Ari Engel: The End Boss of Poker’s Minor Leagues

Ari Engel finished fourth in the 2016 Card Player Player of the Year race. The Canadian poker pro, who was born in Toronto but is now an anchorless, world traveler, stood out among the names at the top of the list. While the majority of the top 20 combined success in large field main events with plenty of huge scores in six-figure super high roller events, Engel made his way to the top few spots on poker’s most prestigious leader board largely through consistent triumphs in smaller buy-in events.

He made 17 final tables last year, winning three titles along the way including his largest ever score, $1.12 million, for taking down the Aussie Millions main event. He also won his eighth World Series of Poker Circuit gold ring.

One needs to only look at the average buy-in for events the top players final tabled to see just how stark of a difference there was between Engel and his fellow POY top contenders. Eventual winner David Peters’ average buy-in for events he final tabled was $41,352 in 2016. Runner-up Fedor Holz’s average was a whopping $75,676 and third place finisher Justin Bonomo averaged $35,261. Engel’s average buy-in in events he final tabled in 2016 was just $2,679.

Engel may not be playing in the highest stakes nosebleed tournaments, but last year he still proved that, through incredible dedication and consistency, he could go toe-to-toe with the high rolling superstars of the game.

Engel recently spoke to Card Player about his incredible run last year and much more.

Keeping A Level Head

Ari Engel is known around the poker world for taking a measured and even-keeled approach to the game. His analytical mindset and penchant for self-deprecation was evident from the outset.

“Obviously 2016 was an amazing year for me, a career year and was amazing to go through as by far my best year,” said Engel. “At the same time, my stats for the year look even more impressive than they really are because there isn’t any real record of my re-entries, which are common with so many events being unlimited re-entry these days.”

Even with the detailed records of tournament results that are available in the modern poker world, Engel has a strong point regarding the difficulty of tracking a player’s true success in the game if you don’t have access to their total amount of buy-ins for a year. He deflected praise when confronted with the fact the he made the third-most final tables of any player last year.

“If I had the third-most final tables this year, I almost for sure had the most entries. A huge percent of the days of the year I am playing a live tournament, probably much higher than nearly every other pro.”

Engel admits that the disconnect between perceived success and the actuality of a tournament pros situation can sometimes be tough to deal with. People notice your wins but maybe don’t quite track when you haven’t had a big score for a while.

“I remember a couple years ago I won my seventh WSOP Circuit gold ring after making a deal, maybe cashing for $12,000 in a $500 H.O.R.S.E. tournament. I got hundreds of messages of congratulations, likes, and re-tweets online. In the meantime, I was in the middle of a $150,000 downswing and I was getting messages of how great or how ‘sick’ I am. That is just kind of the life of a tournament player, though, you need to have a short memory. Most days you are not going to win, and when you do you need to be able to enjoy it and not let the fact a single win doesn’t get you out of makeup discourage you, whether you are in real makeup to a backer or just to yourself, because as a tournament player you are always figuratively in makeup.”

Ari has worked very hard on his game and his approach to poker ever since turning pro in 2004, and he tries to keep perspective when assessing his success over any given period of time. He cashed for more than $1.8 million in live events last year, by far the best single 12-month span of his career, but when taking a long view of it all he still maintains that it’s hard to gauge just how good he is.

“You can play a tournament every day of the year and you will never approach a statistically valid sample size in your lifetime. So as a poker pro it’s very hard to accurately evaluate sometimes. Even playing online it will take quite a while to accumulate enough data to be meaningful.”

Two Suitcases And A Dream

While Engel’s thoughtful analysis of his performance might not lend him the mystique of a Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, or other exciting and charming fan-favorite poker pros, it might just be a key reason that he is an exemplary poker pro.

“The way you make a living in tournament poker is you lose one buy-in, lose one buy-in, lose one buy-in, then win 100 buy-ins, “ Engel explains. “It’s all part of making a reasonable living, but likely not getting super rich. The point is that the real way to look at my job is this: If I have $500,000 in buy-ins and I have a 40 percent ROI (return on investment) then I expect to make $200,000 over the year. If I played 200 tournaments, then I need to conceive of it as if each time I play I profit $1,000. When I lose, I make a thousand. When I win an event for $150,000 I still only made $1,000. When you look at it like that, then any one spot can’t be taken out of context. I need to show up and make the best decisions every time I play. If I don’t do that, then the whole professional approach falls apart.”

Engel’s reasoned approach has manifested itself in many ways throughout his life. He realized that he was on the road so often, traveling for tournaments, that it didn’t make much sense to pay for a home or apartment in any one city when he would barely get to sleep there.

“I decided to cut my expenses a few years ago by no longer paying for rent or a car and instead I live on the road, in hotels, and AirBnB’s,” says Engel.

The nomadic lifestyle is nothing new to Engel, who first moved a year after being born in Toronto. His father is a Rabbi and his mother is a Jewish studies teacher, and they ended up traveling a lot during Ari’s youth. He lived in South Africa, Australia, Israel, and around the United States. He attended college at New York University, graduating with a degree in business.

Engel is not convinced that his current approach, being on the road 365 days a year, is sustainable in the long run. He has been without a set home base for five years now, but each time he has considered ending the continuous road trip he makes another big tournament score and decides to extend his travels.

When asked what would be the preferred alternative to his current approach Engel admits, “The big goal would be to live in the United States and play online poker in my residence. As long as that isn’t feasible it makes it harder for me to settle down. If it looks like viable online poker isn’t going to come back to the U.S. soon I might end up finding a place in Canada to settle down.”

Engel is a dual citizen, and would have no problem settling in Canada if there are no advances in efforts to bring online poker into the larger American markets.

“I am still optimistic about the possibility of online poker returning in a bigger way in the U.S. and I think it could be fantastic, with a bright future.”

A Huge Upswing Down Under

Engel’s family moved to Australia when he was three years old and stayed until he was 11. As a result he has plenty of family and friends who still live there. He returned as a poker pro 2008, but had not made the long trek back for the Aussie Millions since. His friends started a Facebook group in 2010 imploring him to return that was entitled, ‘Bring Ari Engel To The Aussie Millions.” For the first time in eight years he decided to oblige them in 2016. The two main reasons he had not returned were the expenses involved with the trip and the length of the flights to Melbourne.

“I finally decided to go back last year and I went on to win a satellite into the $10,000 main event on PokerStars. I’m a big credit-card bonus hunter and obviously travel a lot, so I was able to fly business class one direction and first-class the other, all with points that I accumulated from credit cards. That obviously changed the math around, financially and comfort wise. “

Engel went on to top the 732-entry field to win more than $1.1 million. In typical Engel fashion he sidestepped much of the praise he was showered with. When first discussing the win he dryly noted, “With eight people left I picked up aces and got all-in against kings. So, yeah I played really well.”

The truth is, winning any poker tournament is hard. And even though Engel was the chip leader during the most important stage of this massive event, that doesn’t mean that converting his advantage into a win was easy.

“At the final table I came in with the chip lead. I had around 40 percent of the chips in play, Tony Dunst had 30 percent and the other five players had the rest of the chips spread between them. That actually creates a tremendous amount of stress, with so much money going to the top-three finishers. That day was, by far, the biggest day of my career. The amount of money I played for on that day is larger than the amount of money I’ve played for since then.”

In the end, Engel was able to secure the title, his first ever in a $10,000 buy-in main event. He has had plenty of success in his decade-plus career as a poker pro, including winning eight World Series of Poker Circuit rings. But Engel’s measured and conservative approach to the game has perhaps limited his success on poker’s biggest stages over the past few years.

“Having eight WSOP Circuit rings is great, but I believe that the Circuit is the minor leagues and that main events are the majors. I’ve been playing full time since 2004, and my first cash was in 2007 in a $10,000 WPT. I’ve played a decent amount of $10,000 buy-ins, but early on I sold a lot of action or was backed. I’m very much known for playing smaller stakes than other people with similar resumes would. I’ve had so many people tell me that I need to play more of these large buy-in main events regularly, but it’s been a very slow process to become comfortable. I think it’s good to have a nice balance between confidence and humility. I think in my career I’ve erred on the side of being under confident. When I saw a $10,000 World Poker Tour event at the same time as a $1,600 Heartland Poker Tour, I always chose the smaller event, 100 percent of the time. For years I did that, but a few years ago I made a conscious decision to try to move up more.”

By the time the 2016 Aussie Millions came around Engel had been slowly increasing the amount of higher buy-in events he had been playing and increasing the percentage of his own action that he had in them, and slowly but surely he was starting to feel more confident at the higher stakes. His decision to play more main events paid off in a big way.

“The Aussie Millions main event is known as being one of the softer fields for a $10,000 buy-in, so I felt good heading into it,” said Engel when thinking back on the tournament. “This win was by far my favorite tournament win. It was by far my sentimental favorite, the most money, the most prestigious title. The tournament wins that I’ve had before this were in much smaller events, so they just don’t compare.”

Moving Forward

Last year was definitely Ari Engel’s biggest year as a poker pro, but having heard him describe his approach to the game you know that doesn’t mean that he intends to rest on his laurels. Through the first three months of 2017 he already has cashed in 15 live poker events, making seven final tables and winning two titles.

He won his first title of the year in March, taking down a $1,100 six-max no-limit hold’em event at the PokerStars Championship Panama. In early April he won the Mid-States Poker Tour Potawatomi $1,100 main event for $114,876. It remains incredibly clear that Engel is committed to playing as many tournaments as he can, traveling the world in order to ply his trade and realize his edge on field after field of opponents.

While Engel might be more hesitant than most to accept any accolades as a poker professional, it is abundantly clear that he is one of the best and most accomplished players in the (self described) minor leagues. Last year he dipped his toe into the waters of the higher stakes main events and came up with a seven figure score. He is committed to push himself and challenge his hesitance to take shots moving forward. The players in the major leagues might want to check their rear view mirrors, because Ari Engel is coming. ♠