Las Vegas Poker -- Aria will open the Ivey Room this WeekendIvey Joins Bobby Baldwin in Having a Private High-Stakes Room Named in his Honor |
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The Aria Hotel and Casino will open “The Ivey Room” in honor of poker professional Phil Ivey (pictured right) this weekend in Las Vegas. The private high-stakes room features one poker table, multiple 42-inch flat-screen televisions, and direct private access to a cashier’s cage that holds 480 safety deposit boxes. The room also features complimentary beverage service and around the clock table-side dining. The private room expands on the 24-table poker room that Aria debuted when it opened in December 2009.
To launch “The Ivey Room” with a bang, Aria will host a $1 million invitation-only freeroll for VIP players on May 22. The winner will take home $250,000 in prize money and the player who knocks out Ivey will claim a $100,000 bounty. The winner of the tournament will also be given the chance to earn an additional $250,000 in a heads-up poker match against Ivey. The player who finishes in second will take home $70,000 and the top eight places will get paid in the freeroll event.
“We were thrilled that Phil agreed when we asked if he would consider putting his name on the room,” said Aria President Phil McBeath in an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He continued, “Phil is a great guy, a longtime friend both of the MGM Mirage family and mine personally, and remains a fan favorite in the world of poker.”
Ivey now joins former world champion Bobby Baldwin as a player to be honored with a high-stakes poker room namesake. Bobby’s room sits next door at Bellagio and it is the current home to the Big Game. It remains to be seen if the Big Game will move over to Aria when the poker world descends on Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, but the game has migrated before. Considering that CityCenter and Bellagio are both owned by MGM Mirage the new room isn’t a competitor as much as it is the next step in Las Vegas poker offerings.
This is not the first time a player has been tied to an individual poker room in Las Vegas. Daniel Negreanu was tied to the poker room at the Wynn in 2005. While playing at the Wynn Negreanu hosted a series of $500,000 heads-up matches against all takers. A few years ago in 2007 Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was signed as the “in-house poker celebrity” at the redesigned poker room at Planet Hollywood. Neither of these business relationships lasted long and the player endorsement of individual poker rooms remains an untapped angle in Las Vegas poker.
Ivey is the biggest star in poker these days and he is a visible embodiment of high-stakes gambling. Ivey is poker’s all-time leading money winner with $12,650,783 and he holds seven WSOP gold bracelets, along with one World Poker Tour title. Ivey gained national media attention last year when he made the November Nine at the WSOP main event and cashed in seventh place for $1.4 million. He was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine and the television show E:60 aired a segment featuring the poker professional during his notable run at poker’s biggest tournament of the year.
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