How about this for a conundrum?
You're one of the best all-round poker players in the world, and you're at APT Incheon, looking at a 106-event schedule, packed with mixed games you know and love, and plenty you don’t really know but still love.
You've got the budget to play anything you want, from the most affordable buy-ins to the most exclusive high rollers. But you can't play them all.
Welcome to a week in the life of Ari Engel.
Spoiled for choice at APT Incheon
Engel is in South Korea looking to add a second Asian Poker Tour Lion trophy to a résumé that already includes 20 WSOP Circuit rings, three bracelets and countless other achievements.
The APT Incheon 2026 schedule really is something else. It features everything from sub-$300 carnival games to a near-$24K High Roller, with an average of more than 10 events each day.
How does any mixed-game-loving poker player choose how to spend his time and money? We caught up with Engel and asked him how he plans to attack the diverse schedule.
“It’s so cool, having all these crazy choices," Engel tells us. "Every day there are something like four no-limit tournaments and four mixed games, so I just see what’s registering and pick something, and if I get knocked out of that, I can go and play a different one. There are so many great choices. It’s such a super fun, original and very creative schedule.”
First up, something normal
The only hitch in that plan, of course, is if you go so deep in an event that you can't play anything else that day. It's a problem you want to have.
Engel played the $2,130 PLO High Roller to begin his series on Sunday, and finished third for just under $8,400 (Japan's Hattori Masato went on to win the trophy). By that time, he was too late to register for the Super Hyper Turbo - Super Holdem (where you get three hole cards and can use any number of them), the NL Omaha High, Double Board - Bomb Pot or the Hyper Turbo R.O.S.E.T. (Razz, Omaha Hi-Lo, Stud High, Stud Hi-Lo, 2-7 Triple).
Our next question for Engel is this: What takes priority, making money or playing some of the most unique mixed-game offerings anywhere?
“Of course I’d like to make money," Engel says, "but there are lots of different ways of doing it. It kind of reminds me of the WSOP in Vegas, where all options are on the table. So, when I wake up in the morning, I just ask myself what I'm in the mood to play. Sometimes, by the time I get to the casino, it changes. I have no set schedule and it's great."
Engel’s first APT Lion came in 2012 in a $5K NLH high roller in Manila, Philippines, and he made a pair of final tables earlier this year at APT Taipei in 9-game mix and Dealer’s Choice. But he’ll never forget his first reaction to a schedule featuring variants like lazy river, crazy Irish and Noah’s Ark.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I was completely blown away that these kinds of tournaments even existed. I’d never even heard of some of them, so I’ve kind of gotten that complete shock out of the way. I like playing stuff I haven’t played before, and where no one is really too experienced. I also really like fast-paced structures, and they always have faster-paced good structures at night here."
Mixing up the mixed games
Not only are these wild poker variants available in various tournaments, including the ‘Masters Home Games’ event, which features all of them, but stud and draw games get thrown into the blender on the APT as well.
While stud games are almost exclusively played with fixed limits, no-limit versions are available here. Triple draw games like deuce-to-seven, ace-to-five and badugi, also traditionally played fixed-limit, get the big-bet treatment too.
Engel says that while even he’s not necessarily comfortable playing these games in their rare big-bet form, who really is?
“I don’t know how to play them well," Engel admits, "but in 2021 I was playing a big bet mixed game at the Wynn where it was only carnival games – so at least I have some sense of them. Of course, no one really knows what they’re doing, so we're all just trying to figure it out – and that's half the fun. Last time I played Dealer’s Choice, and everything could be limit or no-limit. It’s exciting. I like it.”
The excitement of this immensely creative schedule continues at Paradise City Casino in Incheon through August 17. Whether it’s no-limit hold 'em, pot-limit Omaha, Octo-Razz, or ‘Cry Me a River,’ Engel and plenty of other players will be here enjoying some of the most unusual poker you'll find anywhere – while trying to capture one of those equally unique Lion trophies.
Wouldn’t you love to show one of those off and say you were the Hyper Turbo Atomic Pineapple champion?
