Athletes - Phil Laak

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	Athletes - Phil Laak

Phil "The Unabomber" Laak (pronounced "lock"; born September 8 1972 in Dublin, Ireland) is a professional poker player, now residing in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Laak was raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and now lives in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked as an engineer, a repo man and a real estate investor, prior to getting into open poker games in California.

Poker career

Phil won the World Poker Tour (WPT) Invitational in February 2004. He has made two other WPT final tables since - 6th place in both the season 2 Battle of Champions and the 2005 Five Diamond World Poker Classic. In 2005, he acted as host and dealer for the E! entertainment network's Hollywood Hold'em program.

At the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP), Laak finished second to Johnny Chan in the $2,500 pot limit hold 'em event.

Laak defeated Ram "Crazy Horse" Vaswani to win the inaugural William Hill Poker Grand Prix, taking home the £150,000 first prize.

He has also competed in numerous Poker Royale series.

As of 2005, Laak's total live tournament winnings exceed $850,000.

Nickname and personality

Laak is known widely in the poker scene as the "Unabomber" because of the hooded sweatshirt (given to him by fellow poker professional Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen) and sunglasses that he wears at the table. One of his most distinctive characteristics is his habit of pulling closed the drawstrings on his sweatshirt's hood to hide his face during large hands.

Laak is well-known for his antics at the poker table, such as doing push-ups to celebrate winning hands, and running behind the dealer during showdowns to see which card will come up next. His behaviour makes him popular with some fans, but has drawn criticism from others who believe Laak is acting unprofessionally.

He is currently dating actress Jennifer Tilly, who won a WSOP bracelet in 2005 in the $1,000 buy-in Ladies no limit hold'em championship. (Tilly has since been nicknamed "The Unabombshell".)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Phil Laak ]

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