The Aria poker room in Las Vegas is finally bringing back daily poker tournaments for the first time since the global health pandemic struck. Just up the road a couple blocks on Las Vegas Boulevard, the Venetian’s card room is already in the midst of a major-ish event.

• Aria Poker Tournaments 2020 Schedule
• Aria Poker Tournaments 2020 Ohio

The three forthcoming events will take place live at ARIA casino in Las Vegas on December 3rd, 4th and 5th, with each tournament costing $10,000 to enter. Each of the events are single-day format. WPT ARIA Summer Championship: $9,500 + $500 = $10,000: ARIA Resort & Casino: Jun 25 2018: Zynga Poker WPT500 Las Vegas: $500 + $55 + $15 = $570: ARIA Resort & Casino: May 20 2018: WPT Bobby Baldwin Classic: $9,600 + $250 + $150 = $10,000: ARIA Resort & Casino: May 24 2018: WPT Tournament of Champions: $15,000: ARIA Resort & Casino.

Aria and Venetian boast two of the most popular poker rooms in the world, not just in Las Vegas. Many of the top pros in the game, and some talented local grinders, compete in these card rooms regularly.

Both have also long been considered two of the best places in town for daily tournaments. At Aria, prior to COVID-19, two daily tournaments ran at buy-ins ranging from $140 to $240. Whereas at Venetian, daily tournaments ranged from $125 to $200, along with regular DeepStack series events that guaranteed hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

Speaking of the DeepStack series, the first one since COVID-19 returns to the Venetian this week. The Sheldon Adelson-owned casino is guaranteeing at least $400,000 in cash prizes across 32 events until September 27. That includes the series highlight event, a $400 buy-in no-limit hold’em Main Event with $100,000 guaranteed, beginning September 23.

Bringing the action back to Aria

Aria Resort and Casino, an MGM Resorts property on the Strip, is finally bringing back poker tournaments. It took the casino nearly a month to reopen after the initial June reopening weekend in Las Vegas. And the poker room was open for business right away. But card room manager Sean McCormack and his tournament director, Paul Campbell, decided the time wasn’t right to bring back its popular daily tournaments.

On Thursday, however, Campbell finally announced the good news on Twitter. Starting September 18, Aria will host daily $140 buy-in tournaments at 11 am. Each tournament will have a guaranteed $3,000 prize pool. The tournament will be similar to the pre-COVID daily 7 pm tournaments, with players starting with 20,000 chips and the blinds increasing every 20 minutes.

The big blind ante tournament will have six-handed tables, the same as Aria’s cash game limits. Bellagio, Aria’s sister poker room, is also limited to six-handed play.

If you’re more interested in playing in poker rooms that allow more players per table, Venetian’s poker room is currently eight-handed with plexiglass dividers in place. Aria’s poker room doesn’t have plexiglass dividers at the tables — part of the reason they’re limited by the Nevada Gaming Control Board (GCB) to six-handed play.

Aria and Venetian aren’t the only card rooms in town with poker tournaments, although daily events are limited compared to pre-coronavirus. South Point, Caesars Palace, The Orleans, Poker Palace Casino, and Sahara are also offering low buy-in daily tournaments.

As for cash games, there are currently 15 poker rooms in Las Vegas open, with Westgate this week being the most recent. That leaves 16 more that were open pre-COVID to return to action. A few of them, such as Harrah’s and Mirage, have already removed the poker tables and replaced them with slot machines.

But on the whole, the Las Vegas poker scene is slowly beginning to resemble its old self, with card rooms reopening every couple of weeks and daily tournaments popping back up.

Featured image source: Poker.org

Table Of Contents

December is shaping up to be a busy month for poker in Las Vegas.

In addition to the news that the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $10,000 Main Event will have a live component at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, ARIA Resort & Casino has announced the return of its live $10,000 no-limit hold’em High Roller tournaments.

From December 3-5, a daily $10,000 buy-in NLH tournament will take place at 2 p.m. local time. As usual, those who register on-time will be incentivized with a lower $200 rake whereas late registrants and re-entries will pay $500. Levels are 40 minutes with late registration ending after Level 6. A 30-second shot clock will be in effect along with each player receiving a half dozen 30-second time extensions.

The tournament, which will be played six-handed, will require all players, staff, and organizers to wear a mask. While the tournament is open to anyone, the primary focus is to attract the local Las Vegas players.

ARIA reopened their poker room on July 1 for cash game place. On September 18, they reintroduced daily tournaments.

ARIA December High Roller Schedule

Picking Up Where They Left Off

Aria Poker Tournaments 2020 Schedule

In 2019, the venue played host to 33 editions of ARIA High Rollers. The tournaments tend to attract some of the biggest names in poker, and last October a similar series saw the boisterous Randall Emmett claim two of the three titles for a combined $210,600. Barry Hutter took down the other title for $71,360.

More recently, ARIA got two high rollers off the ground in 2020 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Back on February, 20, Jacob Daniels topped a 35-entry field to win a $10K High Roller for $117,000 after a heads-up deal with Seth Davies, who claimed $114,000.

The following day, PokerGO founder Cary Katz navigated his way through a 25-entry field to win the second $10K NLH tournament for $110,000 while Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel finished second for $75,000. Jake Schindler and Sam Soverel placed third and fourth for $40,000 and $25,000 respectively.

Aria Poker Tournaments 2020 Ohio

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