Vince Van Patten adds Fame to Hollywood Poker
Vince Van Patten has as many strings on his guitar as on his tennis racket. From chastened child actor and world class tennis pro, he's made a genuine name for himself in poker - as a respected player in major events and cash games, but most of all as the ever present host and commentator of televised poker shows.
You've certainly seen him, and most of all heard him, presenting hundreds of exciting poker hands in the televised World Poker Tour (WPT) alongside Mike Sexton.Ignited the poker explosion
The WPT show was the place where the ingenious hole-card camera made its entrance into the world, a historical event that launched the current poker boom like a heavy-weight space shuttle toward outer space.
Vince Van Patten has joined Hollywood Poker as its ambassador and marketing locomotive alongside actor colleague James Woods. He blogs on the Hollywood Poker site and represents Hollywood Poker during major events such as the WSOP.
No neophyte to poker
Poker has been part of Van Patten's life since childhood, when his father Dick Van Patten hosted regular home games with Hollywood fame at all corners of the poker oval. It has not left his side through his early careers in acting and sport.
Vince Van Patten is a real poker player on his own merits, not a pretty face that is allowed to sit at the tables wearing a logo and donating chips as a well-calculated advertising space. Although he's most of all a cash game player, and his best result in major tournaments is an in-the-money finish in WSOP 2007.
Taking out John McEnroe
It's interesting that he's so competent playing live poker, seeing that in tennis his primary area of expertise was the net play. That's a terrible pun.
Van Patten made his debut in moving media at the age of nine, and throughout the seventies, child actor Van Patten guest-starred in forty classic television series, an amazing feat as such.
Van Patten's most important acting role came in the Rock 'n' Roll High School movie from 1979, where he starred alongside P.J. Soles (where P.J. actually does not stand for Poker Junkie).
Possibly the most impressive exploit in this multi-talented man's life adventure is the victory in the 1981 Seiko World Super Tennis tournament in Tokyo, Japan, where he won $300,000 after defeating the world's first, fourth and fifth seeded players Vitas Gerulaitis, Jose Louis Clerk and John McEnroe.
