Theodore Donald Kiravatsos
03-26-2003, 12:30 AM
This is quite a bummer, to report that the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant Michigan, has closed its Poker Room for good. In case you aren't familiar with the place, they usually had a full page ad in most of the freebie poker mags you find in the cardrooms.
This was a poker room of great significance, particularly so in Michigan. They had 25 tables, and as recently as 18 months ago, they'd all be full on the weekends, with a decent list for all the games. Soaring Eagle spread:
3/6 Hold'em
3/6 Omaha 8
6/12 Hold'em
6/12 Omaha 8
10/20 Hold'em
20/40 Hold'em
2-6,6 7-card Stud high
2-10 7-Stud/8. This game was always going.
Pot Limit Hold'em and Omaha ($500 buy-in)
I do not play NL or PL, but I was a railbird for these games at times, and the action was definitely NOT lacking. It was in that game where I once saw some guy with so many chips it was absolutely hopless for him to even try to stack them all...they were all over the place. He only had about 8 others just eyeballing daggers at him too....
I don't know of too many places in Vegas that have that many tables, or such a choice of games. This was a big Poker room, and in my opinion, it was very well run. As I recall, there were few incidences requiring decisions from the floor (and no bad decisions that I ever witnessed). To me, this is a pretty significant blow to Poker here in Michigan, a) to lose one of the few cardrooms we have, and b) a big one at that. And they comped their poker players to $10 in food after 4 hours play. I liked that. Lose 20 big bets and bring home a sub sandwich to the little lady.
Quite frankly, the clientele at Soaring Eagle was not as sophisticated as I've seen elsewhere. Mt Pleasant is about 2 hours from Detroit, out in the middle of nowhere. It is home to Central Michigan University, so you had a lot of college kids getting their feet wet in this game, particularly at the lower limits. But you also had quite a few locals at all limits, and not all of these regulars played very well. The games were usually pretty good, and I am sure that there are players who have lost some income or supplemental income because this room closed. This is also sad too, because the dealers and floorpersons were all quite friendly and competent, and are now probably all displaced.
Recently, on my last couple trips, business had not been what it was in the past. The place was half full, and I began to worry about the Poker room's future.
Two things happened in the past 18 months or thereabouts that may have affected this room's drop:
1) Greektown Casino opened a Poker room in Downtown Detroit. For me, this effectively cut my drive to the cardroom from two hours to 30 minutes. Of course Greektown is a smaller room and the wait is considerably longer once you're there. Prior to the opening of the Greektown Poker room, you either needed to find a home game, or drive the two hours to Mt Pleasant. That was the closest (legal) Poker room to Detroit by far. But I still drove up to Soaring Eagle anyway, even after Greektown opened.
2) Soaring Eagle introduced jackpots and hiked the rake another buck (to $5) to cover the jackpots. Frankly, I thought that was pretty stiff to try to beat a $5 rake in a 3/6 game.
So, I'd be interested to hear any open comments anyone may have regarding why a place like this closed up. Here are some potential reasons:
a) Greektown siphoned off all the commuters from Detroit. I see a lot of famaliar faces there now when I go Downtown.
b) The increased jackpot rake killed off a lot of LL players who were maybe close to breakeven before.
c) The internet siphoned off players.
d) The casino (actually the Tribal Gaming Council) decided that slots are more profitable than Poker. If that's the case, then that really blows. This was a great poker room, really bustling. To add another 100 machines to a place that already has probably 2500 would be pretty sick.
e) The economy is a big pile of poo, and people can't afford to play / the bad players finally lost their bankrolls and can't play any more.
I'd welcome anyone's thoughts on these subjects. I personally tend to think that it's Greektown that stole all the business, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks that tampering with the rake structure to introduce jackpots may have had some negative (unforeseen) consequences.
This is a subject that anyone who is considering going pro should give some attention to. Namely, that your livelihood may not be as secure as you think, unless you already live in Las Vegas or the Los Angeles area...your cardroom may close up on you.
I'm going to post this in a couple different forums...so save your time.
"Your excuses are your own" -- Richard Roma
This was a poker room of great significance, particularly so in Michigan. They had 25 tables, and as recently as 18 months ago, they'd all be full on the weekends, with a decent list for all the games. Soaring Eagle spread:
3/6 Hold'em
3/6 Omaha 8
6/12 Hold'em
6/12 Omaha 8
10/20 Hold'em
20/40 Hold'em
2-6,6 7-card Stud high
2-10 7-Stud/8. This game was always going.
Pot Limit Hold'em and Omaha ($500 buy-in)
I do not play NL or PL, but I was a railbird for these games at times, and the action was definitely NOT lacking. It was in that game where I once saw some guy with so many chips it was absolutely hopless for him to even try to stack them all...they were all over the place. He only had about 8 others just eyeballing daggers at him too....
I don't know of too many places in Vegas that have that many tables, or such a choice of games. This was a big Poker room, and in my opinion, it was very well run. As I recall, there were few incidences requiring decisions from the floor (and no bad decisions that I ever witnessed). To me, this is a pretty significant blow to Poker here in Michigan, a) to lose one of the few cardrooms we have, and b) a big one at that. And they comped their poker players to $10 in food after 4 hours play. I liked that. Lose 20 big bets and bring home a sub sandwich to the little lady.
Quite frankly, the clientele at Soaring Eagle was not as sophisticated as I've seen elsewhere. Mt Pleasant is about 2 hours from Detroit, out in the middle of nowhere. It is home to Central Michigan University, so you had a lot of college kids getting their feet wet in this game, particularly at the lower limits. But you also had quite a few locals at all limits, and not all of these regulars played very well. The games were usually pretty good, and I am sure that there are players who have lost some income or supplemental income because this room closed. This is also sad too, because the dealers and floorpersons were all quite friendly and competent, and are now probably all displaced.
Recently, on my last couple trips, business had not been what it was in the past. The place was half full, and I began to worry about the Poker room's future.
Two things happened in the past 18 months or thereabouts that may have affected this room's drop:
1) Greektown Casino opened a Poker room in Downtown Detroit. For me, this effectively cut my drive to the cardroom from two hours to 30 minutes. Of course Greektown is a smaller room and the wait is considerably longer once you're there. Prior to the opening of the Greektown Poker room, you either needed to find a home game, or drive the two hours to Mt Pleasant. That was the closest (legal) Poker room to Detroit by far. But I still drove up to Soaring Eagle anyway, even after Greektown opened.
2) Soaring Eagle introduced jackpots and hiked the rake another buck (to $5) to cover the jackpots. Frankly, I thought that was pretty stiff to try to beat a $5 rake in a 3/6 game.
So, I'd be interested to hear any open comments anyone may have regarding why a place like this closed up. Here are some potential reasons:
a) Greektown siphoned off all the commuters from Detroit. I see a lot of famaliar faces there now when I go Downtown.
b) The increased jackpot rake killed off a lot of LL players who were maybe close to breakeven before.
c) The internet siphoned off players.
d) The casino (actually the Tribal Gaming Council) decided that slots are more profitable than Poker. If that's the case, then that really blows. This was a great poker room, really bustling. To add another 100 machines to a place that already has probably 2500 would be pretty sick.
e) The economy is a big pile of poo, and people can't afford to play / the bad players finally lost their bankrolls and can't play any more.
I'd welcome anyone's thoughts on these subjects. I personally tend to think that it's Greektown that stole all the business, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone thinks that tampering with the rake structure to introduce jackpots may have had some negative (unforeseen) consequences.
This is a subject that anyone who is considering going pro should give some attention to. Namely, that your livelihood may not be as secure as you think, unless you already live in Las Vegas or the Los Angeles area...your cardroom may close up on you.
I'm going to post this in a couple different forums...so save your time.
"Your excuses are your own" -- Richard Roma