The World Series of Poker Circuit all-time winner extended his record online this weekend in Pennsylvania. Ari Engel won his record-extending 18th Circuit ring in the $888 event on WSOP Online in the Keystone State.
He now sits in front of Maurice Hawkins, who nearly tied Engel last month, but stalled in second in an event at Harrah’s Cherokee.
Engels is approaching $9 million in tournament winnings with about $1.1 million coming exclusively from WSOP Circuit events. He also owns three WSOP bracelets. He started piling up the Circuit rings starting in 2007. The recent online win is one of five he’s won online in Pennsylvania, Michigan and the Nevada/New Jersey markets.
He also has 10 runner-ups in Circuit events. Engel, 40, was part of a small field of 61 who put up $888 to vie for the Circuit ring. Engel, who plays as “Ngindn,” was responsible for two buy-ins himself and scored $16,732 for the win. The event only had 33 players with 28 rebuys.
For the last several years, it’s been a two-player race for the most rings between Hawkins and Engel. Hawkins had the lead as recently as 2023 when he won his 15th, but Engel keeps winning. He recently tied with Hawkins with 15 rings by winning back-to-back Circuit events in North Carolina last August.
He took the lead by winning a $370 Omaha 8OB event in October on 2023, followed by another online ring a week later in a $500 event in Nevada.
Besides putting in the volume at both live and online WSOP events, the Las Vegas resident can be found playing in many three-figured buy-in events in casinos throughout the country, grinding out cashes and binking them more than most.
Besides dominating on the WSOP Circuit, Engel also won two World Poker Tour events at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in April, as well as a third event there in August. All three of those wins came in stud and mixed-game contests.
| WSOPC Rings | Player(s) |
| 18 | Ari Engel |
| 16 | Maurice Hawkins |
| 15 | Joshua Reichard, Daniel Lowery |
| 13 | Valentin Vornicu |
| 12 | Soheb Porbandarwala, Michael Setera |
| 11 | Roland Israelashvili, John Holley |
| 10 | Jeffrey Trudeau Jr., Robert Hankins, David Larson, Martin Ryan |
| 9 | Kyle Cartwright, Michael Lech, Sean Yu, Michael Lavin, Daniel Buzagon, Alexandru Masek, Corey Paggeot, |
| 8 | Zachary Gruneberg, Chris Reslock, Richards Ali, Matt Stout, Vincent Moscati, Maxwell Young, Timothy Bishop |
The WSOP Circuit is wrapping up a series at Horseshoe Hammond, before heading to Thunder Valley Casino in California. After Thunder Valley, there’s 10 more series to go in casinos across the country before the year is over.
Who wants to bet that Engel gets another ring before the year’s out? Not me.
