Ariel Schneller – DaEvils

Ariel Schneller, aka ‘DaEvils’, is at the vanguard of internet cash poker and one of the most consistent online winners of the last 2 years.

Unlike the ‘turn $50 into $1million in 12 months’ internet whiz, Schneller has actually come direct from the school of poker hard knocks. Not that you’d imagine it from his background – a wealthy family in Virginia, studying at Yale with a law degree. He would start by losing his money to fellow Yale students before consistently borrowing money off his parents to pay off debtors. Eventually, he managed to spawn together enough of a bankroll to make regular trips to Foxwoods, where again he continued to either lose at the poker table or in the pits (he says losing his entire roll of $14k at 9 hands of blackjack was the turning point in his roll management).

After grinding his way back up once more he finally learnt his lesson and playing as ‘DaEvils’ on Full Tilt & ‘Vick Is God’ on PokerStars managed to rocket through the levels to become a mainstay at the nosebleed stakes. He is an executive producer & trainer on Deuces Cracked, where his videos are consistently praised as the best on the site by members.

His winnings for the first half of 2008 are estimated at over $500,000, which considering the level of competition at the NLH tables is staggering (he claims to have developed a ‘read’ on Patrik Antonius at the heads-up tables, developed with fellow DC trainer Jason ‘pr1nnyraid’ Rosenkrantz).

His live tournament record is fairly non-descript (mainly because he doesn’t play many of them), but does have 4 WSOP cashes, including 2 in the 2008 series. The largest one of these came in the $5,000 NLH shoot-out, where he came 34th for $16,920.

Though primarily an internet player, he had an exchange of words with Mike Matusow during the 2008 FTOPS (Event #22) which suggested he is equally comfortable live as well:

Mike Matusow: love to play all u idiots live
DaEvils: mike i swear to god
DaEvils: i will play you live
DaEvils: for 100k freezeouts
DaEvils: until one of us quits

He continued:

DaEvils: as much as i’d like to have substance abuse problems
DaEvils: and constantly go broke
DaEvils: i think i’ll find somebody else to idolize

(He has since apologised for the latter comments).

Ariel has talked numerous times in his blog and in a 2 plus 2 well about retiring from the game to pursue a career in law but has so far always backed down when it came to the crunch. This is good news for the railers and bad news for his high stakes opponents.