Home / Poker News October 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Ari Engel Keeps His Eyes on the WSOP-C Prize
The Poker Grapevine – Ari Engel Keeps His Eyes on the WSOP-C Prize
Posted by: Jo Martin - Sun, 2012-10-21 10:16
The WSOP-C may be a much lower-profile event than regular WSOP or even WSOP-E events, but that’s where many ex-online players find their favorite stomping grounds these days. Ari Engel used to be one of the hottest
online poker players. He is still best known by his online moniker “BodogAri’. While Bodog have left both the US and the European markets behind, Engel has found a potential path to glory in the WSOP-C. On Thursday, Engel secured his fourth WSOP-C bracelet, by winning the 8th event of the Horseshow Hammond stop of the Series, a $1,125
NL Holdem affair.
The top prize of the event wasn’t particularly impressive ($55.5k) but the title itself put Engel within arm’s reach of WSOP-C record holders Kyle Cartwright and Mark Smith. Both Smith and Cartwright are the owners of 5 WSOP-C rings, but the way Engel is currently playing, it’s only really a matter of time until he catches up.
In the Horseshoe Hammond event, Engel bested an initial starting field of 222 players. By the time the final table was reached, Engel was riding a middling stack. He managed to rise to the challenge though and he clinched the top spot after he defeated Darren Rabinowitz heads-up.
After a slide which seemed almost endless right through the summer, online poker traffic numbers are finally registering a bit of growth: this week – which saw a slight but important increase of around 1.1% - was the third straight week of traffic-growth. PokerStars have yet again taken the top spot, with 22.4k real money cash game players at their tables on average. PartyPoker have managed to hang on to second place with 2.8k cash game players, while the iPoker network came in third with 2.7k.
