Aria at City Center Poker Room
Opened Dec. 16, 2009
City Center's Aria Opens with 24-Table Poker Room
At long last, Project City Center is complete and open for business after 5 years since construction began. The project includes 6 hi-rise condo/hotel towers,
a high-end retail center, and the center piece Aria Resort with a large casino that includes a fantastic new poker room. The variety of games spread there makes it an obvious stop for the visiting Las Vegas poker player as well as an excellent choice for locals.
On January 2, 2010, we witnessed, as far as we know, the first instance of ROSE (HORSE without Hold'em) take place, a game for those that prefer a mixed game experience, but are weary of the dominant Texas Holdem game seen everywhere else since the beginning of the poker boom in 2003. ROSE may or may not catch on in the West the way it appears to be doing in the Eastern U.S., but the new poker room at Aria Resort is willing and able to try slightly different things to
create a niche market that would set their card room apart from the stiff competition found at the other popular poker rooms in Las Vegas.
A glassed-in enclosed portion of the back part of the room has been spreading private mixed games rumored to be around the $200-$400 level or perhaps higher depending on demand. Phil "Unabomber" Laak and his poker playing gal Jennifer Tilly, Tom "Durr" Dwan, the famous high stakes Internet player, and a few other famous poker world people have been seen playing there so far. The last we heard, Aria's poker room was in negotiations with Phil Ivey to use his name as the name of the back glassed-in high end room similarly to the way Bellagio's back private room was named "Bobby's Room" in honor of Bobby Baldwin, who happens to be the CEO of the entire Project City Center.
The daily 11:15 AM tournament features a $100 + $20 buy-in freezeout event with about 83% of the total buy-ins/entry fees returned to the players in the form of the prize pool, an above average amount for a Las Vegas Strip poker tournament in that buy-in range. The structure is excellent for many players, not quite as deep-stacky as the Venetian or Wynn Poker Rooms, but with 30-minute levels and 8000 starting chips, we believe this tournament will be a huge success.
See our home page for a YouTube City Center video.
