Soaring Eagles issues have nothing to do with the action, and everything to do with the way the room is run.

1) The dealers are not poker dealers. They also deal blackjack and other table games. They are on a full rotation, so some of them have no idea how to deal PLO or OE and they still are put in those games.

2) When players complain about mistakes or slowness of the dealers, the floor is 95% of the time rude to their customers. They don't give a crap that their staff is untrained and ruining the experience. They also open new tables at the pace of the polar ice caps melting, never balance tourney tables (even during HPT events), and generally act as if this is their first day on the job, when you've been seeing the same faces for years.

The customer experience is terrible. No amount of comps or good action is worth it (and action is very often not good unless the HPT is in town, which the staff HATES and openly complains about how busy they are.)

There is a well-known story about a guy in town to play the HPT, playing in a cash game, who had such a ridiculous floor ruling go against him, and the floor acted so rudely, that he seriously thought he was on a hidden camera show.


Is the RxR going to be a regular thing on Tuesdays at FK (a very WELL run room btw)? I saw it on Bravo and had never seen that game run before.

They way is sounded to me was that there is a regular PLO game on Tuesdays, but there was a RxR list that filled first so that is what started. We were only 5-handed until the PLO guys started to show up and fill in the seats. Later in the night we did switch to PLO only as it seems is the case with all RxR that I run into. I think there were a couple of potential players that opted to stick with the fairly large 1/2 action that was going on that night as well, so we missed out on them coming over to the table.

So I can't really answer your question, other than to say they will spread anything that fills a list 'that day'. I am just not sure if Battle Creek can support anything 'regular' from a geographical standpoint, not a room standpoint. With 6+ players at the table seemingly to know each other very well I would go out on a limb and say that they would welcome any new players to the room and would be more than willing to play RxR with them in order to scratch their PLO itch with somebody that's not already a 'reg'. GL

I'm coming up to Grand Rapids this weekend, where are the games on friday and saturday nights?

Lincoln lanes and westgate bowl

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On the west side of town Lincoln Lanes (TJs of old, Lake Michigan Drive towards Standale) will have a tournament running at some point that can slow down the cash table(s). Generally when they first open the cash games are very good since folks are trying to win their tournament buyins. They also have another location called The Shamrock but I'm not sure the status of or how those games go since I've never been there.

On the north end is Westgate Bowl (Alpine Ave.). This is cash only and will have at lest 2, if not 3, tables going. There can be some pretty big action here but it can also be just a bunch of 150 stacks sitting around too.

I don't think Lincoln opens until late afternoon (4:30?) whereas Westgate usually has a table going by 1:00 on both Sat and Sun.

Weekends this time of year are hit or miss ... GL

When I was at Eastbrook tonight they made an announcement that the Lincoln tournaments were being moved to Shamrock but I'm unsure if that's for all days or not.

Small changes to WM charity poker ...

TJ's is making the Lincoln site cash only and holding tournaments at Shamrock. Not sure the hours at either right now, but I think Lincoln 'has' to close at 12:00 due to building restrictions.

Not sure if the Shamrock street intersection is totally open as of yet but it was going through a major rehab project this year.

All the rooms can now stay open until 1:40 on their '5th day'. The state has come to their senses once again and removed the limit on the carry over of the 4th day into a 5th day for 2 hours.

Keep ringing the bell!! Football season is almost here which usually picks up the action .. and kids are back in school too for some. GL

Where did you go and how did you do?

What do you think of our 'little' bit of poker 'round here? GL

Hi there. I'm Clif and I live in Muskegon. I play mostly in Muskegon, but I sometimes play in one of the TJs rooms in Grand Rapids. I play only NLHE tournaments, and as far as I know the other GR rooms don't have tournaments.

I've been checking out the west Michigan poker situation, and it's not good. Muskegon seems to be the worst possible place to live. We have one charity room, and sometimes a second to fill in the other days of the week. Currently it's just the one Muskegon Room, at Northway Lanes in the city of Muskegon.

Northway is an OK room, but the way it's run is definitely amateur hour. There is no web site, no tournament announcements, nothing posted in the room. You just have to assume that whatever tournament you play on Friday, it will be the same next week. They have cash games, but I have never played cash so I can't tell you much about those. I can find out if anyone wants to know.

I've been burned several times, the most recent a couple weeks ago when the bowling alley was closed for maintenance. I showed up, saw the sign on the door and found out they were closed. That happened to me when The Big Game Room had rooms in other locations as well.

Once you're there I don't have anything negative to say about the room, but the lack of information would be a deal killer if I had better options. The room is 1.8 miles from my house which is incredibly convenient, but I've been burned so many times with no information or bad information that I keep my GR options open and play there from time to time. Also, since TJs advertises and The Big Game Room does not, Muskegon generally has smaller fields (which means smaller prize pools.)

I live 103 miles from the nearest casino that deals poker tournaments, Soaring Eagle.

I checked the other counties in the Muskegon/Grand Rapids area using the Millionaire Party Locator, and it's pretty grim. Here is what I came up with:

Counties with charity rooms: Kent (5), Muskegon (1)

Counties with no charity rooms: Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Lake, Mason, Mecosta, Montcalm, Newaygo, Oceana, Ottawa.

I'm surprised that there is no room in Holland, there are certainly enough people there to support at least one room. Grand Haven/Spring Lake players are roughly equidistant from Muskegon and Grand Rapids, and a lot of them go to both Northway Lanes and TJs.

What are the typical tournament sizes at Soaring Eagle. Say I went to play a tournament on Saturday. What would a typical field size be?

At least you can play seven days a week. Muskegon has one room (which means poker just four days a week.) Our tournamengt structure is identical to TJs except that TJs first blind level is 100/200 and Muskegon's is 100/100.

Muskegon's only room is at Northway Lanes in the city of Muskegon. Not only don't we have charity poker seven days a week, we aren't close to any of the casinos. The nearest casino that deals poker tournaments is Soaring Eagle, which is 103 miles from my house.

TJs at Lincoln Country Club will still have one tournament on Saturday and two on Sunday.

http://tjspoker.com/

Given the Grand Rapids thread, is this one really necessary? They're both covering the Western Michigan area, and the other is much older and active.

I'm not in Michigan, but I think this should be the thread kept as it covers a wider region than the GR thread.

This is unfortunately very common. It's happened twice in Muskegon. if you have a room with 60 tournament seats for a $50 tournament, plus 20 cash players with an average $200 buy-in per player, that's $7,000 coming in all at once. Also, cash games and some tournaments have multiple rebuys or add-ons, which could push the take to around around $10,000, and it's all in cash.

Now consider where most charity rooms are located. Have you ever seen security at a bowling alley? That's too good to resist for someone who needs money for drugs.

Tjs has recently shuffled their lineup between the different rooms.

http://tjspoker.com/

Cliff,if you're a tournament guy I highly suggest you check out the Sunday tournaments at Firekeepers.
Great tournament,good structure,decent pay outs,field size,etc.
Good dealers and the room is run well.
Non smoking also.

I can see your point ... but with Soaring Eagle and Firekeepers basically splitting the state in half I wanted to put them into a larger 'area'. It is a bit 'off' but most folks don't consider Soaring Eagle to be in West Michigan but since Battle Creek is so close to Kalamazoo they will then drag 'Keepers into the mix.

Also the GR thread was dead for a bit when I 're-opened' it here recently. So I started the WM thread to see if either garnered any interest at all.

The GR is probably mainly for charity stuff, but will probably include Holland and Muskegon by default as well.

The WM thread was meant to include the 2 casinos as well as any charity action outside of the Kent/Ottawa county area.

Not sure what this does for Lansing ... but I haven't seen any posts from that area as of yet. GL

Sorry I'm not your man for this question in a very accurate sense ...

I know nothing of their daily tournaments ...

I have only played in their Saturday tournament twice and remember at least 8 tables both times. Both times it was their 'last Saturday Noon' tourny, which I believe was a $240 BI.

Firekeepers:

Their 'daily' tournaments are usually 3 to 6 tables when I have seen them.

Their Sunday Noon 120 or 240 tournaments are 8-10 tables and can have alternates. They also have a '5th Sunday 400' ... which will happen this month since it has '5' Sundays. Hope this helps a little .. GL

There is some chat about a room in Holland .. nothing confirmed yet.

Rounders (Woodys) may be looking at another location for weekends as well.

I have no reason to believe those 2 comments are related, but they might be!!

Not sure if all this is good or bad for WM/GR poker ... More rooms means you need more players. Certainly on the Lake Shore there are folks who don't want to drive 'into the city' for poker but would be willing to stay close to home, but for 12 months of the year? It will be interesting to watch the 're-development' of poker in the area. GL

Muskegon and Holland have roughly the same population. Muskegon had no problem getting players where they were a standalone room in a strip mall open seven days a week. It's been a little tricker since trying to get a second room going, but either way there are enough players to go around.

Grand Rapids/Holland/Muskegon are all about the same distance from each other and I don't see any of them really stealing players from each other. The counties north of Muskegon and Grand Rapids are the ones with the biggest problem because they have nothing going on until you get close to Manistee, which has a casino.

I was one of the top ten posters in the Detroit thread (June 2014-2015 I think) and I read it every day. They talk about Soaring Eagle a lot, and sometimes Firekeepers if there is a circuit tournament or something else going on there. They talk about charity room issues constantly.

I don't remember ever seeing the word Lansing in that thread. So if anyone in that area wants to post here we would certainly filling a need.

Clif has one "f" because my name is Clifton. I am not a big red dog.

If they aren't balancing the tournament tables, I'm surprised that the players or someone high up in the HPT doesn't make sure that gets fixed.

If I lost a big pot that made me one of the shortest stacks close to the money bubble, I certainly wouldn't want to get hit by the blinds and antes more often than short stacks at tables with more players. That's a pretty big deal.

For the few tournaments that I've played there I've never seen a balancing issue. I think there was one Saturday where the floor was covering both tournament and cash at the time and was dealing with some cash issues and missed a double elimination for a bit. If anything, they over-floored the $300BI HPT event which could end up worse than just having a slow floor. GL