The new high stakes poker room of the Aria Resort & Casino has finally opened, and celebrated its launch with an invitational tournament offering a prize pool of one million dollars.
Poker pros, celebrities and rich entrepreneurs attended the grand opening ceremony of the Ivey Room this Saturday. Phil Ivey (after whom the room was named) gave an opening speech, and after that, all the people invited sat down to take part in the one million dollar guaranteed tournament. The players that made it to the final table took a share of the prize pool, and there was a special $100,000 prize offered for the player eliminating Phil himself. WPT winner David ‘Chino’ Rheem took the knockout bounty.
The final table decided to go for a deal and refrained from taking the game all the way to heads-up. The tournament winner was supposed to play heads-up with Phil Ivey for another $100,000. Larry Litton, the one with the biggest stack took the challenge, but didn’t manage to take down the 7-time WSOP champion.
The cash game tables got filled up immediately after the tournament had ended, and we could see Doyle Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Tim Phan, David Benyamine and Eli Elezra, among others, playing ferocious high stakes cash game.
Until now, the ultimate place for live high stakes action was Bobby’s Room in the Bellagio, but Ivey’s Room will probably take this title when the 2010 WSOP sets off.
