Phil Laak

"The Unabomber"

This interview was first seen in the debut issue of Under The Gun magazine. Some of the questions below are being seen for the first time here. You can always count on Life's A Bluff to bring you not only the best poker comics on the internet, but exlcusive content like Random Question interviews.

Phil Laak is known in the poker world as the Unabomber. His antics at the poker table are unique and entertaining. He is currently dating

What's the origin of the grey hoodie and the hiding in the hood bit?

 

When I first started playing cards it was in New York. The hood was a fixture for a few different reasons. The most notable was that I wanted to shield myself from the other energy at the table. I had a lot of tells at the time so I figured covering them up would be smart. Over time it became sort of a Linus and his blanket thing.

I have become really attached to the hood thing. I like it. I can observe without being observed. I can block out nasty drafts, I can shield my eyes from overhead lighting, I can cover up on my bad hair days, and friends can find me in the tournament rooms easier. There are all sorts of random ancillary benefits.

Did you ever read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams? There is a whole section in there about always having a towel handy. (The hooded sweatshirt has all the benefits of a towel, plus more.)

 

Would you ever wear a low cut shirt to distract your opponents?

 

 

 

Huh?

 

 

Is Jennifer giving you acting lessons for your destined run at Hollywood?

 

 

Lol. Destined run at Hollywood. What are you talking about? Destined run… Lol… You have been watching too much ‘E! TV’.

 

 

 

What's the biggest pot Antonio has ever taken off of you and vice versa?

 

 

I have been holding over him for the longest time ever. It is like one really long 5th sigma event unfolding over time. After crushing him for about 5 years straight we got heads up on Poker After Dark. 120k was on the line and we didn’t hedge a nickel. I won it.

Winning that put me so far ahead of him that he pukes whenever he thinks about our lifetime tally. It is really nice, considering that beating him gives me more pleasure than beating anyone else on the planet. Why is it like that? No idea. It just is.

Does it bother him? Probably, but you cant worry too much for the guy. He seems to beat everyone else and has over 2.7 million in tournament wins to date.

 

What percentage of the world's poker players are not as smart as you?

 

 

It is funny that you ask that. I would first need to know how much above (or below?) the average poker player’s intelligence is from the average (non-poker playing) persons. Then I could give you an accurate answer. However this would only be as it is measured according to an IQ test. And even then we have a problem.

IQ tests have one major flaw. They don’t measure emotional intelligence (EI), only intellectual intelligence (IQ). This is a shame, as emotional intelligence is actually the more important of the two. A person’s EI is a far greater indicator of how they will do in life. There is greater correlation between EI and personal well being/happiness than there is for IQ. And as far as success within the fabric of society, it is not even close. EI crushes.

 

How would you recognize true artificial intelligence? When do you think it will happen?

 

 

With regards to the whole debate on artificial intelligence Edsger Dijkstra said it best. "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim." He obviously thought that the debate was of little import.

I sort of agree with him.

 

Do you believe in God?

 

 

God. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? And other such questions. Basically God comes and goes with the flops. There is a God when I have set over set. And when the guy makes quads on the river, well then maybe there is no God.

 

 

Do you believe the children are our future?

 

 

I think long term. In 4.6 billion years (or so) the sun is going to be going to die. When this happens it will engulf all of our solar system's inner planets, including the Earth. So for the short term future… (the next few billion years I would say yes, the children are our future.) But in the long term there really is no future (for us at least), so the question becomes a moot point.

 

How did you get such a cool name like Phil Laak?

 

 

 

When God was giving out names, I slipped him a twenty, jumped the list and got one of the cooler names. James Dean slipped him a C-Note. Antonio Esfandiari did a card trick that impressed the key people and then they gave him first pick.

 

 

We heard your real name was Leonard Kasickawitz.

 

 

Leonard Cosmo Kasickawitz, born into a Ukrainian sheep herding family. At 16, I left to apprentice as a black-smith in Kiev, our capital city. It was there in the dusty late night taverns where I was first exposed to cards. We played with a stripped deck (only face cards) and the game was 5 card pot limit hold’em. One down, 4 up. The stakes were 1/2 plh. We played with Kopiykas. (1 Hryna = 100 Kopiykas).

I was pretty good. Eventually I won enough to buy a US passport. On the plane I learned English and the rest is history. I still use my black smithing skills from time to time.

 

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

 

 

No, but it sure does feel like the right thing to do. So I usually do it. If a complete stranger is on the ride with me I am likely to explain that the continuous pushing does not in fact make the ride go faster.

 

 

Family Feud surveyed 100 people, top three answers are on the board: Name a card game that's easy to cheat at.

 

 

Online - Pot Limit Omaha - short handed.
Online - No Limit Hold’em - short handed.
Online - Limit Hold’em - short handed.

I don’t know if it is easy to do. And I am not sure how much software is built into the online sites to catch collusion. But where there is money, there is probably someone trying to get at it unfairly. I have no idea how much, if any, cheating takes place on the sites. My guess is very little if any at all.

If you are worried then just play heads up, the cheaters would have no edge over you.

 

Mr. Clean has thick white eyebrows. Have they always been that color or is that fool just getting old?

 

 

He was born old. In fact since 1958 he hasn’t changed much. (‘Cept in the mid 60’s where he frowned from time to time.) Mr. Clean is known by many names around the world. Mr. Proper in mainland Europe, M. Net in France, Don Limpio (limpiar is the Spanish word for clean) in Spain, and Mastro Lindo (Master Clean) in Mexico.

Technically speaking, white is not a color at all, but rather the combination of all the colors of the visible light spectrum. As a misnomer, however, white is the color of things that reflect light of all parts of the visible spectrum equally and are not dull.

The real question is this. How can you keep adding colors and then in the end get white. It is one of those ‘there is no spoon paradoxes’

 

Do you buy your underwear at K-Mart?

 

 

I can’t afford that place. I get most of my stuff from the salvation army and dumpster diving. Did you see that episode of cheaters, where the guy ran away and hid in a dumpster? The camera team followed him and interviewed him from the dumpster. It was fabulous TV.

 

 

Is there a part of you that fears making the "anti-root"? (rooting for the card to come that will help the other player)

 

 

No, I never fear the root – anti root stuff. However, I am often emotional. I know that the dealer is holding the future, I am cool with it. It is not a Schrodinger’s cat type thing. The future is in the deck and there is no way around it.

 

 

Do you know of anyone who "gets you"?

 

 

There was this guy at the commerce, who used to. He was hopeless at cards and has since gone broke. (A total Hopelatron.) But while he was around he used to ‘get me’. He would hum very inaudibly. Normal humming is fine. Never bothered me, but my Achilles Heel has always been very very faint humming. Thank the good people at Boise for those noise canceling head phones. Truly a brilliant piece of technology.

 

So honestly, you can tell us, what drug have you been slipping Jennifer? Is it rohypnol? I'll bet it's rohypnol... Did you get it from Antonio?

 

In the proverbial words of Eric Lindgren. I won the relationship lottery. I have always been lucky. This time I just got ridiculously lucky.

 

What the hell are fish tacos?

 

Oh my. You have not lived ‘til you have had Rubio’s fish tacos. The things are pure genius. Make sure to add chipolte sauce and get the corn tortilla (not flour). Such basic food, and sooooo good.

 

 

 

Ever been to Murfreesboro?

 

 

Huh? I read the Phantom Toll Booth when I was a kid. Is that one of the stops?

 

 

 

Anything left out of the Burning Apartment in Europe story? Have you or your crew torched anymore buildings with late night cooking lately?

 

 

The epilogue to that story was pretty nutty. About a year later, I was in my apartment in San Francisco. I was trying to get a wick to stick out of a candle. It was snubbed at the top so the candle was useless. In order to get the wick out I took the candle, turned it on its side, and started to burn away the wax around the wick. Eventually I succeeded and the wick was ready to go. I put the candle on a shelf and forgot about it.

I went about my business and about 5 minutes later I left the apartment. It was very sunny out so I hurried back to the apartment for some sun glasses, I went into the kitchen and there it was… Another disaster brewing. A fairly decent sized fire had got its start in the waste basket. I had left a bit of flame behind I guess. I extinguished the fire and realized that I was just a step away from burning down yet another apt. This time it would have been mine, and it would have been all my doing.

I was so stoked that it didn’t happen. It was better than the pre-cog stuff in Minority Report because this wasn’t movie land… this was Phil Land. And having all your stuff not burn to the ground is a great feeling, let me tell you.

 

Many of my people believe we have a spirit animal. What would yours be?

 

 

After I saw the movie Carrie, I used to sit around and try to make things happen with my mind. I was not successful. Then some years later I stumbled into one of those psychic bookstores in San Francisco. They had different workshops. One of them was to help you develop your psychic powers. I signed up. I think it was 20 or 30 bucks for the session. There were about 15 people there. Some fruit cake comes out wearing hippy attire and I thought. Perfect, at least we are on the right track.

However, the hippy chick kept talking about spirit animals and all this rubbish. I was so disappointed. Spirit animals?? Lady, I want to read peoples minds, I do not want to talk about spirit animals….

I never returned. I never felt that I got hustled, I only felt that I had wasted precious time. If spirit animals are your thing, then have a good time. Just count me out. I was never dissuaded in my pursuit for unraveling some of the universe’s mysteries. Later on in life I stumbled upon a veritable gold mine of cool info. I somehow got lucky and found Princeton’s Engineering Anomalies Research web site. Must read stuff. (here is the link…. http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/)

 

If you were an 80s TV action hero...would you be MacGyver or B.A. Barakas? (Mr. T on the A Team)

 

 

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger was an 80’s TV. action hero. Why can’t I be him? Terminator and Terminator 2 were two of the coolest movies ever.

By the way, my brother Brian, he is the real deal. (MacGyver wise that is.) You could put him in the middle of the desert with a rubber band, some nails and a stick of chewing gum, and then he would make a flying saucer or something for you.

 

Have you ever kicked the crap out of Antonio? (Or vice versa)

 

 

No. We only try to hurt each other over the poker table.

 

 

 

Do you worship the Buddha?

 

 

Buddhists meditate, they don’t worship. Big difference.

Buddhism is non-theistic. Buddhism does not teach the existence of a supreme creator god or depend on any supreme being for enlightenment; the Buddha is a guide and teacher who points the way to nirvana.

In Buddhism, the supreme origin and creator of the universe is not a god, but rather causes and conditions obscured by time.

In a perfect world I would call myself a Non-practicing Urban Buddhist. However, In actuality I am closer to a mix…. one part degenerate one part scientist one part civilian, and one part that I am still trying to find.

 

Do you smoke it?

 

 

Mary Jane and whacky tobacky good friends to many. Ganja and sensa - chillin like villains. Cannabis, hashish and good ol’ kief… these are the things you put in a spliff. Ganjo goo balls and space cakes, tasty treats on a Sunday afternoon. These things I hear are everywhere. Me you ask, do I abide?

Its forbidden to smoke nearly everywhere I go.

 

Origin of the word "hope a tron"?

 

 

Well, it is interesting that you ask. By the way it is hopelatron, not hopeatron.

Hopelatrons, and actionauts both guys you want in your game. The first time I ever heard the term actionauts was at Lucky Chances, Colma, about 2002. The first person I heard use it was Rob Fullop (the guy who invented Missile Command). I have no idea who first came up with actionauts; it may or may not be Rob. Now I wonder…who came up with that? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Rob… Hmmm…

But hopelatrons… that for sure came out of my head. Around the same time frame. The best way to describe a hopelatron would be to imagine the middle earth soldier guys from Lord of the Rings. Collectively very strong, but from individual to individual very weak. None the less, their strength is that there are so many of them. You are sure to take a beating from a hopelatron from time to time. Even thought they can nail you in a hand, they are lifetime losers at poker. It is the hopelatrons that keep the pros in the money. Thank the good lord for each and every one of them.

Basically it is a term of affection for all the army of weak players that comprise the poker universe.

Felted. I coined this term. (Circa 2003). To felt a player is to stack them. Get all their chips and leave them with just the felt in front of them. I throw this in as it is has become a part of common poker vernacular and I am most proud of this contribution.

 

If you had to live off a percentage of the winnings of ONE player...who would it be?

 

 

Well, either Bill Gates, or Larry Ellison… Maybe even Warren Buffet. They are all good at winning. I know that answer is a cop out. These names are a constant reminder of the poker quote.

“Darwin takes a toll on the worst poker players because they lose money, Darwin takes a toll on the average poker players because they don’t make money and the will never be great poker players, Darwin takes the greatest toll though, on the greatest poker players, because they could be doing something greater.”

I love that line. Wow. Well said.

 

Would you help us secure J-3 offsuit as the Life’s A Bluff?

(sooted makes it deluxe)

 

 

Hmmmm…..

 

 

 

All you would have to do is play it on TV and after say, "because afterall, Life’s A Bluff. " bCome on!! Barry Greenstein said LOL donkaments for 10 grand.

 

 

 

It is amazing what people will spend their money on.

 

 

 

Now we dont have 10 dimes but we can draw you a hot girl friend next time you appear in the comic

Oh wait, nevermind..

 

Thanks to Phil for taking the time to talk to us. It was fun for all of us to get a chance to pick his brain.

You can get more of Phil right here on lifesabluff.com, his show with Antonio on the Mojo Network "I Bet You", and in Bluff Magazine.

Under The Gun can be found at www.underthegunmag.com

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Random Questions is a LaB crew effort. Each question comes from various members and the credit for the interview goes to them all.