Ari Engel: Online Legend to WSOP Grinder to 2016 Aussie Millions Main Event Champion

During the boom of online poker, many young players passed up college or withdrew from school after a couple of years to pursue poker full-time. However, this online poker legend graduated college in only two years, incredibly with a double major (Finance and Management; Organizational Behavior). However, during his second year at New York University, he met his initial poker mentor, Andrew “BrownDog19” Brown, who introduced him to poker and the advanced theory of the game.

Known to the online community as “BodogAri,” Ari Engel began to focus his full attention to poker after graduation, eventually becoming the number one online tournament poker player in the world. However, Black Friday altered Engel’s world. Eventually, he decided to begin travelling to play in live poker events. Grinding away, especially on the World Series of Poker Circuit for years, Engel has had tremendous success, capturing seven WSOP rings and is currently tied for second all-time behind Alex Masek (who has nine).

Ever frugal and excelling at bankroll management, Engel recently satellited into the 2016 Aussie Millions main event, outlasted a field of 732 players and earned AU$1.6 million ($1.12 million).

After his first career seven-figure score, I sat down with the newly-crowned champion to discuss his victory and career.

Bernard Lee: Congratulations on winning the 2016 Aussie Millions main event, one of the biggest tournaments of the year. How did you feel entering the final table?

Ari Engel: I was definitely confident going into the final table, having the chip lead. I felt I had a tremendous amount of experience, having played so many final tables and heads-up matches in my career. However, I knew it was not going to be easy being that six of the seven returning players were professionals.

Bernard Lee: It was a very interesting final table with a lot of different dynamics and storylines that the poker media could write about.

Ari Engel: Yes and I kept thinking in my head that I really wanted to try and disappoint the poker media. There were two females there and they would have made amazing stories if either of them would have won. There was the World Poker Tour’s Tony Dunst and any one of the three Australians would have also made a great story, being the event was held in their home country. I was just the boring professional poker player from the U.S. In the end, I guess I successfully disappointed the poker media.

Bernard Lee: I’m not sure if it was a disappointment to the poker world. You have had a great career, making it a great story as well. Tell us how you got started in the world of online poker.

Ari Engel: After college, I would play in a weekly home game with my friends. A couple of them had just signed up to a new poker room called Bodog and experienced immediate success. So I signed up as well and, all of a sudden, my poker just took off. I started to make money and do well playing cash games full-time. I was doing so well that Bodog invited me to come out to play in the WSOP. They sponsored me into the main event, which was only my 10th or 20th tournament ever. After that, I really got into poker tournaments.

Bernard Lee: Eventually, you became the number one online tournament poker player in the world. However, when Black Friday hit, your world must have dramatically changed.

Ari Engel: It definitely shook up my world because I was primarily an online player. But I was lucky enough that I was born in Canada and got dual citizenship for U.S. and Canada. Since Black Friday, I have been spending a lot of time up in Canada, primarily Toronto. But also, over the last four years, I have basically been on the road playing a lot of live poker and about 20 percent of my time playing online poker.

Bernard Lee: Was it difficult to make the transition to live poker after so many years playing online?

Ari Engel: Not really. I always viewed online poker as being a lot tougher than live poker at similar stakes. The average skill level online tends to be a lot higher than live poker.

Up until very recently, I didn’t feel comfortable playing $1,000 or higher online, whereas I felt comfortable playing at those stakes live. After Black Friday, I have often played in tournaments with an average buy-in around $1,000, which included plenty of $300 and $500 events, with some $1,500 and $3,500 main events.

Bernard Lee: Many people feel that the game is much slower and that there is so much more information to process playing live, as you can see your opponents. Do you agree?

Ari Engel: Of course you have to have more patience playing live, as there are fewer hands. Additionally, when you play live, you can obviously see the person and pick up on any tells and reactions.

But I actually feel that there is much more information playing online that you are unable to get playing live. HUDs (Heads-Up Display) like PokerTracker track your play and your opponents’ play to see what percentage of hands they playing and they are raising. A lot of times, online players tend to feel they have so much less information when playing live.

Bernard Lee: How do you continue to evolve with the game over the past decade, especially live?

Ari Engel: I still credit a lot of the development of my game to playing online. That being said, I don’t mind embarrassing myself at the live tables. I am just happy to do things completely out of the box. A lot of times it turns out that they are completely wrong. But I always go out on a limb. There are a ton of adjustments in poker and you can never be comfortable in this ever changing game.

Bernard Lee: You have been one of the most consistent grinders on the WSOP Circuit. Although you have had success at larger buy-ins, why do you still play the lower ($365) buy-in events?

Ari Engel: The short answer is I am just a gigantic nit. To elaborate a little bit, when I was coming up in poker, I had a lot of good friends that were really good at poker and had skills that I felt were even better than myself. But when it came to bankroll management, they did not display good skills and often went broke.

Therefore, I have always taken a conservative approach and, in my opinion, too conservative overall. I would play lower than I should have. But, the idea is to play a little bit lower than you otherwise could. You don’t max out your buy-ins and then you just feel so much more comfortable.

Bernard Lee: During the WSOP Circuit events, each tournament is usually only a two- or three-day event. However, the Aussie Millions main event was over five days. Were you tired during this grueling tournament?

Ari Engel: Yeah, it was definitely a little tiring. But I feel the longer schedule tends to hurt my opponents more than me. So, although I didn’t like it and did not feel comfortable, it probably still increased my edge slightly over the field.

Bernard Lee: Now that you have had a huge seven-figure score, will you continue to play the lower buy-ins on the WSOP Circuit or will you try playing in larger buy-in events?

Ari Engel: I think some sort of combo of both. One of the reasons why I play the WSOP Circuit so much is because I do value in having the most Circuit rings. I have been chasing Alex (Masek) for a long time, but he just won another one, so I have some more catching up to do (laughs). Also, over the past two years, I have qualified for the WSOP National Championship and that has also been an incentive to play in these events.

So far, this season, I have played in every European Poker Tour event and I played a lot of WPT’s throughout the US and Canada. Over the past couple of years, I have played in a few high rollers on the EPT. I don’t think I will play in too many more of these.

Overall, I probably won’t play too much bigger than I currently am. ♠

Bernard Lee is a poker columnist for ESPN.com, author of “The Final Table, Volume I and II” and radio host of “The Bernard Lee Poker Show,” which can be found on RoundersRadio.com or iTunes. Lee has over $2 million in career earnings, winning six titles. Lee is a team member of RunGoodGear.com, Team Pro for Blue Shark Optics and also spokesperson for specialty travel company, Blaycation. Follow Bernard Lee on Twitter or Instagram: @BernardLeePoker or visit him at www.BernardLeePoker.com