Las Vegas Losing Grip on High Stakes Poker Action

In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that Las Vegas was beginning to lose its grip on the high stakes poker market. Now, top players like Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson have begun to confirm what most people already suspected: Las Vegas may not be a great location for high stakes poker pros for much longer.

The decline in the high stakes poker scene in Vegas has been linked to many factors. Internet poker has become another option for many professional players, while the increase in large cash games being offered in locations like Macau has drawn players to greener pastures where they can take on amateurs with seemingly endless bankrolls.

However, Phil Ivey has said that a single event contributed to the decline of the local poker scene more than anything else.

“Once Chip Reese died, it was pretty much over,” Ivey told PokerListings, referring to Reese’s death in 2007 at the age of 56. “He was pretty much the backbone of the high-stakes games [in Las Vegas] and now, there’s really no big game anymore, except for during the World Series of when a tournament is in town or something like that.”

Of course, the high stakes action hasn’t entirely disappeared. But Reese was often at the center of the $4,000/$8,000 mixed game played at the Bellagio in “Bobby’s Room,” which was known as the Big Game. While that game ran five times a week or more during its heyday, Ivey said, it was now down to one or two nights a week.

Earlier, Doyle Brunson had expressed similar sentiments through his blog. Brunson was quoted as saying that Las Vegas was becoming an “undesirable” home base for poker pros, due to the limited high-stakes action. Brunson believes that online poker and the spread of poker – which has led to big games being spread in many locations, but with less concentration of players in a single city – have contributed to the decline.

Brunson singled out California as a possible replacement home for poker pros, a sentiment which Ivey seemed to agree with.

“I do love California,” he said, “so if they start playing big out there, that’s where I’ll be.”