The Bellagio’s ‘Big Game’ could be under threat from an unlikely source as Michael Kaplan reports
When it comes to high stakes poker, fluidity is pretty much a law of nature. Players change, rules change, buy-ins change. But in the case of a game that’s regularly held inside Bellagio’s famed Bobby’s Room – a semi-private enclave that might rank as the most civilised place in the world for risking hundreds of thousands of dollars on the turn of a single card – what could possibly instigate moving to a less posh spot down the Strip?
The answer: Alan Meltzer.
To the general public, Meltzer is an unknown (though that may change with the coming season of High Stakes Poker, on which he plays). However, among those at the centre of nosebleed stakes Hold’em and Omaha, Alan Meltzer is very much a known quantity. He’s a wealthy music executive who heads to Vegas every six weeks or so, plays blackjack for $ 15k a hand, and serves as a lightning-rod for the ‘Baby Big Game’ – $ 2k/$ 4k poker, with many pots containing enough money to facilitate the purchase of a nice Sin City home.
When he’s in town, pros like Sammy Farha and David Williams drop what they’re doing to find a seat. Meltzer usually has a posse of other rich guys in tow, and he puts together games composed of three amateurs and five pros. ‘I don’t need nut-peddlers in my game,’ he tells me. ‘I want an action game. I’m an action player all the way.’
Moving day
Sometime last December, Meltzer got into a tiff with his host at the Bellagio. There were issues concerning comps and suites and villas. After six days in a suite – when he wanted a villa – Meltzer packed up and moved to the Wynn casino up the road. Needless to say, his new host there had a villa waiting. ‘Next day,’ he says, ‘I called round and told everybody we would have the game at the Wynn, rather than in Bobby’s Room.’
While the poker facility at Wynn is small and not nearly as private as Bobby’s Room, the hotel does have a few things going for it. Newly-opened Encore, which is attached to Wynn, has the nicest suites in Nevada; there’s a terrific new spa; and the club – XS – draws a hot crowd.
Plus, from the pros’ perspective, there’s another attribute of anteing up at Wynn. ‘We’re able to keep the game quiet,’ says David Williams, who played with Meltzer at Bellagio and moved on to Wynn. ‘We don’t want a bunch of well-rested sharks, waiting for us pros to get tired, so they can jump in and take us out.’
Full house
As Meltzer tells it though, the pros don’t have an exclusive lock on the money. Short-term, he’s skilful enough to fatten his considerable bankroll – even when playing against the best. Meltzer remembers a recent Bellagio session concluding with him, David ‘Viffer’ Peat and Williams in an Omaha pot that came to almost half a million dollars. ‘I don’t negotiate to split pots or run it twice,’ explains Meltzer. ‘But they do, and they got into this discussion while I was sitting there with trip Queens. They worked it out and I quietly hoped for the board to pair.’
It did pair and Viffer immediately reacted. ‘That’s me,’ he said, figuring he’d won. ‘But,’ says Meltzer, ‘I knew it wasn’t him. They almost forgot I was still in. Finally, I said, “Excuse me. I have a full house.”’
While Meltzer acknowledges that he misses the privacy of Bobby’s Room, he’s perfectly happy with his villa at Wynn, where there’s talk of upgrading the poker facilities. Clinically sane, Meltzer knows his skills are not at the sky-high levels of top pros. However, he points out that he’s far from a fish. ‘I have a job, but I also play poker 30 hours a week,’ says Meltzer. ‘I spend more time at poker than I do at my job. Does that make me a professional? I don’t know. And I don’t care. I just want to play.’
And Vegas’s well-known pros will play as well, wherever Meltzer’s game may take them.
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