Posted by Steve Rosenbloom
LAS VEGAS -- Hard poker rule: You interview actress-slash-poker-player Jennifer Tilly, you experience poker-player-slash-actor Phil Laak.
He is the "Unabomber,'' she is the "Unabombshell.'' Here's 10 minutes of riffing with the happy couple before they sat down to play at separate tables at the World Series of Poker main event:
"This is … no, that's not a good topic,'' Laak began. "Put it on pause until I get something.
Vince Bucci/Getty Images for Bodog.Com
"OK, here's something. Here's a very important concept. And people constantly blow this. The flop comes Q-9-2 and they have Q-7. They have the best hand probably. What you're supposed to do with hands like this is bet out, 100 percent knowing that if you get called or raised, you're shutting down. There's a whole class of hands that no one talks about. You're supposed to bet out to get clean information, because if you check and the guy bets, you don't know if you're calling and the guy's bluffing or you're calling and the guy's beating you.
"There's, like, weird hands where you flop 8-7-3 and you have 10-7. You have to bet these hands immediately, therefore you know when you get called or raised, you're done. You're defending against them having A-J or A-Q and hitting the overcard, or whatever, and if you get raised, you can fold. You get clean information, versus if you check and the guy bets, you don't know where you're at -- is he bluffing, does he have it? The decision tree costs you more this way, but your information's cleaner.
"I see people constantly messing that up all the time. They'll say, 'Oh, well, it's only a pair of 7s, I have two opponents, the flop is 8-7-2, any pair of 8s is better.' Hello! Just bet two-thirds of the pot, depending how big your stack is and all the natural things. So, that's a strategy tip.
"Now, a life tip? Let's see. If you're going to come to Vegas and chill, make sure you get not the economy car, because the [air conditioning] in those cars is always, like, average, but the next level where the AC is good, and when they give you the key, sit in the car and turn the AC on and see how strong it is. If it's lame, just get another car. Because you need AC in Vegas, or you will just be crippled by the heat. Those are my life tip and poker strategy tip for the day.''
This is the point in our show where we ask the Unabombshell if she understands her boyfriend.
"I understand about two-thirds of the things he says,'' Tilly admitted. "It's kind of like when you go to Paris and they're speaking French and you don't understand what they're saying but you kind of understand what they're saying.''
Like poker, life with the Unabomber is a game of incomplete information.
"Absolutely,'' Tilly said. "But that's the charm with Phil. He's not a simplistic person and he doesn't give it away and you know when he's talking and you're not quite sure what he said and then you figure it out about a day-and-a-half later, you're so pleased with yourself.''
"Jennifer's amazing,'' Laak interjects. "One time some guy was asking me a question about something really random and I made up a story about it -- a podiatrist in Monte Carlo, boom, his whole life -- and three days later, Jen was like, 'That's right, because the podiatrist in Monte Carlo blah, blah blah,' and I didn't know what she was talking about at first. Then it was like, 'Oh, yeah, that whole riff I just made up at the poker table when I was goofing around.' Everybody knew I was goofing around.''
"It's called a 'callback,''' the actress said, "but a callback only works if the person remembers the original statement. But he was like, 'What?'''
"It took me a second,'' Laak said.
Yes. Well. Moving right along. The main event fields in excess of 2,000 people each day for the first four days …
"It just means you focus on your table and you just squeeze for a little bit until you get some chips,'' the ever-hyper Laak starts in, "and then you try to surf ahead of the group and you're at the whim of cards and probabilistic madness.''
Probabilistic madness? Excuse me? Is that like the podiatrist in Monte Carlo?
"No, that's the real truth,'' said the man who claims to have worked for a bookie and managed a hedge fund in previous lives. "You've experienced it. It's like you have 9-10 of diamonds and you might flop a straight, and now the other guy has two pair and you have to suffer the truth that he has 16 percent to punish you. He might have 7-8, you have 9-10, it comes 7-8-J, you have a straight and he has two pair, and an 8 on the river, boom, it can just happen. It's just part of the game.''
"I totally understand what he's saying,'' Tilly said. "It's also, too, the thing with Phil or with myself that sometimes people target you. Let's say you raise with an A-K and they put you all-in and they have 9-8 because they thought you were bluffing and they flop a straight or flop a flush. Even though you did have the best hand and the other person shouldn't be in the hand, those kinds of things happen. Poker is a crazy, crazy game. I say it's 70 percent skill and 30 percent luck.''
Back to Laak: "Also, two nights ago I got to the Bellagio and there were two fish giving their money away and there were, like, seven pros taking it. The list was eight people long. The luck there was, were you lucky enough to be in the game? I was not lucky that night. I played in another game -- $25-$50, whatever, I did my little thing -- but the lucky guys were the seven guys in that game. Sometimes your luck has nothing to do with cards. It's did you get to the casino a half-hour before the fish did so you sit down before the game fills up. Luck comes in strange forms, you know.''
So, you've been playing more cash games than WSOP events?
"For every 10-day chunk since July 3,'' Laak said, "I played five days cash games, two days of tournaments, then two days off, then one day of making that movie 'The Grand,' the Zach Penn thing with Woody Harrelson over at the Golden Nugget. Because of the movie thing, I was forced to play more cash, as well, because they would maybe only need you from noon till 4, but it was thoroughly inflexible. Now you have the whole day gone. Hello, Bellagio, Table 43, let's go.''
A movie, huh? Is the actress in the household also in "The Grand''?
"Phil and Antonio [Esfandiari] and Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson are playing themselves,'' Tilly said. "They wanted me to play myself, but in the movie business, a cameo is just a small part. In the poker business, it's a shot at immortality. I know the movie business better than Phil, and I know how much waiting around there is.''
"Oh, Lord,'' Laak said in woeful agreement.
"And I knew how many tournaments I'd miss, and at this point in my life, I would rather play poker,'' the Academy Award-nominated actress/bracelet-winning poker player said.
"She's played more tournaments than me," Laak said. "She did seven or eight. I did, like, five. She cashed in two, I think, and I cashed in zero.''
"You cashed in one, baby,'' Tilly corrected.
"Oh, I did cash in one. I haven't collected the money yet. That's why I forgot.''
We should all have such problems. But wait. Did he ask or did the actress offer any acting tips to her poker-playing maniac?
"You know what?'' Tilly explained. "The thing with beginners who are acting -- No. 1, Phil is a natural -- but it's sort of like when you see a movie and there's a great kid in it and the kid gets an Oscar nomination. They've usually never acted before in their life because they just do what comes natural, which is play. That's what Phil does naturally: play. If I start telling him about Stanislavsky and the takes and 'The Method,' he's just going to get all screwed up. This is the second time Phil played himself. He played himself in 'Deal' [another upcoming poker movie starring Burt Reynolds that is pretty much 'The Color of Money,' only with poker instead of pool]. He has a great time on the set and everybody loves him because he comes up with a lot of ad-libs and he's a colorful character.''
With that, she gives him a hug. Awwww. Cute.
"Yeah,'' Laak said, "they didn't have a script there. They just said, 'What would you do in this spot?' I said, 'Well, one of 10 things,' and I shot them off, and [the director] was like, 'Oh yeah, that would be good,' and that's what happened.
"My best moment was hanging out with David Cross, who's probably one of the seven funniest humans on the face of the planet. It was just fun hanging out with him.''
"He's on 'Arrested Development' and he has a CD out called, 'Shut Up, You [expletive] Baby,''' Tilly explained. "He's really funny. He's 'Mr. Show.'''
"I thought some of the stuff was because they gave him some funny lines,'' Laak picked up. "I found out that all of the stuff, he comes up with. I'd go to him and say, 'David, I have to come up with something with this scene; what should I do that's funny?' And he'd come up with, like, genius things. I saw the funniness in it. It'd be like guys who write songs for Disney. It like, 'How do you write with zero inspiration?' But on the spot, he can just create something, give it to you, and you can use it and it would work.''
Reeling back in from discussion of "The Little Mermaid,'' how far has Tilly's game come since she won a bracelet last year in the $1,000 buy-in ladies no-limit hold 'em event?
"I think I'm really so much stronger now than I was this time last year,'' she said. "I feel I've improved, oh, 63 percent.''
"Sixty-three percent?'' Laak says, and even he is stunned by the Unabombshell's Unabomber-like response. "What is that?''
"I just feel like I'm really strong now,'' Tilly said. "The weird thing with me is when I won my bracelet, I sort of catapulted into a world I was unfamiliar with, like on 'Poker Superstars' with Johnny Chan and Ted Forrest. Basically, I was like when you throw the kid in the water before they know how to swim and they have to dog-paddle and eventually they learn. Now I'm kind of embarrassed by some of my television appearances. Of course, who would turn down the chance to play in some of those events, but I really feel like I know what I'm doing. Every time I play, I learn something new.''
Stepping in, Laak said, "A week before the World Series of Poker, I'm playing at the Commerce [Casino in Los Angeles] and I'm getting text messages: 'Hey, I'm 45th out of 100. I'm in the last eight. Hey, I won this tournament.' She played three or four cash games and beat the game every time. She cashed in tournaments. I'm really proud of her.''
Welcome to "My Fair Poker Lady.''
"But it's a weird thing now that I didn't realize: I'm a target,'' My Fair Poker Lady said. "People see you on TV and they splice together the exciting hands, so people are under the erroneous impression that I play every hand and every two cards. Well, there's a big difference between a 10-handed game and a three-handed game. A three-handed game, you kind of have to play every two cards. On TV, they cut out the 10 hands where you folded.''
Said Laak: "What they do is call you more often … ''
Continued Tilly: "Yeah, they'll reraise me all-in. I'll raise and they'll reraise me all-in. Four times in a row when I raised, someone reraised me all-in. Are we playing poker?''
Explained Laak: "That's the Kill Phil strategy [from the book 'Kill Phil,' by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson that suggests that beginners move in preflop against better players to avoid getting outplayed on later streets]. It defends against a person properly making a continuation bet. When the pot is $700 and you bet $400 after the flop and you've missed -- and you're a favorite to miss -- it's really gross if they reraise you all-in. If you call, you don't get any fold equity and you're in a gross spot. If you raise, you're exposing yourself to maybe 30 percent damage to your stack. So, playing against people that aren't great at poker but are just following game-theory modeling, it's really frustrating. Being aggressive is one of the key tenets in the game, and it's frustrating that you're playing someone whose postflop game isn't that good, but they're being aggressive preflop.''
And then, as usual, without warning, Laak is off on a tangent, pinballing his thoughts to his "Babykins.''
"She gives good interviews, so I have to keep my babykins nearby. I've learned how to make better sound bites. Sometimes my head rambles. I drift.''
No, really?
Poker
