Player Profile: Phil Laak

Phil Laak was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1972, raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts and now lives in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has worked in several fields before becoming a skilled poker player. Laak is a former engineer, sports bet broker, market speculator, repo man and real estate investor. He was successful in the field of engineering but did not derive enough satisfaction to do the work on a daily basis. Laak briefly considered becoming a blackjack dealer but did not want to spend the time necessary to learn the game.

Like Gus Hansen, Laak was also a skilled backgammon player where he learned his aggressive style. From backgammon games in New York, he switched to poker and then moved to California where he began playing regularly. As of this writing, he is dating actress Jennifer Tilly who is also a poker player. She won a WSOP bracelet in 2005 in the $1,000 buy-in Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship.

Laak is a colorful and controversial figure in the game because of his aggressive style of play, his appearance and his antics at the table. His nickname is the “Unabomber” because he wears a hooded sweatshirt which was given to him by Gus Hansen and sunglasses while playing. He hides his face from other players by closing the drawstring on the hood of the sweatshirt during large hands.

He also states he is metaphysically inclined and does mental exercises at the table which “allows him to connect with the other players”, stating that this gives him a major advantage during the games.

Based on his antics, some poker fans had this to say about him:

“Personally, I find the name “Unabomber” quite offensive. The name came from a deranged killer sending mail bombs to universities. Considering Ted Kisinski (the real Unabomber) actually killed people by his actions it would be like someone taking on the moniker of The Osama Bin Laden of Poker.”

“I personally think he wasn’t amusing at all. Maybe laughing at him but certainly not with him. He was acting like a 12 year old and playing like one too……………when he starts doing sit-ups and dancing like a dinosaur then it is just tooo much.”

“Never laughed once. Thought it was shameful and totally disgusting.”

Of the comments written by fans on this poker message board, most were against his behavior.

Some of the highlights of Laak’s career thus far:

• Making the final table of the 2003 Legends of Poker $5,000 Main Event

• 12th place in the Bellagio Five-Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas

• First place in the WPT Invitational in Los Angeles .

• Second place in the 2005 WSOP $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em Event.

E! Entertainment hired Laak to host the Hollywood Hold’em Television Series and he has also been featured in one of GSN’s Poker Royale Series installments called “The James Woods Gang vs. The Unabombers”. Laak tours the US and Europe playing in big-money tournaments and continues his involvement in the real estate and stock market.

Human logic in relation to God – Part 1

To understand the process by which human logic attempts to ascend to God, it will be most beneficial to start with a classical argument for God’s existence, which has been presented by many thinkers over time, known as the ontological argument. This argument is found in various forms, some of which are stronger and weaker than others, but for our purposes let us consider the argument more or less as it is framed by Anselm in the Proslogion:

(1): That-than-which-none-greater-c an-be-conceived (Hereafter TTWNGCBC) is a being which cannot be thought to lack any conceivable perfection.

(2): Being is a conceivable perfection

(3): If we imagine TTWNGCBC as non-existent, then we are imagining that TTWNGCBC is lacking a conceivable perfection.

(4): But this is absurd by (1) and (2), therefore if we think of TTWNGCBC, we must think that it is an existing being.

Notice that Anselm uses a “reductio ad absurdum” argument in his formulation. The argument might be more simply (though less precisely) stated as: God has every perfection; existence is a perfection; therefore God exists. It’s worth noting that Anselm figures proving the existence of TTWNGCBC is sufficient to prove the Christian God, although TTWNGCBC is a rather weak being compared to later philosophical formulations of God by Christians (especially Thomas Aquinas’ “ipsum esse subsitens”).

Of course, the fundamental assumption which is made by Anselm’s argument is that TTWNGCBC can be thought of. To address the implications of this argument, it must be asked: Can the human mind conceive TTWNGCBC? This is an epistemological question with, as we can see, important metaphysical implications.

With regard to epistemology, reason is a discursive process by which the human subject comes to know himself and the world around him. More precisely, it is a process by which man relates himself to the world around him, abstracting from his sense data to know the intelligible part of being (called “form” in an Aristotelean/Thomist metaphysics). Yet the world in which man finds himself is full of imperfection, finitude, mutability, and temporality. If man’s reason abstracts from his senses of this imperfect world, then how could he know God, whom he has called perfect, infinite, immutable, eternal (atemporal), etc.? If he can know God’s infinitude, perfection, etc., it is only by exception or negation in relation to those things in the world.

At this point it will be beneficial to consider the difference between