Phil Laak, of PokerStars.com was born in Dublin and grew up on the east coast. Phil unlike most professional poker players actually did a lot of other jobs before making the move to poker. Laak graduated from the University of Massachusetts with his degree in Mechanical Engineering. Once Phil graduated with his degree he worked as an engineer for a bit, then a repo man, real estate investor and stock day trader. As you can see Phil has quite the broad range of work experience in his life thus far.

After trying his hand at the many different careers Phil had worked in he decided to start playing poker in California at the poker games he could find. Phil knew how to play poker since he was a child, but never thought he would become a professional poker player any time in his lifetime. The first major event that Phil Laak won in his poker career was in 2004 at the WPT Celebrity Invitational. Phil has appeared at a final table two other times in the WPT and finished in the money a total of six times in the WPT.

Phil has yet to win any WSOP bracelets yet, but he has managed to win money eight times in WSOP events which is still pretty good. Laak has won a total of almost $2 million in live poker tournaments throughout his career and it keeps on growing each and every year. If you read Bluff Magazine then you’ll also have probably read one of Phil’s monthly columns which is posted in the magazine.

Over Phil’s career as a poker player he has made a lot of TV appearances as well on shows such as Poker After Dark and I Bet You which is a show that he co-hosted with Antonio Esfandiari. Antonio and Phil have been best friends since being roommates in University and they both ended up becoming professional poker players which is pretty strange. The two co-hosted the show I Bet You though, and basically the idea of the show was that the two of them bet against each other in tons of different things. The show is actually pretty funny though and definitely worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet.

Phil is also known as “The Unabomber” and he got this nickname because whenever he use to go all-in he would tie-up his sweater around his face so noone could see him. The nickname has stuck, but you don’t often see Laak doing this anymore when he is all-in unless he’s just having some fun. Phil has been going out with professional actress and poker player Jennifer Tilly for awhile now and they can always be spotted on PokerStars playing poker together.

Phil loves cash games just as much as he loves tournaments as well and is often playing the biggest cash games he can find in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Phil will need to win a WSOP bracelet in order to get his name into poker history, but I don’t think he needs to worry about that for some time to come.