After years of construction, the City Center project in Las Vegas was finally opened to public during the week and poker players have been checking out the newest poker room in town at Aria Casino. The initial reaction is positive, and there's even talk of naming the VIP lounge at Aria after Phil Ivey.


Aria is one the six major buildings at City Center and the only one to house a casino. The other buildings are hotels, condos and a gigantic shopping and entertainment center. Aria's futuristic architecture is quite astonishing, and it was built with the environment in mind; for instance natural light is utilized during daylight hours to save energy unlike in other properties on the Strip.

Aria's poker room has 24 tables, 18 of which were reserved to smaller games ($2/$5 NL or $4/$8 limit or smaller). The VIP lounge is secluded from the main poker room and the high stakes players spotted playing there on Thursday included Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan, David Benyamine and Guy Laliberte. According to Poker News Daily, Phil Ivey is currently considering loaning his name to the VIP room, the same way that Bobby's Room at Bellagio was named after Bobby Baldwin.

Most of the players have liked the Aria poker room, the only major complaint being that there is too much noise coming in from other parts of the casino; something that the staff will surely look into soon.

Source: Poker News Daily.