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Category: Texas Holdem

Congratulations to Phil Laak

Posted in Texas Holdem

In 2004 Phil Laak broke out into the poker scene with a win at the World Poker Tour’s Celebrity Invitational’s. Since then Phil Laak has become a trademark name in poker along with his alias the “Unabomber”. Phil Laak gained the nickname the Unabomber because he frequently wore a hooded sweatshirt with sunglasses at the table. Phil would put up his hood and seal it as to hide his face from other players reading tells.

Laak was born in Dublin, Ireland however he was raised on the east coast of the United States where he learned to be an excellent backgammon player and started his poker curiosity that led him to the west coast. Phil Laak moved to the west coast where he would eventually master the game of poker alongside of his best friend and once roommate professional poker player Antonio Esfandiari. After the WPT win Phil Laak had a big break out year in 2005 when he raked in over $700,000 in tournament earnings.

Phil has just recently added another impressive win to his already stacked record by taking down the 2010 WSOPE 6-Max NL Hold’em. With the 2010 WSOPE win Phil Laak has had the best year since his breakout year in 2005. Phil Laak so far has brought in over $630,000 in tournament earnings in 2010. Phil Laak had a win in the PartyPoker World Poker Open however besides that win he has been lacking on big tournament wins for a while, Phil Laak welcomes this big WSOPE event win.

The 2010 WSOPE event was a star studded event where Phil Laak would make it to the final table as one of the bigger stacks along with two time WSOPE bracelet winner Chris Bjorin and Andrew Pantling as the two other big stacks. The three lower stacks were Willie Tan, David Peters, and IIan Rouah who would all become the first three to bust out of the final table.

Phil Laak didn’t get a chance to accumulate too many chips after the first three busts out however after a double up through Andrew Pantling and busting out Chris Bjorin, Phil Laak went in prepared for heads up battle. Phil Laak slowly chipped away at Pantling’s stack until he out chipped him 3 to 1. Phil Laak put in the final blow to Pantling’s stack after an all in showdown revealed Phil Laak’s K5 connected against Pantling’s A10. Congratulations to the 2010 WSOPE event winner, Phil Laak.

WSOP 2010 lessons

Posted in Texas Holdem

My friend played in the main event of the World Series of Poker a while back, having won his entry in a freeroll on Full Tilt Poker. He somehow managed to finish 520/5619 for baby money of $12,500. This is what he has to say. There are some minor trades that he has to pay out, but he is glad to have gotten that far. Here are some of the things he learned:

  1. Vegas still sucks. His sinus cavities are all messed up, and his head feels like it is filled with helium.
  2. He sucks. he wasn’t taking the time he needed to review the relevant information. Often, he was just stalling, not thinking about anything except maybe “the fucking Mirage”.
  3. The field sucks more. How else can you explain calling off 20K in the 100/200 round on a paired board, or calling down with 33 when you are check-raised and bet into on every round.
  4. There were hundreds of solid players. Many of the pros played very well, but there were many other players who were young, and who played that year for the first time, who were as good as, and sometimes better than many of the name players.
  5. He was lucky. Of course, that is the story of many players’ poker life. He is now 3/6 ITM in WSOP events, and is averaging a profit of 8.9 buy-ins per tournament. I hear that it’s better to be lucky than good.
  6. He sucks. He had no idea what to do in a wide variety of situations. In particular, He didn’t have much of a plan with regard to being a bully or dealing with a bully. Likewise, he wasn’t sure of when to reraise, or how to deal with reraises.
  7. He will play again. Of course, until he stops sucking he’ll have to win the entry in a satelite like he did that year.