Images, Phil Laak says, may be the product of necessity.
So it was with this "Unabomber" thing . . . as in Phil "The Unabomber" Laak, slouched forward, face hidden behind the dark glasses and the raised hood of his parka. All mysterious and purposeful. It began with Laak trying to stay warn riding his mountain bike through the streets of Manhattan. The bike being a part of his life in the big city.
"People think New York and they say, yeah, okay . . . the best way of getting around is a cab. Others, the pretty savvy ones say, uh-uh, the best way of getting from here to there is a subway."
Laak lets that sink in for a moment. "But the really savvy ones go no, no, the fastest way is a mountain bike . . .
"Unless you're going maybe more than 30 blocks," Laak says, "but short of 30 blocks a mountain bike is the way to go.
You cut through everything. It was me being a hard core New Yorker. If you are a true New Yorker, you don't care if it is cold out or drizzling or if it is a little snowy or whatever. The mountain bike still beats everything."
And the sweat pants with the hood were great because regular pants and a long coat, which would be his preference were he not on the bike, would get caught in the bike's chain.
The casualness also meshed comfortably with the ambiance of "your average underground New York poker clubs" which usually feature interior decorating that can only be described as minimalist.
The hood, he says, was useful in chilly, drafty rooms with glaring overhead lights. "It started as a thing of function, but within a couple of sessions of playing poker this way I'm thinking holy cow, I love being shielded against the people who are trying to get into your mind. The whole thing felt very natural very quickly, this sort of shielding device . . .
"The shades worked for me, not because I didn't want then looking into my eyes. I wanted to be able to check them out without them knowing that I'm looking at them, catch them in a candid moment which is hard to do when people know you're studying them closely . . .
"You've gotta be really focused when it comes to money issues. There's nothing to be gained by letting apprehension show. This can be a scary game and, me, I was playing for money and money can be hard to come by in this world."
There was a comfort factor, curled up under the hood, so to speak, feeling like he could see without being seen.
"My security blanket," giving the line a light chuckle.
Growing up, Laak says he did well in school. "Not like I was a natural straight A student, but I did well."
College at the University of Massachusetts where he earned a mechanical engineering degree was not so much a matter of calculation as it was a part of the natural process that seemed to be at work in his life.
Philosophy or physics might have been interesting he says now, "but to swing my blade in the real world, so to speak, would probably have required graduate degrees. As for English, well . . . that seemed too much like real work, what with all the writing and so forth."
But engineering? All he had to do was show up for the tests.
"They didn't even seem to care if you went to class. Just get the grades you needed on the tests."
So how does a man with an engineering degree evolve into a professional player of high stakes games? His interest in games was always there, as were the notions of probability and its place in concocting strategy.
It was just a matter of letting the natural processes of his life do their thing. For a while there was backgammon. Real estate and the stock market have also figured in his approach to doing what seemed natural. Another way of saying perhaps that life is what happens while a man is making other plans, or trying to figure out what the plan should be.
He met girlfriend actress Jennifer Tilly at a poker event. They finally got around to exchanging phone numbers in 2004 while both attended a charity tournament at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas.
"We love each other very much," he says. "I feel blessed that I am in such a wonderful relationship because good relationships are not like finding milk in the fridge. This has been a wonderful surprise."
But sometimes their work takes them in different directions. Ironically, it was Jennifer who traveled to the WPT tournament at the Bellagio in December, by herself because Laak was busy filming the "I Bet You" cable show he and buddy Antonio Esfandiari are putting together.
It takes a lot of discipline and to succeed as a professional personality and poker pro.
"It may seem like I'm an erratic, crazy player but I am actually doing my best to make to make intelligent and disciplined decisions. At least that is what I hope is happening."
Giving that a laugh that says the effort sometimes gets a bit off track. "But I'm hanging in there trying."
Because noone survives for long in the world of high stakes poker without a lot of discipline or a very rich uncle.
Laak says the turning point for him as far as tournament poker goes was probably the 2000 World Series of Poker, the first time he entered it, when he got into the $10,000 main event by successfully investing two hundred bucks in some satellite tournaments.
It clicked with him then that "the no limit thing" had a lot of similarities to pot limit he was playing then. The psychological pieces fell into place.
"I actually think pot limit is a tougher game to play well, but I prefer no limit because when you have a weak opponent and he makes an error, often the consequences of his error can often be larger in no limit."
And the no limit action, well . . . it is suddenly everywhere the last few years.
"I remember in California at the Commerce," he says, "they had a lot of 10-10 pot limit hold'em and the casino was pretty resistant to switching over to no limit. (Winter of 2002). They made the change only because television and the Internet were so full of it that people came in demanding the chance to play no limit."
So the clubs gave them what they wanted. Laak was spending much of his California playing time at the Commerce during the early years of this decade , which gave him a front row seat for some of the forces reshaping big time poker.
"It was 10-10 pot limit hold 'em from 2000 to 2002 at the Commerce and then occasionally on the weekends there would be like a 10-10, even 10-20 no limit game. That was huge."
The pressures for change were doing their thing and by the end of 2002 or start of 2003, Laak says, there was no longer any regular pot limit action at the Commerce.
Laak remembers being at the Commerce one day, being a witness to the beginning of the end when they just did not spread the pot limit game. Neither did they spread it the following day or the day after that.
"The poker landscape has changed a lot."
Back in 2002, he says, it would have been difficult to imagine the Commerce having a 20-40 around the clock no limit game the way it does now.
A similar no limit focus can be found in Las Vegas. Laak lives mostly in California but when he goes to Las Vegas for one of the 10k ($10,000 buy-in) tournament events, the regular card room action is, well . . . he seems to grope for the adjectives to describe the concepts racing through his mind.
"Before one of these 10K events the sizes of the games are huge. It is mindboggling for a week, maybe two weeks at the casinos where there is one of these World Poker Tour or (World Series) Circuit 10K tournaments . . .
"Under these circumstances, 25-50 no limit games going around the clock are standard games for a week and some times two weeks before almost any 10K tournament."
Used to be, back in the old days of poker, maybe four or five years ago, a tournament specialist would carefully mark the events on his calendar. Miss one and it might be six months before the next. Not any more.
They come along often enough now to have the tournament regulars thinking about the need to pace themselves, take some time off.
Laak gives the subject a laugh. "On the average, these 10K, events are about one-point-seven times a month." Saying this with a who-could-have-imagined tone.
Card room bosses and tournament planners know that they have the Internet and television to thank for this.
"The Internet just swells the field what with people getting the chance for a $40 shot at a 10K tournament . . .
"You've gotta pace yourself now," he says, "because otherwise all the games will ust drive you insane or you can lose your life to poker completely. You'd never be home, or your home would be a hotel."
Laak limits his participation in on-line poker because, well . . . it's just not the same as a live game. The appeal of the human behavioral part of poker is very strong with me. Poker on-line is very different from poker in a casino because on-line you're stripped of the intuitive flashes and the behavioral dynamics that come to the surface at a casino poker table . . ."
The on-line game, he's says, tends to creak under the weight of numbers that define what's happening.
"I see a lot of kids coming into card rooms and I just know this kid learned on-line because they wouldn't even necessarily know how to shuffle chips or even hold their cards."
The other part of this clash of poker cultures is seeing people who "are just nailing it" in terms of how far they take a hand, how they apply the pressure that produces a winning edge.
"They're very good. I'm not sure I could compete with some of them, and I know that IF they got the people part of the game down they would make even more than they are making."
The times, he says, continue to change.
