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He seemed primed to become the biggest poker name in the world after the boom with the Rounders cameo and 2003 WSOP appearances but never seemed to really cash in. I saw him play a handful of times on TV but nothing like the other names.
What was the deal here?
Really? I think Chan has done pretty well for himself. This sums it up way better then I could:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Chan_(poker_player)
When it comes to dealer/player abuse and plain douchebaggery Johnny Chan is perhaps the biggest a-hole who has ever played the game. I do not think you can find a single person who has ever played with him who would argue this fact. At least with Men the Master and Scotty Nguyen, you had some charisma and entertainment and periods of good behavior to go with the inevitable drunken boorish behavior, but with Chan you get nothing but a grade A asshole. Add in his strong accent and lack of charisma and he really is not all that marketable.
I know a couple old time dealers from the Bike when Chan played in the big games (at the time) who say pretty much every hand he lost he would tear up the deck and demand a deck change and he would kick/hit/spit on the dealers when he was running bad.
My favorite story was a dealer who told me they were dealing 5 card single draw lowball (which believe it or not was the biggest game in town for a number of years, mainly cause it was the game of choice for Jerry Buss and other huge fishies) and Chan was in the 1 seat and the way he was holding his hand the dealer could see it, and the dealer saw they had dealt Chan a wheel so they kept right on "accidentally" dealing a 6th card to everyone to kill the hand.
I think he is another guy that the game passed. I can't imagine him still balling out of control. I might be wrong with business ventures etc perhaps Druff knows more?
I've seen his name mentioned when people talk about the high stakes Macau games. Don't know how often he's there, but he's definitely there sometimes.