A Look Back through History at the Aladin’s Big Game
Those who closely follow poker know that the biggest and best poker games take place in the Bellagio’s famous Bobby’s Room (save for the underground billionaire games we see in the movies which I’m not sure really exist). All of the best players that poker has to offer saddle up to the felt for this game which sees millions of dollars exchanged every day.
You will see people like Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, Sammy Farha, and many others battling it out for the heeps of money that is available. In fact, some of the people who play at Bobby’s Room don’t even participate in live tournaments anymore because the money is so big here.
The reason I’m ranting about Bobby’s Room is because I recently saw a really cool article about the first kind of Bobby’s Room that operated in the 70’s. The game took place in the Aladin, which at the time was one of the smaller casinos in Las Vegas. This big game was started when Syd Wyman and his mob buddies were told to move it out of the Dunes Casino because it didn’t generate enough money.
So when Wyman took it to the Aladin, the big game was a bigger hit than ever! All of the top players took part in the Aladin’s big game, and Johnny Moss even hosted it. Some of poker’s most memorable stories spawned from the big game at the Aladin too including when Major Riddle lost his controlling stake in the Dunes and when Tom Abdo died in the middle of a game from a heart attack.
I don’t think Bobby’s Room has quite this history yet, but give it some time and people may be writing legendary articles about it some day too.