BY ERIC RASKIN

Whether you love or hate Norman Chad—and over the years, it seems most folks who once were in the latter camp have migrated to the former—you have to admit this much: ESPN’s World Series of Poker broadcasts wouldn’t be the same without him.

Poker is different from most televised sports in that everything is pre-recorded and painstakingly edited, and Chad is different from most sports announcers in that he’s more interested in entertainment than analysis. Chad, with the help of his play-by-play partner and straight man Lon McEachern, does bits, goes on riffs, mines his personal life for material, and uses words that only exist in his mind.

If all you know about the 52-year-old Chad is what you’ve seen on Tuesday nights on ESPN over the last eight years, then you might not be aware he first carved out a niche for himself as a sports columnist, more or less inventing the now omnipresent art of couch-side analysis. As Chad explains, he was a blogger before there was blogging. He also tried stand-up comedy for a while before deciding he wasn’t any good at it, and moved to Los Angeles to write sitcoms but struggled in that arena as well, selling just five scripts (three Arli$$, two Coach) in 10 years of trying. And he wasn’t excelling at marriage either, going through one divorce in the’80s and another in the’90s.

All the while, he kept up the sports writing, which included an NFL picks column, and Chad’s known interest and participation in various forms of gambling put him on ESPN’s radar in 2003. He was the right guy in the right place at the right time—but make no mistake, he was the right guy. It’s hard to imagine what the WSOP would sound like without him.

And it was hard to imagine that marriage would ever suit him, but ever the gambler, Chad tried it again in 2007, and so far, the future ex-Mrs. Chad is going strong as the current Mrs. Chad. It might just be that Norman will only ever have two ex-wives to crack wise about.

A couple of days after this year’s Main Event concluded with Jonathan Duhamel’s November Nine triumph, Chad sat down with ALL IN for a lengthy interview. Some interview subjects open their mouths, and nuclear squadoosh comes out. With Chad, when the interview is over, you feel positively whamboozled.

ALL IN: Let’s start by going back to 2003. Chris Moneymaker wins the World Series, you’re in production, doing the commentary. Did you sense before it even hit the airwaves that this was going to be a sensation?

Norman Chad: No. I was stupid about poker in a lot of ways. First of all, I was rooting for Sammy Farha against Moneymaker. Nothing against Chris—I just had no idea that Chris Moneymaker winning was going to be the engine that drives the car in terms of the poker boom. So I was in favor of Farha. That’s how off I was. And I had no sense of how popular it would be, even though the production blew me away. I knew it was going to look good and play good, but I had no idea that people were going to watch it in the numbers that they did.

When it did air and the poker boom officially began, did you imagine it had the legs to still be going strong seven years later?

I didn’t think about it that much at the beginning. But if I did, I wouldn’t have imagined that it would have the legs that it did. I thought it might have been faddish, like everything is in American culture, particularly in pop culture and particularly on television. I didn’t understand all the elements that would keep it going as long as it did; I now do understand those elements.

What are those elements?
I hate to say it, because I don’t even play online poker, but it’s the internet. Poker ratings on TV are down, this year the World Series was down, and people ask me sometimes if the poker boom is over, and I tell them that even if all poker left television tomorrow, the poker boom would not be over. The reason is that the amount of people playing poker online is staggering. And it’s actually the internet dollars that prop up poker on television. Poker could get one-tenth of the ratings it’s getting right now and it would still be on television because it would get the ad revenue from the online entities that need to reach that audience. That’s why I believe the boom will continue for quite a while.

You mentioned that the ratings on ESPN are down this year. Is that just a symptom of having more channels, more competition, more people DVR-ing and watching later, etc.?

The cardinal rule in television right now is, the ratings for everything always continue to go down. There’s just more competition, more choices, and as you said, more DVR-ing. I would like to see the poker ratings on ESPN stay where they’ve been, but they’ve been at a pretty inflated number. Even when they go down, like this year we went from an average of a .8 to a .6, something like that, the .6, it just amazes me, by cable standards, how good that is. The .6 blows away the National Hockey League. The .6 blows away WNBA, MLS. All these live sports do not get nearly the audience of taped poker. And I know that boggles people’s minds and they think it must be incorrect, but it is correct. So it’s not good to see the numbers go down a little, but the point you have to make is that that’s just for the first airing that they’ve gone down. Like no other thing on ESPN, poker gets re-aired in perpetuity. So the overall poker viewership is tremendous.

Let’s talk about the November Nine concept. We’ve seen it now for three years, it’s no longer an experiment, we know the pros and cons—is it something that you’d like to see continue?

I never thought it was an experiment. Once they decided to do it, I knew they were going to keep doing it. In terms of pros and cons, I realized the one big pro was that it was going to create more interest. And what’s wrong with that? It was going to create a bigger buzz, it was going to create more money for more people, and then it was going to lead to many more people viewing it.

Heading into these November Nine final tables, we see a lot of discussion about which of the nine people winning would be good for poker or bad for poker. Do people make too big of a deal about this? Wouldn’t you say that since Moneymaker, none of the winners have proven to have any significant impact, positive or negative, on the growth of the game?

Yeah, I think the whole concept of poker ambassador, it sounds good, but it’s greatly overrated. In the day in, day out commerce of poker, it doesn’t make an iota of difference. It’s nice if somebody who wins is a very good poker ambassador—and we’ve had some, like Greg Raymer—but it doesn’t make a huge difference. The nature of the Main Event is that someone like Jamie Gold or Jerry Yang is just going to emerge out of nowhere and then you never see them again in terms of their poker skills. That’s the nature of the event. That’s one of the great elements of the event.

Looking at these last two years, would Phil Ivey winning in ’09 or Michael Mizrachi winning this year have been good for the game, or does a superstar pro winning discourage the everyman from trying?

If the superstar pros were dominating the event every year, that might discourage the everyman. But a superstar pro winning it once every five or 10 years, which is likely what’s going to happen, does not discourage anybody.

On the opposite end of that pro/amateur spectrum from Ivey and Mizrachi, would Darvin Moon winning have been the best thing for the growth of poker since Moneymaker, even if it would have hurt the luck vs. skill argument?

Yeah, I think so. Like I said, I think who wins is a little overrated in general for helping poker, but when it’s sort of a seminal, sublime, surreal person like Darvin—or if we had a woman win—that would take poker to another level. There’s something about Darvin, I think, that would have resonated. I think Darvin would have been a major player on the talk-show scene. With the last few champions, they end up doing The Tonight Show or Letterman, and they do one or two other things the week after they win, but then they fade away from the mainstream. Darvin, I think, had legs. I think Darvin might have made a difference.

Let me ask you a question specific to the Main Event final table that we all just watched. The Joseph Cheong-Jonathan Duhamel hand with three players left—do you lean more toward, “ballsy play by Cheong” or “stupid play by Cheong”?

I lean toward I shouldn’t be answering that question because I don’t know enough, to be honest with you. I don’t play Hold ’Em. I certainly do not play tournament No-Limit Hold ’Em. This is one of the parts about poker that both is interesting and exasperating: People argue constantly about what’s the best line on a hand, what somebody should have done, should they have checked there, should they have raised there, and there’s no one correct answer. For Joseph Cheong, who was so much fun to watch in terms of his style of play, that’s a case where he lives by the sword and dies by the sword. That’s the type of play that took him to the final table. Essentially, he had a misread there. If Jonathan Duhamel does not have one of the four or five hands that he can keep calling him or raising him with, then Joseph is going to take the pot down. But he did have one of those hands. And given the moment at which it came, it becomes one of the more epic misreads or blowups in recent World Series history.

As far as your job doing commentary goes, can you explain a bit of the process of how you and Lon work?

For everything other than the November Nine, they edit the broadcast down to its final one-hour version that you see on television, Lon and I do not see a single moment of it until it’s edited down to the one hour, and then we get that edit two or three days ahead of the voicing, so I can watch it 20 times if I want. I’ll watch it once or twice and take some notes on it before we sit down to voice it in the studio. And then when we voice it in the studio, we stop and start a lot. You know, we finish a segment, and a producer will say, “Let’s go back to that first hand, Norman, that comment you made about Benito Mussolini is probably not appropriate. Why don’t you talk about why he bet J-10 offsuit from under the gun plus two.” And that’s when I just start to shout, “I have no idea why he bet it from under the gun plus two! I don’t give a flying f--- why he bet it! Why don’t you explain to me why he bet it, and write it on a piece of paper, and then I’ll read it when I’m in the can later!” But anyway, if there’s something I say that I don’t like or a producer doesn’t like, then we go back and we change it.

So you and Lon don’t discuss the angles that you’re taking before you’re in the studio together.

No, never. Lon and I do not watch anything together beforehand. Once in a while, at the beginning of a segment, I’ll tell him, “I think I’m going to do a riff this time on young guys,” or “I’m going to do a riff on all the players we have from Belgium, so I’m going to need some room in the hand.” But there’s no script that he and I are going back and forth on.

How long does it usually take the two of you to produce one hour of commentary, from the moment you enter the studio until it’s done?

I remember, especially the first couple of years, we would walk in there at 10:00 in the morning and walk out at 9:00 at night, and I’d go, “Lon, how were we just in there 11 hours to produce 47 minutes of television? Is it possible?” It’s quicker now. It starts at 10, and it usually ends around 5 or 6. That’s with a one-hour lunch break. I want a half-hour, but Lon eats incredibly slowly.

It feels to me sometimes like you’re kind of playing a character when the mic goes live. Is that how you feel, that Norman Chad the poker commentator doesn’t have to behave as the real Norman Chad would?

No, I wouldn’t say that—it’s all me. I’ve had people run into me at a poker table and go, “Jeez, you know, I can’t believe you’re just as funny here as you are on TV, where it’s scripted.” Well, it’s not really scripted, and if you’re around me long enough, you’ll see that whatever you see on TV is pretty much how I handle myself during the day. And certainly it’s how I act around a poker table. In fact, I first started talking about my marriages when I would be having late-night blackjack sessions in Las Vegas. Just to pass the time, I would talk to the dealer a lot and often make jokes about my personal life. So that just comes natural to me.

But sometimes, don’t you say things for comedy’s sake that don’t reflect how you actually feel?

Well, like when we had a lot of Russian players, a line I would take is, I don’t trust them, I don’t believe the Cold War is over, I believe the Soviet Union is still in existence. That’s just an entertainment line; obviously, I don’t believe that. But I would continue to pound that home … until I was told to stop doing it because apparently it’s anti-Russian.

Perhaps the best running joke right now is your crush on Patrik Antonius. Was there any hesitation from you or the producers to go in that direction, or does everyone recognize that it’s all in good humor?

When I go in certain directions, there’s always a hesitation in terms of the producers, but they tend to trust me. Actually, with this one, it’s almost like I’m turning sexism on its head. It actually allows me to discuss women as well. Men generally drool at women, and in the culture they’ve done it for years, even on broadcasts. So I go the other way, I decide I’m going to objectify men, and in turn that allows me to occasionally objectify women.

How has Patrik responded to you off the air? Does he get it? Because I can’t tell if he has a sense of humor at all.

I can’t tell either. I’ve actually had little contact with him. Earlier, when I did the same thing with Marco Traniello, that was an example where I thought Marco, at first, was uncomfortable. I actually thought maybe he didn’t understand it because English is his second language—or maybe he didn’t understand me because I’m out of my mind. But I think he came to terms with it, and I actually get along with him really well. Patrik, I’m not sure yet. But, hey, another hunk will come along next year. Patrik will be yesterday’s news.

On the subject of how the players respond to the things you say about them, what’s the most pissed off somebody has gotten about something you said about them on the air?

The most pissed off anyone ever got was Josh Arieh in 2004. I took a pretty hard line against Josh for his table comportment. Before I ever came to poker broadcasting, when I played poker myself, if there’s somebody at the table who’s being a jerk or being tough on the dealers, I’ve always been incredibly proactive in telling them to knock it off. I did not like the way Josh was acting that year, I said so, and Josh was very offended by it. And Josh had some of his good friends contact me: Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren. And I had conversations with them about it and told them why I did what I did. And then out of nowhere, firenormanchad.com anonymously started. And I found out Josh was the one who started it. They had T-shirts made! I remember I showed up at the U.S. Poker Championship in Atlantic City, and Lindgren, Layne Flack, and some others were wearing them—and they were nice T-shirts!

Did you get one?

I asked for one then, but I didn’t get one. But then when we ended up doing a “Nuts” feature on Erick Lindgren playing basketball in his backyard, he had two boxloads left of those things, and he gave them to the crew. So we all got one or two each. And I told him I wanted to talk to Josh, so Erick brokered a meeting. Josh really didn’t want to talk to me; Josh wanted to, if not kill me, certainly put me through some pain. But I met with Josh, I think we were in a hallway of a casino, and David Williams was there and Erick was there. And I explained to Josh my line of thinking, and I also told him, “Have fun with firenormanchad.com,” I told him there’s at least 17 reasons I’ll get fired sometime in the next five years and your web site’s not one of them.

Shifting gears, you still write a weekly sports column. When a lot of writers get into TV, they soon give up the writing because it’s so much more work. Do you see yourself ever quitting writing?

I consider giving up the column virtually every week I have to write it. You know, writing’s tough. And a weekly deadline, especially when you’re at a casino for 12 hours a day for days on end, is hard to meet. It’s hard to follow sports that way. But I love writing my column. Unfortunately, I’ve never transitioned into online or blogging, or my own web site. If you’re not online, if you’re not Deadspin or The Big Lead or Bill Simmons, then you’re not part of the sports mainstream media right now. I’m with the Washington Post and the Chicago Sun-Times and the Houston Chronicle and all these big newspapers, but it doesn’t mean anything.

You’re now in your 50s, seem to be in a happy marriage, seem to have a good career going. Are you as content and happy as you’ve ever been?

No. I was happiest at two points in my life. The first one was fourth and fifth grade, before all the s--- built up. Once you go to middle school or junior high, you start to have social responsibilities. You have to talk to other people in a social way. And I’m not good at that. So fourth and fifth grade was my best time. And then in college and just coming out of college was my other great time. It’s pretty much been downhill for the last 30 years. Not downhill to the point that I’m under the bridge drinking Jack Daniel’s out of a brown bag while scratching myself. But things are always simpler when you’re younger. Still, right now, it’s kind of hard to complain. I am pretty happy. I am in a good marriage. I do love doing the poker. I do love writing. I remember in the movie New York, New York, the Robert De Niro character explains to Liza Minelli what a major chord is. He’s talking about how a major chord in life is when everything sort of lines up personally and professionally. Right now is as close to a major chord as I’ve had as an adult, so it’s kind of hard to argue with that.

Do you expect to continue doing the WSOP for the foreseeable future?

Actually, as we speak, all of our contracts are up at the end of this year. My contract, Lon’s contract, 441 Productions’ contract. It is possible that none of us are doing it next year. But I think that we’re all going to be doing it next year. If I had not made the mistake of getting married a third time (laughs), and had not inherited a family of four for the first time in my life, I could be a little more footloose and fancy free and I could walk away from poker tomorrow just to try something else. But with the family, it behooves me to put bread on the table. And I do love doing the poker, I want to keep doing it.

Final question: How much poker do you actually play nowadays?

The irony of my being on the road covering poker is that it has taken away from my number one form of recreation, and that is playing poker in a card room. Every week that I’m home in Los Angeles, which is about half the year, if I don’t have work obligations, I’m in a card room two or three times a week. I play a mixed game, mostly Stud/8 and Omaha/8, at Hollywood Park. I love to bowl, I love eating in restaurants, I love walks on the beach. But there’s nothing I prefer recreationally to playing poker at Hollywood Park in the game I play. It’s a great game. It’s like a disguised home game. I drink a lot of wine. It is so much fun. Ninety percent of the people I know in Los Angeles are people I met in that game.

What are the stakes?

Most of the time I play $20/$40 with a half-kill, so half the time it’s $30/$60. You know, one of the problems I have when I travel, if I do go to a card room, like in Las Vegas, I can’t find this game. It’s all Hold ’Em. It’s a sea of Hold ’Em everywhere, it drives me crazy. I don’t understand why people won’t play the other games! They’re fun! But I will say about online poker, I believe that online is actually resuscitating all these other games. So thank god for that, because all the young guns are learning to play PLO or PLO/8. It ain’t happening in card rooms. But it’s happening online.