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The Unabomber talks to WPT about being named after a terrorist, why he’d play poker in a cave in Mongolia and the rise of the machines.
Phil Laak is an off-the-wall kind of guy, but then when your nickname stems from your resemblance to an intellectual child prodigy and left-wing domestic terrorist, you have a big hoodie to fill.
Taking his poker moniker from the fact his trademark hooded top and sunglasses make him a virtual flesh-and-blood version of the forensic sketch of Theodore Kaczynski—otherwise known as the Unabomber (an abbreviation of University and Airline Bomber), a left-wing American domestic terrorist back in the 1990s,—Laak would seem to have little in common with his namesake.
However, while he may not be a highly intellectual left-wing nut job, he’s far from being the bluntest knife in the draw; fans of High Stakes Poker may remember from the latest series his attempt to rustle up a prop bet on his IQ score with fellow partner in crime Antonio Esfandiari.
While Mr. Kaczynski is a second-generation Polish American, the Dublin born Mr. Laak holds a broader view of nationality. “I’m a dual citizen [brandishes an Irish and an American passport] and I consider myself a citizen of the world,” he says. “Boarders are a man-made construction from the past.
“I’m not a big fan of boarders but spent from zero to three: Dublin. From three to four: New Jersey. Four to 20: Massachusetts. And then a blend between New York and California with California and Vegas being my resting place. But I can be on the road for up to three months. This is one of those times; I was in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, London and Dublin then back to London tomorrow morning and then I’m going to Vegas for the WSOP.
“As long as it’s a major city, I’m good because I can find the gamble in any major city and it can be… like in Japan it was backgammon, Macau was poker and London it’s poker, here [Dublin] it’s a tournament… as long as I can gamble I’m good to go.”
It’s not just the gamble he’s after though. It’s the travel as well as the gamble. “Hell, I would probably go to a cave in Mongolia if there was action there, I’ll go wherever there’s action, I’m always trying to find the next game.”
The Manifesto
He must be doing something right on the gambling front, with over $1.4 million in career tournament earnings. Phil also has a WPT title, four WPT final tables and eight WSOP cashes that include two final tables. This is in addition to starring in four of the last five seasons of High Stakes Poker.
Phil wasn’t always a poker player, though he did have a healthy obsession in strategy games of various kinds, like backgammon, when he grew up in Boston. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in mechanical engineering and working as an engineer, a repo man and a real estate investor, he became a Wall Street day trader. This and a head for figures might explain why he is so good at poker. But would he say that as an ex-Wall Street trader playing poker and trading on the market are comparable?
“Somewhat, except that the market is way different in that it’s scalable,” he explains. “If you have a small net worth and you’re trying to build to a medium net worth, poker is an exceptional path for that. But at a certain point if you’re net worth is decently high, poker becomes less effective because the games kind of threshold out. I mean the stuff you see on High Stakes Poker or whatever, these games are rare. The nosebleed stakes that happen on Full Tilt Poker—I’m not a strong enough player to play with these guys; these are like 10 or 20 of the world’s best players plugging it out waiting for one or two fish to drop in. They would slowly etch away at me so I’m not interested in playing those stakes.
“On Wall Street, no matter what your net worth is, you can put 10 percent of your net worth into almost any move you want because it’s a huge playing field and people’s pockets are super deep.”
But while the stock market may be where the big money is, poker is the more rewarding pursuit.
“Poker’s been so good to me,” reveals Phil. “I would say the stuff that’s come from poker has been better than poker itself. Like my girlfriend came from poker [Hollywood actress Jennifer Tilly]; the I Bet You show [prop betting TV show with Antonio Esfandiari] came from poker; some of the business ventures I’m involved in now came from poker; the Polaris experience came from poker.” So not only has Mr. Laak ticked off the hot Hollywood girlfriend on his “To Do” list, he can also cross off “Get your own TV show” and “Play and defeat super-smart artificially intelligent poker robot.”
Rise of the machines
In 2007, Phil and another California-based professional player, Ali Eslami, competed against Polaris, a poker playing AI program developed at the University of Alberta by a group of computer programmers, including Dr. Darse Billings, the co-founder and lead designer for the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group (UACPR), in an attempt to “solve” the game of heads-up Limit Hold‘em. And if that all sounds a bit too sci-fi, bear in mind we’re talking about a self-confessed space cadet here.
“The Polaris thing was beautiful,” Phil says. “I was walking around the Lifestyle Expo before the World Series of Poker, and I see this booth where they have these University of Alberta guys who’ve built this bot that can play poker. I’d read about it online and I couldn’t believe that these guys were here. I already knew a little bit of their story. I knew about Darse Billings and I was like, “Holy shit! These are the guys.” I was completely enamoured and I went to my knees immediately and I bowed to these guys, because they spent a colossal amount of man hours building this thing. It’s like I love programmers who want to use computing power to solve these games and stuff. And poker is really tricky because it’s an indeterminate game, so they decided that the simplest form of… maybe it’s not the simplest, but an attackable format that could be beaten was heads-up Limit Hold’em, one bet at a time.”
The match was held at the 2007 conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Vancouver where Phil beat Polaris in two of four rounds. The other two rounds were a draw and win for Polaris.
“Oddly enough,” continues Phil, “I never really played online but after that I started playing online Limit Heads Up $50/$100 and occasionally I would meet a bot, I swear to God, because I could feel the rhythm in the thinking. It’s weird, it’s like Doyle Brunson once said, ‘If you’re playing online and you feel like you’re being cheated, you are.’ Chip Reese said the same thing. But then I didn’t mind playing the bots because you can kind of get the rhythm of the bot and they’re not as strong as Polaris. Polaris is for sure, hands down, right now an unbelievably strong heads-up Limit player.”
While the machines may not be taking over just yet, for a man with a fascination for technology and a love of the mathematical side of poker, Phil doesn’t play much online.
“There was a time when I played a ton of online PLO when the games were super juicy, but now they’re not as juicy anymore. Now I have access to other business things and stuff that is kinda pulling me away from poker a bit so when I get the luxury to play cards, I want to do it with people.”
However the business stuff distracting our hero from poker also involves, well, poker. Namely the launch of his new poker website, Unabomberpoker.com.
“I am one of the skins on Cake Poker. The.net is up and the .com I’m pretty sure will be up by August first. The truth is I’m pretty much sure I’m gonna be playing poker until I’m an old man, so the timeline on this project is 50 years [laughs]. I kinda look at it as an opportunity to develop a lifelong side project I love, I’ve been given a little bit of a flag to be an ambassador to poker because I love the game and if I can spread the love then all the better.”
Box-out Best Laak Moments
1. Adding a term to poker’s official glossary:
Not every player gets to make a meaningful contribution to poker’s official glossary of terminology but Mr. Laak has done just that by coining the term “felted’: To felt a player is to stack them, get all their chips and leave just the felt in front of them. “Now part of common poker vernacular and I am most proud of this contribution,” confirms Phil.
2. Winning a WPT title:
After battling through a final table featuring John Juanda, Antonio Esfandiari, Carlos Mortinsen and the UK’s Harry Demetriou at the 2004 WPT Invitational at L.A.’s Commerce Casino, Laak went on to defeat Costa Rica’s Humberto Brenes heads-up, overcoming a 2–1 chip deficit. The turning point came after the Unabomber shoved all-in pre flop with ace-2 against Brenes’ Kc-8c; Brenes hit the 8 on the flop, Laak spiked the ace on the river. Cue the cries of “Bomber!” rolling around on the floor, press-ups and shadowboxing.
3. Master of disguise:
Although a WSOP bracelet has so far eluded Phil, at the 2008 World Series he got a chance to showcase both his sense of fun and his powers of disguise. While wearing costumes at the Main Event is nothing new, Phil decided to take it one step further by disguising himself as an old man for the entire tournament. After getting up at 5:45am to get his make-up and prosthetics done (this took four and a half hours), no one at his table even suspected they were playing the Unabomber until he was eliminated from the tournament.
4. Losing with style:
During a hand with Tom Dwan in season 5 of High Stakes Poker, Laak shows that it’s possible to lose with style grace and a sense of humor.
“What do I do? What do you want me to do Durrrr?” asks Phil as he flashes Dwan his hole cards while pondering the decision to call Durrrr’s value bet.
“Isn’t his hand dead?” asks Dwan.
“Not here in sick land,” quips Phil as he makes “the worst call of my life” to find out the bad news.
“Everyone of you guys is thinking ‘lock the doors’ but I’m letting you know these are fake doors and I can leave anytime I want.”
Genius.
5. Winning with grace:
Poker and prop betting go hand in hand, but when you’re the Unabomber aligned with partner in crime Antonio Esfandiari, it’s all about pushing the envelope. Not content with making wacky prop bets, the dynamic duo has their own television series, I Bet You, where they both attempt to out hustle each other with a bizarre series of bets. In this episode, after being hustled by Antonio with a marked deck of cards, the Unabomber challenges Antonio to a dogfight at 10,000ft with the loser of the aerial challenge coughing up $5,000 for the privilege of being beaten on TV. |
