$1,000,000 prize pool for free invitational tournament

On May 22nd a special high stakes poker room will open at the Aria casino, the opening of the “Ivey Room” named after Phil Ivey will marked by a special tournament with a $1,000,000 prize pool.

In one month’s time at Sin City the inauguration of the new Ivey Room will be taking place. This is a brand new poker room which will be part of the recently opened casino Aria brand on the strip. The room is intended to be for “High Stakes” players only. On May 22nd, to celebrate this exciting new poker room the organizers are hosting an invitational free tournament which has a prize pool of one million dollars. The winner of the tournament will take home a quarter of the prize money ($250,000), they will take home double this amount if they manage to beat the Tiger Woods of poker, Phil Ivey, in a heads up. If someone manages to out Ivey during the tournament they will win an additional hundred thousand dollars and the remaining four hundred thousand of the prize pool will be divided between seven tournament players. However, beating Ivey will not be very easy. He is considered by many to be pokers best all around player; he has seven WSOP bracelets and is the player who has won the most money ever.

Those of you who follow poker tournament news carefully maybe reminded of the Tournament of Champions which also has a one million dollar prize pool. It will hosted by Harrah’s in the middle of the forthcoming World Series of Poker on June 27th. The only difference between the two events lies in the participation requirements. Only past champions of the World Series of Poker can enter the Tournament of Champions. The special one million dollars bounty tournament will only be open to the best customers of MGM whom will be sent personal invitations. The invitations read in part, “Aria Resort and Casino, the heart of CityCenter, is revealing our exclusive new high-limit poker room, The Ivey Room. To commemorate this special occasion, you are on the Dean’s List to compete in this prestigious event.”

The “Ivy Room” is owned by MGM Mirage and they also have another poker room dedicated to high stakes called “Bobby’s Room” which is at the Bellagio. The buy in at Bobby’s Room is a massive twenty thousand dollars and the room only contains two tables. However, it is expected that in order to make sure that the two rooms do not compete for customer and therefore remain profitable they will be opening at different times.