Anyone annoyed by Phil Laak?

[coxquinn]

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cocaine is a hell of a drug

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[KMRIA]

I think Phil's great. What a whiny bunch of haters. When it comes to televised poker, I'd rather see Phil Laak do his stream-of-conciousness schtick anyday than watch "Phil-I've-got-better-things-to-do-like-hustle-golf-so-I'll-put-on-my-just-sucked-on-a-lemon-face-till-it's-over-Ivey" that you cats all cream over.

I think it's abundantly clear that he's crazy like a fox (as me sainted grandmother used to say), and that he is one too (mrowrr).

Phil and his bff Antonio know how to lively up a table. Phil obfuscates his play with charm and affability, his metagame is light years ahead of most, he's clearly enjoying life, and you guys all take the piss out of him for it.

sad. grim. pathetic.

"I love it when you guys give me the business!"

[Nsight7]

I dislike how smart the guy thinks he is. I read an article about him where he said he was in some college philosophy class and he hit on an idea that was PhD-level stuff that the professor wasn't really getting. Of course, it really is NOT PhD-level stuff, just a one-quarter step above Philosophy 101. If did further study (he says he discovered how high level his ideas were later when reading on his own time), then he would have no doubt realized that he wasn't saying anything remotely intelligent.

And yeah, I don't much like him at the poker table either.

[KMRIA]

I know the article you're referring to and I think you missed the point. He was using it as an example of when you realize that your own independent thinking has value and that 'authorities' can be wrong. He said he later found the idea in question in other philosophers' writings--he never claimed his own 'genius' about it--just that it was a revelation to understand that the [censored] teaching the class was moronically wrong. And having spent countless years in University settings, I can testify, that there are more boneheads with PhDs then you can imagine. It's the free-thinking angle (I would hope) that most folks around here would subscribe to.

The funny thing is that IIRC the notion was that there is no absolute truth--which is just beyond 101, but that the professor would argue against it is the funny part.

jmho, I like the guy.

[Nsight7]

I dunno, I really felt like he came off pretty cocky in the article, like he felt very puffed up on his pov. The guy teaching wasn't necessarily wrong (after, much of philosophy is purely speculative jibba-jabba anyhow), but he did screw up by not defending his position, which could have easily been done. Instead he basically claimed "I said it, so it must be right". Again, this I believe was stupid.

Phil still came off as arrogant and didn't pursue the idea thinking he might be wrong but rather was convinced of his correctness. The professor's objection aside, his arrogance in this discourse (the professor was profoundly arrogant as well) was what turned me off, and that he later justified his arrogance in the matter by saying he found it in other writings further aggitated me.

As for the notion of absolute truth, there is not any real way to move beyond speculation about that ultimate aspect of reality. The logical defense, however, is that nothing can be gained from that perspective without taking certain fundamentals as axiomatic (i.e. laws of identity, contradiction, ya-da ya-da). They are fundamental not in the sense that they should be true but that they are necessarily so. We can assume that we are in some "matrix" and that our senses are constantly bamboozled, but that is assuming too much if we can't tell the difference in the first. All other things being equal we are forced to believe that reality is more or less rational and that we can use rational principles to comprehend it, otherwise we clearly are not capable from first principles of building any knowledge whatsoever.

Yeah, I can easily see a professor aruing against it from a pragmatic perspective. The view that there is no absolute truth is effectively useless. I can't understand the professor not explaining that however.

[shaniac]

One quick note about his nickname: Maybe it doesn't mitigate the "distaste" factor, but I think it was given to him by other players, probably New Yorkers. I don't think his image was cultivated in an attempt to emulate the actual Ted K.

To me, Laak seems like a pretty smart, interesting guy--he was a legend in NYC way before the tv-poker boom, so I suppose he has an undeniable charisma. And although his persona on tv does annoy me more often than it entertains me, it seems to serve his purposes well.

[Stoneflip]

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I've always hated Laak's nickname.

What makes it worse is that the unabomber was caught in 1996 and there are still victims of his bombings alive today. This isn't a reference to someone who was a murderer hundreds of years ago (time + tragedy = comedy... right?).

If someone had the nickname Vlad the Impaler, Ghenghis Chan or Jack the Ripper, it wouldn't evoke the same emotions as the the Unabomber because those historical figures are far removed from our time.

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I feel the same way.

I have also heard Laak is a bigtime angle shooter.

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Definition of angle shooter plz.

[luck=skill]

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cocaine is a hell of a drug

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right [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[eljizzle]

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I've always hated Laak's nickname.

What makes it worse is that the unabomber was caught in 1996 and there are still victims of his bombings alive today. This isn't a reference to someone who was a murderer hundreds of years ago (time + tragedy = comedy... right?).

If someone had the nickname Vlad the Impaler, Ghenghis Chan or Jack the Ripper, it wouldn't evoke the same emotions as the the Unabomber because those historical figures are far removed from our time.

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I feel the same way.

I have also heard Laak is a bigtime angle shooter.

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Definition of angle shooter plz.

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An angle shooter is someone who does borderline or blatantly unethical things at the poker table. They are typically "within the rules" but are considered unethical by a majority of players. An example would be lying about your hand so that your opponent mucks his and you can win the pot without a showdown. Here is an example of an angle, by Mr. Laak himself. As you will see however, the opinion of whether or not this particular move was "an angle" is highly debated, even by the 2p2 community.

[The B]

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I think Phil's great. What a whiny bunch of haters. When it comes to televised poker, I'd rather see Phil Laak do his stream-of-conciousness schtick anyday than watch "Phil-I've-got-better-things-to-do-like-hustle-golf-so-I'll-put-on-my-just-sucked-on-a-lemon-face-till-it's-over-Ivey"








I think what your krank-ass meant was...





I'd rather watch Phil "I do push-ups after winning pots and tie up my hooded-sweatshirt to hide when I'm in a hand" Laak

than watch

Phil "I actually win tournaments" Ivey