Capture the Flag: Ari ‘BodogAri’ Engel

Ari “BodogAri” Engel has crushed cash games and tournaments throughout his career in poker. The rush of success has led the Las Vegas resident to develop one of poker’s elite training centers — a place where Engel educates students on the intricacies of cash-game and tournament grinding.

Engel was introduced to poker during his second year of college by his roommate Andrew “Browndog19” Brown. Brown was a consistent online grinder, and Engel started watching him play. After three months of only observing, never playing a hand, Engel finally decided to try it on his own. Over the next six months, he played $5 and $10 tournaments, and turned a slight profit. After college graduation, Engel completely stopped playing for about two months, except for a weekly $40 home game with friends. During one of those games, a couple of his friends were talking about a new site on which they were running really well. The site was Bodog, and 10 days later, Engel was doing so well there in $2-$4 no-limit hold’em that he quit his day job.

Surprisingly, Engel regards himself as a life nit, despite quitting his job with a large amount of student-loan debt. These days, the tournament-focused Engel said that he feels very comfortable with the smaller-stakes cash games in limit hold’em, which he has been grinding lately online. He also said that the live cash games in Las Vegas have been getting juicer since Black Friday.

“There’s definitely money in the live cash games right now, and I also think tournaments are going to grow,” said Engel, who has cashed in more than 80 tournaments in his brief poker career, amassing winnings of nearly $1.1 million and winning two World Series of Poker Circuit rings. “I can envision higher buy-in live tournaments popping up all over the place eventually, due to online poker being largely out of the equation.”

Card Player caught up with Engel — who said he hasn’t taken a week off from poker since he became a professional, and will likely move to Canada after the World Series of Poker — right before he began a live no-limit hold’em cash-game session. He was able to share his insights on post-Black Friday issues, as well as whether or not cash games are a good foundation for tournament play.

Brian Pempus: So, can you describe your rush of success early on in cash games? How did these sessions help you to make the transition to tournament poker?

Ari Engel: When I started playing online, all of a sudden I was killing it. I don’t really know what I was doing that different back then. I went to $1-$2 no-limit hold’em, and then immediately that day, I was playing $2-$4. Bodog didn’t have anything higher than that level at the time. I played for about nine months after that, and had only one losing week. I just played all the time. After 10 days during this stretch, I quit my job, which wasn’t a really good one, but I still left it for poker. Nine months later, Bodog called me up and said I was the biggest winner in the site’s history, and asked if I wanted to play in the World Series of Poker main event. I busted out about four hours into it, but I got the tournament bug. Since I was doing really well in cash games, I branched off into the bigger buy-in tournaments.

BP: Do you think cash games are a good foundation for people to have before they start playing multitable tournaments?

AE: Cash games are definitely harder than tournaments, but I don’t think they’re a necessary foundation. I think that if you want to get good at tournaments, you should focus on them. I play a lot of limit hold’em, and in the past, I was playing as high as $300-$600 heads up. I played a little pot-limit Omaha, as well, and I think that all of this is good for maintaining a solid knowledge foundation for the game. But if you want to get really good at tournaments in a few months, you should take a break from cash games. However, to be as good as you can be as a poker player, it is good to play everything.

BP: What are some of the problems that you see arising with the state of online poker in this country?

AE: A big problem right now is that there isn’t a 1¢-2¢ cash game going on right now for the micro-stakes player. It’s harder for people to come in and play in the cash games. Right now, the $1-$3 games in Vegas have a buy-in of $300, which is so much bigger than what online was able to offer. The vast majority of professionals in the game right now started off playing really, really small online. I think this is an issue for poker for the time being. I think online poker will eventually become regulated, but if we were stuck with just live poker for a long time, that would be devastating for the game. The costs are also much higher to participate in live games. The money that goes out of the poker economy is much higher, and it’s harder to get people into the game. A lot of the students I work with are not comfortable with going to a casino. There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the worry of being berated in live games and having to deal with really awful people. I am a big believer in trying to maintain a positive environment in games, especially for losing players. You should try to treat them as nicely as you can, and make sure that they have a good time. If they are going to lose, they shouldn’t be miserable in the process.

BP: After this influx of players to the live games, how do you see the difficulty of the game changing before online poker becomes regulated?

AE: It will get tougher, but when it gets regulated, it will likely be great. On the other hand, for me, everything will be good pretty soon. I am moving out of America, and I heard that the games are great online right now. I heard that the tournaments are super soft compared to the way they were. I am looking forward to playing on all sites.

We have been limited here in the past to only PokerStars, Full Tilt, and UB, but now, the whole world is our oyster if we relocate to another country. Black Friday, for me personally, is not a huge deal. If we get regulated online poker in the next couple of years, everything will correct itself. I think the situation will end up really well, in the long term, for online players in the United States. Hopefully, this all means that in two years, the online games will be really good.

BP: What advice would you give to online players right now?

AE: I recommend not leaving more money online now than you can afford. Just don’t deposit tons of money, and make sure that you cash out after a really good session. You know that there is a risk going in, but chances are that if something bad happens, you will eventually be paid. In the meantime, if you are cashing out periodically, you won’t be risking too much. ♠