INTRO:

Despite the fact that he thinks my surname is Malone.
Despite that saying his name makes you say “Aaaagh” like when you’re at the doctors.
Phil Laaaaaaaaaaaak is a tremendously decent, happy fella.

CONTEXT:

Back in my bed at the hotel, it’s 4.12am in the UK, Ireland, Portugal and South Africa. 8.12pm here. It’s been a long, long day. Going to have a Paddy Power Nap, not too concerned if I sleep for 4 or 12 hours, we’ll let me bod (and what a bod) decide. Vitamin C drink favoured over Vitamin Beer. Booms bang or should that be bangs boom out from the Belagio’s fountain show every few minutes. Aircon hums away (will try to have a posting with no ref to temperature, airconditioning or humidity sometime before I leave here)

picture of dawn from my room:

PADDYTASTIC:

“It’s the greatest tournament in the history of, like history” is how Phil Laak described the Irish Open – a quote that says more about Phil than the Irish Open. Phil Laak is a dude. Phil Laak is an optimistic, energetic, all round nice guy. Phil Laak is also Irish.

Phil and Lesley at the Irish Open 07

PHILO:

Phil’s parents moved from Ireland when he was three, so he was blessed with the good natured gambling spirit of a Paddy and the blonde hair of his Scandi father, a combo that would see him quickly rise to the top of the game of poker in the USA. Had he not moved he would now be called Philo, he’d probably work for Paddy Power, in fact eh, he’d probably be me. Likewise I’d like to think that if my parents had moved to the States when I was three and if I had turrets, I’d be just like Phil. But none of that happened, so back to this so called reality.

HEADS UP, PANTIES DOWN

I wander in to the hall earlier and there is Phil playing a charity tournament heads up with his good buddy Antionio the Magician Esfandiari. Despite the fact neither gent is particularly cynical, they’re clearly aware that good press and having a high profile will lead to fame and/or guaranteeing riches. Phil loses the game with Antonio (but feels better about it when I point out that he came second). Phil then plays a bunch of twenty something Americans heads up. Hollering out his smart ass comments, he’s a real crowd pleaser. After he finishes there’s twenty or so people hanging about. Every one of them wants to get their photo with Phil or an autograph. Phil graciously entertains them. Spotty man children awkwardly stand beside Phil while a friend or parent tee’s up a photo. (at this point I’d like to coin a word, “cameraspaface: the face of a person taking a digital photo”. Without a traditional camera blocking ones face, people with cameraspafaces are now exposed and we can all see their amused prolonged smile which is unique to this situation*. It is a combo of:
- a smile because they want the subjects to smile and/or they have just said or thought the word cheese/smile. (trick: say smile and try NOT to smile)
- concentration, after all they are using a technical device
- fear, that the attempt to take a photo will some how not work or be sabotaged causing issues for all involved. Do you feel relief or apathy after taking a photo of a group?

*Unique albeit very similar to readingafunnyemailfromafriendintheofficespaface. Oi smiley! We KNOW you’re not working!)

crowds gather around Phil

CONTEXT 2:

The above was written 36 hours ago, since then, I’ve slept and worked. It’s been a busy past while but fortunately for you I’m back at laptop and raring to type my chubby little fingers off.

BACK TO WHAT I WAS ON ABOUT EARLIER:

Oh yeah, so then with Phil we walk over to the bar, have a bottle of the Kenmeister (am I turning in to Ross O’Carroll Kelly?) had a little chat and then started walking along the corridor from the main event to the GLE show. It took an hour to walk 30 yards: People coming up non stop and creating lines for photos and autographs with Phil. Someone’s agent somewhere wants Phil to meet some online qualifier. It’s slow and painful. Snails sneered at us as they zoomed by.
I would be hitting people, it’s bizarre, they don’t want to talk to or know Phil, or have anything of interest to say, they just stand there and wait for their photo op. The Ross-Phil conversation was over, public Phil was all go, he was off to Poker Pro Magazines stall to sign autograph’s to hundreds of waiting people, how and why would and could someone do this? It takes a huge amount of patience, which I guess Poker does to. We finished up and arranged a date for next Monday.

ZOOM:

That was two days ago. Yesterday I see Phil, or a blur of Phil running through the GLE. I smirked when I realised that’s how he gets through crowds – you gotta run. It’s a brave autograph hunter that stops a running man with his head down.

COMMITMENT ISSUES:

Phil then changed his mind and rescheduled our date for what was last night. Paddy Power heads were tired after a long day. Resting seemed like the more attractive option, but sometimes you gotta push yourself, it is Vegas afterall. So Phil gives me a napkin with what looks like a childs impression of a map scrawled across it. Several hours later we find this Lotus of Siam restaurant. Phil is there with his beautiful partner Jennifer Tilly; Jim, a backgammon buddy of Phil’s from LA and Jim’s partner Patti.

JENNIFER “F***ING” TILLY

Jennifer is positively beaming. She’s just had five cash finishes while the WSOP’s been on, three at the WSOP and two at the Belagio’s shadow events. She’s on fire. In more ways than one (but neither literally). Last time we met she was tired and jet lagged and I was mr. motor mouth, this time it was exact opposite. Jen was regaling us with stories of her colourful life, notably of her childhood upbringing in the remote woods where their hens roamed wild in the forest as a result of her hippy father’s lax fencing efforts and they had to find the eggs each morning, sounded fun.
In an attempt to lose the sweet girly girl image at the poker table, Jen got herself this awesome sparkly belt buckle the size of a plate with Jennifer “Fucking” Tilly written on it, the lady rocks.

JFT at the IRISH OPEN 07

SIX K BLIND ANTE

Meanwhile Phil was buzzing after a massive win a couple of days previously. It was some sic game he was playing where at one stage the whole table were calling a $6,000 bet blind. He managed to extract his fifth biggest victory from these lunatics. Great, dinners on Phil, yes I’ll have another beer.

32 37 44 83

Phil refers to “ordering errors” as being irrelevant as each dish is only ten bucks, “you can’t go wrong” he keeps saying. It’s as if ordering a meal is a limped call, there is no distinction between poker and life for Phil. He whips out his phone and starts chanting numbers at the waiter “I’ll have a 32, 37, 44, 83”. This sums Phil up, he took down the numbers of each dish he liked. He sounds like rain man. The waiter doesn’t know the dishes by number. We order so much food that it doesn’t matter what comes, we will be fed.
After eating our own body weights in most excellent Thai food we blab on about various poker, backgammon and fashion issues. It was a fun night, I wish I’d more energy, but sure sometimes it’s nice to listen.

WINNING IT

Both Phil and Jen are on top form and in a good place to have a serious chance of cash finishes at the WSOP. I’m going to have a reality-creating session with Phil before he starts play tomorrow.

Now I better get back to some more general posts for you, respiration and perspiration is the title of my next post. Hold your horses, it’ll be here soon.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 7th, 2007 at 6:35 pm and is filed underRoss, WSOP 2007 You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.