In the wake of successful $100k poker tournaments at both the PokerStars PCA and the Aussie Millions –plus a $250k buy-in at the Aussie Millions– as well as the creation of the Onyx Cup Series by Full Tilt Poker, the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas has decided to host its own High-Roller poker tournament at the WPT Five Diamonds Poker Championships in May.

Bellagio’s Poker Tournament Director Jack McClelland told CardPlayer TV that the tournament will feature a $100k buy-in and take place on May 18th and 19th, and he is expecting the tournament to draw between 30-60 players –Players will start with 400,000 chips and rounds will last 60 minutes. McClelland also announced the day before, May 17th, the Bellagio will run a $1,000 satellite with re-buys.

McClelland also recounted an unknown story that in 1998 McClelland and Jim Albrecht had designs on increasing the buy-in of the World Series of Poker to $20,000 at the behest of the high-stakes players at the time. However, both officials left Binion’s Horseshoe before the WSOP Main Event buy-in could be increased.

The tournament at the Bellagio will take place soon after the inaugural Onyx Cup $100k tournament (May 11th-12th), so it will be interesting to see if the close proximity helps or hurts the Bellagio High-Roller tournament –either fewer people will enter because they just spent $100k the previous week, or more high-rollers will stick around to play in the Bellagio Event as well. You can be certain that the players who cash in the Onyx Cup tournament will play in the Bellagio tournament!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2011 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.