On Thursday night, Ari Engel was at Resorts World Las Vegas competing in the PokerStars NAPT Las Vegas $550 Cardplayer Lifestyle H.E.R.O.S. event, which attracted 108 runners. However, it wasn’t the only tournament he was playing.
Engel, who is the WSOP’s all-time Circuit ring winner with 18, was also grinding online in the current WSOP Online bracelet, a series that began back on Sept. 29 offering up a 33-bracelet-event schedule that’ll wrap early next week on Nov. 12.
In Event #29: $400 NL Hold’em Turbo, 300 players accounted for 200 rebuys, and the 500-entry field created a prize pool of $180,000, which was paid out to the top 64 finishers. It took just over six hours of play for Engel to finish as the last player standing to claim gold and a $34,200 first-place prize.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ari “BacBillNat9” Engel | $34,200 |
| 2 | “TakeMyMoneey” | $25,200 |
| 3 | “Liopleurodon” | $18,468 |
| 4 | “Firebird24” | $13,500 |
| 5 | “IBackgammonU” | $9,000 |
| 6 | “Meekmills” | $6,300 |
| 7 | “ARRRR_INNNN” | $4,500 |
| 8 | “marioparty” | $3,600 |
| 9 | “Knickstape” | $2,682 |
Engel, who went on to cash the H.E.R.O.S. event in ninth place, actually fired six bullets in the tournament, which he joked about in light of Norman Chad’s controversial rebuy comments when Maria Konnikova won her bracelet earlier in the series.
https://twitter.com/AriEngelPoker/status/1854769987178971454
To his credit, Norman Chad was first to comment: “CONGRATS! It’s hard having to beat yourself five times.”
Others were quick to congratulate Engel including David “ODB” Baker, Joe McKeehen, Michael Trivett, Julie Anna Cornelius, and the aforementioned Maria Konnikova.
It marked the second online bracelet for Engel, who on October 13, 2023 won WSOP Online Bracelet Event #28: $500 NLH Turbo 6-Max for $38,197. His first bracelet came back in 2019 when he won Event #48: $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em for $427,399, and two years later he followed it up by winning his second in Event #9: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship for $317,076.
As for Resorts World and mixed games, Engel has had success there before, most specifically last December when he won the CardPlayer Lifestyle The Mixed Game Festival VI for $4,858 top prize plus a $5,000 package to the WPT Voyage. It was a bit of redemption for Engel, who back in March finished as runner-up to Cernuto in the Mixed Game Festival IV.
