Congrats, Chad. What does being Bluff’s Player of the Year mean to you?

I’m proud. It’s not like winning a tournament. Anyone can get lucky one day and win a tournament. But all the best players in the world play all the big Main Events, and the Player of the Year award is defined by all the major tournaments of 5k and bigger. To win this is an enormous accomplishment to be very proud of. To put this in context, if I were acting it would be like I won an Oscar at the Academy Awards. People identify actors for the rest of their lives as: “That’s an Oscar winner.” And in poker, they can say about me: “That’s a Player of the Year winner.”

You learned to play the game in the Italian cafes of the Bronx. There must have been a lot of characters around there…

There definitely were a lot of characters. Maybe even, you could say, caricatures!

Were they good poker players?

Most of them weren’t. At the time I was playing it wasn’t like people were playing poker for a living; they were playing as a hobby and because they enjoyed getting together with the guys and playing some poker.

Did you have a mentor?

Well, my first bit of poker mentoring was from my dad. He had his own poker game in the Bronx, and the game that they used to play was 7- card Stud. What my dad drilled home to me when I was young was that there are some players in the game who are good poker players, but when they’re losing they become bad players. He didn’t use the phrase “on tilt” back then, but that’s what he meant – he was basically saying that if you go on tilt and you feel you’re not playing well, then get up and quit. You know, poker’s one long game, and you don’t need to get even that night. And if you’re not playing well because you’re steamed, then just quit. The most important thing is to play your A-game all the time.

I’m well known among my peers in poker for not steaming, for keeping my composure, no matter how many bad beats I take. They all know that Chad never gets upset. You know, if I lose, then I lose, and I lose gracefully. As a professional poker player, at the start of the year you say, “OK, in 2007, I expect to make X-amount of dollars, and during this year I also anticipate some turbulence. I expect some bad beats and bad runs. The overall outlook is that it’s going to be a very nice year with a positive return, but inside that ride there’s going to be some bad runs. I think a lot of poker players look at it like, “Oh, I’m the best and I’m going to win all the time,” and then when all of a sudden they’re losing, they’re not being realistic about it. And so it’s harder for them to accept.

Knowing that you’re going to have your good times and your bad times through the year, but that the good times are going to outweigh the bad times is what it’s all about. It allows me to handle the bad luck much better than other people do.

Do you think that’s what has helped you be so consistent recently?

As far as winning Bluff Magazine’s Player of the Year, that’s determined by tournament performance and based on the $5,000 tournaments and higher. In the last two years, I’ve been a cash game player, and when I realized how big poker was getting, I made a decision to play tournaments. Corporate sponsorship, as far as mainstream America goes, is all about the perception of the general public as far as who is the best poker player, who is the face of poker. If you don’t play tournaments, the public isn’t going to know who you are.

So in 2004, I decided to start playing all of these televised tournaments. I made the final table of the World Series 7-card Stud event, which was broadcast on ESPN, and that was the first time I received a lot of celebrity. I came in second to Ted Forrest, but there was also an interesting drama going on when we were three handed with Men “The Master” (Nguyen), and I actually came off pretty well. To the general public it looked like Men was the antagonist and I was the protagonist. It actually looked like Men and I were enemies, and he was the villain. But actually Men and I are very good friends, and that’s not Men. You know, people like Men and Phil Hellmuth – people who win on TV – are becoming larger than life, and that’s how they want to market themselves. I don’t criticize them. If being someone other than themselves is good for them, and they’re happy with that, then I totally condone it.

Has it been frustrating that you’re such a prolific player, yet until now you’ve been a little “under the radar” as far as fame and recognition go?

In the beginning I wanted to stay under the radar because there were a lot of new players coming up and they knew who the best tournament players in the world were. I knew that they wouldn’t know who I was, and I didn’t go out of my way to make sure that they did. You know, there are a lot of players, like Phil Hellmuth or Mike Matusow, who’ll say “I’m the best” because they’re on TV, and they want the world to know. And me, I don’t want that. Most poker players will take you for granted if you’re not famous. So it was advantageous not to promote how good a player I was, and just keep making final tables. Like in 2005, I made back-to-back final tables on the World Series of Poker Circuit in Atlantic City and in San Diego. They were interviewing me, saying, “Wow, Chad, you’re making a lot of final tables!” and I was just being humble, saying, “You know, if you play good poker and you’re consistent, then the cream will always rise to the top.” They said to me exactly what you were saying: “You’re like sort of under the radar and regular players out there don’t realize,” and I said, “You know, I sort of wanted it that way.”

With the way poker is going, I understand that I can’t stay under the radar and have success and get an endorsement deal with mainstream America. You can’t have it both ways. I’m not hiding anything from anyone anymore. I’m going to allow myself to go out and get the recognition I deserve.

Didn’t you used to be a baseball player?

Yes, baseball is my biggest passion. I was offered a Minor League contract right when I started acting, and – this is funny with all the stuff coming out about pro baseball players on steroids. When the scout asked me if I wanted to sign my league contract, because it already looked like I would have success in acting, I said, “Listen, be honest with me. What are my chances of getting past AAA?” He said, “Son, you’re only 21.” I was about 175 pounds at that time and in great shape. He said, “Maybe in couple of years you’ll hit 225 pounds of muscle and you’ll hit more home runs.” I was an outfielder, and to make it as an outfielder in Major League Baseball, you either have to have home run power, world class speed to steal bases, or an extraordinary throwing arm. I was good in all of the categories, but I wasn’t great in any of them. So the scout was implying that, “Hey, if you do steroids, then maybe you can get there.” I knew I wasn’t going to mess with any drug or anything like that. So I elected to stay with acting.

How did you get into acting?

In New York I trained with the best acting teachers and the best voice coaches. I got my first break on a soap opera called Another World. After that I got my first lead in a feature film, with Louise Lasser, Woody Allen’s first wife. After that I moved out to California, and that is sort of how poker got started for me. I never, even at that time when I was doing well in Italian cafes, thought about poker as a career. But, all actors, when they move to LA, have to get some kind of a job as a bartender or a waiter or something, so I went out there with the expectation that I’d probably look for a job as a bartender. But I didn’t know that they had casinos in LA and that you could play poker legally. I was like, “Wow, let me go and see...” I was winning on a regular basis in the cafés in the Bronx, and thought, “I wonder if that’ll still happen with these players?” I started winning on a regular basis and I said to myself, “This is great. I don’t have to work as a bartender.”

As an actor, I was going to acting workshops in LA and also going to auditions. Playing poker meant that there were no schedule obligations, so if I had an audition and I had to work on it the night before, I wouldn’t go and play poker. I was very responsible towards what my goal was in my life, which was to be successful in acting.

In 1995 I had made a promise to one of my best friends who was the CEO of a public company in Florida, and he wanted me to be a part of the company. I was like “Nick, I’m an actor.” He was like, “Perfect, I’ll need a three year commitment from you. If this works out, I’ll go partners with you and we’ll have our own production company, so you’re not actually doing something against your acting.” So I said, “All right. If I don’t have a contract by June 1995, I’ll come to Florida.” In the beginning of June, I had auditioned for a film that Bette Midler was starring in and Carl Reiner was directing; I went on three call backs and was screen-tested for it. I was on hold for that film, for one of the leads, working with Bette Midler. I was honored to have Carl Reiner directing me in the screen test. Also, during the same two weeks I went to try for a new sitcom starring Kevin Pollack, and that actually was my greatest audition ever.

My managers said, “Chad, look, these guys have got you on hold, they haven’t made a decision. They’re interested in you, and Carl Reiner’s interested in you,” and I was like, “Holy shit!” And then neither happened; they went with the other guy for whatever reason. I said “Right, I better tell my managers I’m going to Florida,” and they were like, “Wow, how is that possible? Look how close you came to being a star!” And I said, “You know what? When I give someone my word, then I keep my word. I’m going for three years and I gave my word that if I didn’t have a contract...”

It’s like in poker, you have to have a plan, like a business plan, and say, “This game is good, but anything can happen. I can feel lucky but I have to have a stop/loss limit because I have to money manage.” I mean, you hit that goal where you’ve lost the amount you promised you were not going to lose. A lot of people have a difficult time being disciplined enough to stick to the decision they made before they got to that point. And in acting, I applied that, because another year could go by, and sure, I knew I was talented, and yes, I could screen-test again but still miss out.

I thought if I had stuck with it, I would have had that breakthrough moment that would have me a successful working actor, but it doesn’t have to happen. It’s like tournament poker: You could be a great poker player and still go a whole year without cashing high in a tournament. You know, short term luck.

So you feel the skills you need to be successful in poker are those you need to succeed in life?

Absolutely, no question about it. Poker involves so much of the human element, of working with different personalities, making adjustments; things that come up that are unforeseen. And there are so many intangibles that happen in life; things that people don’t prepare for, and how you deal with them when they do come up is very telling about how successful you will be in life. The people who can handle adversity well are the people who are going to do well in whatever they do.

What were the highs and lows of 2006 for Chad Brown?

Well, getting close to the end of 2006, when I was in front all the way (because bear in mind that, midway through 2006, I was only playing in the televised events), I didn’t play in the 5K event, so I was giving the other players competing for Bluff Magazine Player of the Year a little bit of an edge. Now, past the halfway mark, which was at the Borgata, I called Matt from Bluff. I said, “Matt, I need to know specifically if tournament stats count?” And that’s when I found out that all of the 5K tournaments in America count as long as they have over 100 players. So it’s 5ks and higher, and WPT events overseas. So I asked “What about the EPT event in London?” and he said, “Yeah, that counts.” So I made a decision with my girlfriend Vanessa that my goal now was to give myself the best shot of winning the Player of the Year, and I had to go to all of the tournaments that counted to give myself the best opportunity to win. So we had to go to London. And we made this decision, like, the night before! We flew to London and I made the final table, coming in fifth; then I found out that Matt made a mistake and it didn’t count.

He called me up after I made the final table and said, “Chad, I feel so bad, I made a mistake,” and I said, “Don’t worry about it, Matt. I made some pretty good dough and I got to visit London (laughs). So it wasn’t too bad. Actually, what happened was I made the final table there, and got back and won the PokerStars tournament, which also doesn’t count (the 5k biggest online tournament in history, the HORSE tournament), and then right after that I went to the Bellagio for the 5k and 10k, and got to the final table of the 5k and that did count! So finally I hit a final table that qualified for the points ranking (laughs). I made three final tables of three major events in a row, and I won one of them.

Were there any low points?

Well, with me it’s pretty much always smooth running, even though, obviously, there were some tournaments where I didn’t cash. I didn’t cash in the Foxwoods 5K or the 10k, but I felt I played super-well.

You mentioned your girlfriend Vanessa Rousso earlier; have you been helping her with her game?

The best thing about couples is when you get to talk about your day at a tournament. I may pick up something from her in discussing how I played a few hands, a different perspective that I wasn’t thinking about. There are things about her game that I’ve definitely helped with. I’ve given her a number of tips. When she won the 5k at the Borgata, I was there; and it’s funny, when she was at the final table, there were a couple of little things that she wasn’t doing. So I was watching and I had texted her because there was something that I wanted her to do, based on the climate of the table. And she did it, and it worked. And on the break I said, “I’m glad you got my text,” and she said, “Oh, no, I didn’t get your text until I got into the bathroom. I remembered what you told me when we were discussing poker earlier.” She’s such a quick learner. Under the pressure of the final table, she remembered a couple of the things I had told her in passing, some pearls of wisdom about certain situations, and actually changed it up on her own at the table, and it worked to perfection.

What does the future hold for Chad Brown, what do you want to achieve in poker?

I have a number of goals. One of them is, of course, to be one of the poker players involved in the corporate sponsorship area. Two, I have a book coming out in about a month, which is called Texas Hold’em. Stephen Calimir and I wrote the book. Stephen is a mathematician, and he’s done some work with Sklansky, so we’re bringing a whole new insight compared to all of the other books.

My other goal is my continued success with the Ultimate Poker Challenge, and also hosting our new show Cash Poker. And I have a third project that I am working on. I got my start as a TV host because of Men “The Master” and the 2004 WSOP Championship Circuit. Men gave me the rights to pitch his life story. I have good contacts in the movie business, and I feel that a story about Men is a human interest story with a subplot in poker. All the movies about the Vietnam war never really showed what the South Vietnamese had to go through, and the struggles of their families and their loved ones and the strife of having to go on a cheap little boat to Malaysia, then from Malaysia to America. I already have the title; it’s called “The American Dream.” It could become like the Rocky of poker, where you’re rooting for the underdog to win the WSOP bracelet. So I’m pitching that to some big Hollywood producers, and if a big studio becomes interested, then they’ll have the best writers and the biggest budget, and I think it would have a chance to be a picture that’ll be nominated for Picture of the Year. That’s my goal..