law change .. can you say amazing? The agent was having trouble with WGate internet so I wasn't able to actually peruse the binder. So I guess we'll have to wait and see what changes have been implemented and how it will affect room operations. GL

1) Tournament action at Motor City starts today .. $600 BI, $313k min prize pool, three Day 1s, Sunday Day 2 and Monday Day 3 (if needed). See the Detroit thread for more information .. 1215 start

2) It appears SEagle is serious about starting up poker by the end of May. They have named a 'new' room manager .. not sure if it's an old Floor or what, but it's a SE employee that poker Players should recognize.

3) WGate has been having plenty of action in the cash games but may lose a couple of Players to SE once it opens. Tournaments are a grind for sure based on what I've been seeing during some later than usual sessions in the last couple of weeks. Although they don't show a charity for one of the weeks in May they promise it's in the works and will be filled in time.

4) FKeepers is bearing down on MSPT week, with the ME starting two weeks from today

5) Haven't been to King's in quite awhile .. just hasn't been a fit .. GL

Just kinda joining the thread here Looks like WGate & Kings are out in Grand Rapids. Is there anything a bit closer to the Kalamazoo area? I do frequent FK on occasion. Mostly just play on line....but every now and again...I enjoy playing live....then realize I hate 20 hands per hour

Thanks for stopping by .. when you said 'out' I thought you meant 'closed' but then I wised up. If you use the State of Michigan Millionaire Party Locator you can search for charity poker all over the state .. by county or by city. You'll see the charity, the location and the dates of the game but the times listed aren't necessarily correct, especially the starting time. I don't see anything in Kalamazoo county right now. Also be aware that unless you see 'lots' of dates it may be just a church 'casino' night fundraiser .. maybe even a euchre tournament.

I think you'll find way more than 20 hands per hour in GR .. 3 minutes is a long time and I don't think the Dealers would stick around at that pace either.

https://mgcb.state.mi.us/mp-portal/search/home

Muskegon's games are a little different but still OK. They can get cash going before their tournament and usually after as well.

If you are located south of Gun Lake then I would suggest you play at FKeepers more often than other live venues, but it's always nice to see some fresh faces that may not know your game as much. The games Mon-Wed that start at 2pm at Westgate are very good and Thursday has a bigger BI cap at 500 since they don't run a tournament.

Plenty of poker if you want to play it .. GL