“But then I stepped away from that, came back to LA, and while I was waiting for certain jobs as an actor, as a writer, I got a local poker game going in the San Fernando Valley. That led to him returning to Los Angeles to pursue more acting, and getting more into poker along the way. I was happy to retire at the end, because I’d had enough.” It’s the only sport in the world where there’s no offseason. Now they expect you to win, and everybody’s coming after you. But when you start losing, it’s horrible. “So to make those kinds of wins, and along the way I beat John McEnroe twice, it was a thrill. No one gave me a chance, no one ever thought I was going to become a top pro.” 40 and I was beating everybody, all these legends I’d looked up to like Stan Smith and Tom Okker and these names who were top-10 players, I couldn’t believe it.

“When you’re winning in the beginning, when I was having a huge run in 1979 and my ranking went from over No. He said tennis was great for a while, but it eventually wore him down. I was ranked in the top 25 in the world and was the ATP Rookie of the Year in 1979.” Then I gave it up to go to the professional tennis circuit. “As a child actor, I was working all the time and did a lot of different movies and TV series. He’s the son of actor Dick Van Patten, and got started in acting very early in life. It’s been quite a run for Van Patten, from acting to tennis to poker and more. So when that guy makes that call, I’m excited for him, or when that guy makes a brilliant bet.” And that’s part of my job, to really keep the drama going like I have something at stake, like I have half of his action. “…Those kinds of moves, I get excited about and I’m enthusiastic about. I will also, I’m delighted when I see a brilliant play, a brilliant call with queen-high or something.” I’m a little softer on bad plays, I don’t think it’s necessary…the world will get it, the shrewd people will get it, that they’ve made a major mistake. And I’ll call it like it is more or less. “I like to come from the perspective of I’m truly just seeing the hand unfold.

Van Patten said for him, the thrill of commentary is when it comes to calling smart plays. But for him to have that genius and say ‘Oh yeah, that’s going to make it a giant sport’…because once you see the cards and see the play, the guys that are doing it today and some of the calls they can make off of huge bets, it’s really remarkable.” “And the World Poker Tour, the genius of Steve Lipscomb, he had the idea of ‘Let’s show the cards.’ That was his idea, he brought it there first, and then the World Series did it later when they saw what he was doing.

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