The legend
Although born in Ireland, Phil was actually raised on the East Coast of the United States where he graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a Mechanical degree in Engineering. He has a variety of past jobs, including engineer, gardener, professional world-class backgammon player, real estate investor and many more. Phil is one of the most controversial characters on the circuit while he’s playing with his own special style. He’s also very extravagant and talkative with his unusual and inventive speeches. He created the term ‘Felted‘ , meaning when you lost all your chips. Phil got his Nickname because he’s always wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses at the table and so looks as the forensic sketch of Theodore Kaczynski. Mr. Laak is a former roommate and best friend of fellow poker pro Antonio Esfandiari. They made the tv show ‘ I Bet You’ together and created the ‘What Johnny Lodden Thinks’ game. Phil has proven that he’s good in tournaments and high stakes cash games. He won the inaugural William Hill Poker Grand Prix, after beating Ram Vaswani, made 3 WPT final tables and appeared in several Poker Royale series and seasons of High Stakes Poker. He has written a monthly column in Bluff Magazine since 2005. He beated Polaris, a poker playing computer program developed by the University of Alberta in 2007, together with Ali Eslami.
ID & career
> born 08/09/1972, Dublin (IRE)> resides now in Los Angeles, California (USA)
> dating fellow poker pro and actress Jennifer Tilly
> Nickname : ‘ The Unabomber ‘
> won 1 WPT-title (’04 Celebrity Invitational)
> won 2 Poker After Dark titles.
> won the PartyPoker.com World Open V Championship in 2009.
> has Live Tournament Earnings of almost $ 2,000,000 (until 2009)
