Ari Engel Makes Canadian Poker Fraternity Proud

Ari Engel of Toronto has ensured a place in the history of poker, particularly among Canadian poker players, by winning the 2016 Aussie Millions Poker Championship Main Event. This was held late last month at the Crown Entertainment Complex in Melbourne. The importance of this live poker tournament can be gauged from the fact that it is most prestigious part of Asia Pacific Poker Tour.

The new king of poker took home a whopping AUD$1.6 million in prize money, which works out to about the same in Canadian currency at the present rate of exchange. Engel was also presented with the custom made diamond-encrusted rose gold bracelet and the trophy. The bracelet, which is given to all Aussie Millions winners, is manufactured by LK Jewellery and valued at AUD$40,000. The Aussie Millions Main Event had a buy-in of AUD$10,600. The poker tournament began on January 24 with a field of 732 poker players from all over the world and lasted for eight days. Hence the triumph for Engel was not only one of poker skill, but was also a mental and physical marathon.

The final duel or heads up was played between Engel and Tony Dunst of USA in front of a packed house and a worldwide audience over the Internet via the live stream broadcast exclusively for Crown by the world’s most successful poker streamer Jason Somerville of Twitch.tv. The same medium will broadcast a rerun of the final crescendo of the 2016 Aussie Millions Poker Championship Main Event, along with the finals of some of the other important events that took place alongside. Dunst of Las Vegas collected the runner-up’s purse of AUD$1,000,000.

Ari Engel is more known for his online poker play. At one time he was among the highest volume poker players on the Internet with some big wins at both PokerStars and Full Tilt. This Aussie Millions cash is by far the biggest by Engel in live tournament play. His previous best was US$167,365 at the EPT Prague Main Event in 2011.

Arguably the most famous poker player in the world, Daniel Negreanu, also hails from Toronto. Like Engel he resides in Las Vegas. Negreanu has many claims to fame. Some of them are: biggest live tournament poker winner of all time; the only player to have been named the WSOP Player of the Year more than once; the first player to win a bracelet at each of the three WSOP bracelet-awarding locations and a member of the Poker Hall of Fame. Engel has a long way to go.

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