Bellagio: The Home of High Rollers
TV Show High Stakes Poker was filmed here, famous WET fountain is situated nearby, Cirque du Soleil performs here and the most famous poker players gather on this place.
Short info:
Name: Bellagio
Owner: MGM Resorts
Place: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Total gambling area: 10,800 sq. m.
Opening Year: 1998.
Arguably the best Las Vegas Casino has, perhaps, one of the most famous poker rooms not just in the USA but in the world also – Bobby’s Room. We’ll get to it, but first let us speak about the casino and the hotel in general.
Construction of Bellagio, named after the small Italian village Bellagio on the lake Como, was finished in the end of 90s. The cost of it is about $1.6 billion.
The owner company has earlier consisted of two organizations - Mirage Resorts and MGM Grand Inc. After the merge in 2000 the companies name has become MGM Mirage, and in 2010 – MGM Resorts.
About 8,000 people work in Bellagio. The main, 36-storeyed building is 151m high and includes 3,000 first class rooms – the resort has received lots of highest awards for its high restaurant and room service.
Poker
Bellagio Casino has a big poker room for 40 tables – and two high rollers zones, the most famous of which is, certainly, Bobby’s Room. Room is named after World Series of Poker 1978 champion and the main designer of MGM Resorts Bobby Baldwin and the best of the best gather here.
24 hours a day high rollers play in Bobby's Room, among them are these stars: David Benyamine, Patrick Antonius, Todd Brunson, Johnny Chan, Jennifer Harman, Minh Ly, Daniel Negreanu, David Oppenheim, Eli Elezra and many others.
This is also the room where the last seventh season of High Stakes Poker was filmed, starring Vanessa Selbst, David Pitt, Barry Greenstein, Phil Laak, Doyle Brunson, Phil Galfond and so on.
Bobby's Room is open for everybody who has minimum $20,000. Top regulars come here with at least couple of hundreds – because stakes in limit games go up to $4,000/$8,000. Mixed games are the most popular, by the way.
Stakes in No Limit start from $1/$3 up to $10/$20+. Here is NL and Limit Hold’em, PL Omaha, 7-card Stud and 8-games.
If you play tournament poker daily freezout with $125 buy in is available, but it’s better to wait till WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic starts. Super High roller event WPT Alpha8 with $100,000 buy-in and Main event $10,000 are among others in the schedule of the series.
Verdict
Bellagio Casino is a legendary place. The one with uncrushed bastions of true poker, where you can watch and play with old school representatives.
And the hotel itself with its neighborhood: famous fountains with great artificial lake, Cirque du Soleil with the show “O”, bathrooms made of marble, botanic gardens, art galleries , boutiques and restaurants – it’s a wonderful poker oasis.