Unibet knows how to do live poker

My first Unibet Open was in Citywest in Dublin in 2011. Looking back years later, my abiding memory was that it was the first time I played in a tournament where I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Exactly how much the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and subsequent austerity affected the Irish poker economy was made clear that there was a tournament in Ireland that got less than a dozen locals to buy in.

Nevertheless, it was a very fun weekend. It turns out feeling like a foreigner in your own land doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if the atmosphere among the visitors is as friendly as it was at the event.

Fast forward five years and I’m in Bucharest at the biggest ever Unibet Open. The first thing that stood out was the friendliness I’d seen in Dublin was still there in abundance. In the intervening five years I’d grown accustomed to less friendly and more testy atmospheric conditions surrounding live poker, so this felt like a refreshing return to the good old days of live poker.

I was also surprised how many faces I recognized from Dublin: Unibet had clearly done a better job retaining players than other sites and operators. After shooting the breeze with some of the Unibet staff, it was easy to see why.

ethos and culture of the company was geared towards the recreational poker experience

The whole ethos and culture of the company was geared towards the recreational poker experience. This is something that ties in with my view of how poker should be. It should be fun for the so-called fun players: if not, what’s the point? Live poker, in particular, shouldn’t be 9 robots sitting at a table wearing hoodies, shades, and Beats grinding GTO ranges.

Unibet clearly recognized this, which is why I was delighted to announce after the event that I would be representing them as a brand ambassador alongside my good friends Ian Simpson and David Lappin starting at the following Unibet Open in London.

All good things

For eight and a half years, “The Chip Race” has been incredibly fortunate to be sponsored by a company that respected our vision for the show and always had our backs. Unibet Poker is a great poker site that cares about its players and the health of the game. It has been an honor to partner with them, represent their brand, and amplify their message.

June 1, our partnership with Unibet Poker will come to an end

On June 1, our partnership with Unibet Poker will come to an end and we would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who helped us down the years, in particular David Pomroy, Kris Bergvall, Kat Arnsby, Nataly Sopacuaperu, Kasia Scanlon, Simon Steedman, Andy Paton, Stubbe Buchwald, and Sebastian Rebhan.

Between now and then, we will put out three more episodes of “The Chip Race,” two strategy videos, and our 100th episode of The Lock-In from The Irish Open. We will try to make them all bangers.

Being an ambassador

I learned how to play poker in May 2007. In the 18 years since, I have been an ambassador for three different online poker sites for almost 13 of those years. I’ve also been an ambassador for other brands for a total of nine years, making me one of the most sponsored players in the game, so if this turns out to be my last sponsorship, well, I’ve had a good run.

Of course, if anyone else out there thinks I fit what they’re looking for in an ambassador, I’m more than happy to entertain the possibility. It has been a pleasure to work alongside David in what was his first sponsorship deal, and in an ideal world, that partnership continues. If not, I will say that David has grown into the role to become a tremendous ambassador.

It has been an honor and a privilege for both of us to represent Unibet as ambassadors for more than eight years, and I’d like to thank all the great people we worked with and everyone who supported us.

Is this the end for “The Chip Race”?

Maybe. David and I are both very busy men, and as much as the podcast is a labor of love for both of us, we can’t justify investing the considerable amount of time we do in making it without a sponsor. The demands on David’s time are particularly heavy, as in addition to hosting the show, he is also our sound engineer and chief researcher, publicist, and script writer.

We are open to finding a new sponsor or sponsors to enable us to continue past June. We have established ourselves as a leading global poker podcast, with a big audience worldwide, which we hope makes us attractive to potential new sponsors.

connected us to thousands upon thousands of wonderful enthusiasts worldwide

We will both be more than a little sad if this does turn out to be the end of the show, but we know all good things must come to an end, and there’s something to be said for going out on a high. We would leave behind a body of work we both feel very proud of, that connected us to thousands upon thousands of wonderful enthusiasts worldwide.

A few people have asked if or assumed that we must have a new sponsor lined up given our public announcement, but I swear this is not the case. A few have reached out to express interest, but nothing is guaranteed, so watch this space.

The post Dara O’Kearney: End of an Era as “The Chip Race’s” Unibet Sponsorship Comes to an End appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

American poker pro Steve O’Dwyer is not happy with players who abuse the late registration system for tournaments. He took to X on Thursday to make his feelings clear, stating that “tournament organisers and directors need to start being extremely strict” about not allowing players to register once a late reg period has closed.

Within the rant, he called out Daniel Smiljkovic specifically. He is a German player with around $92,000 in live earnings. O’Dwyer claims Smiljkovic “and others of his ilk” will continuously abuse the late reg system until organizers come down harder on the activity.

O’Dwyer explained his grievances in a series of posts, highlighting a specific incident at the ongoing Irish Open when Smiljkovic was supposedly seated for the 10k event 16 minutes after late reg closed. “He does this everywhere he goes and gets away with it,” the poker pro said.

People like him ruin it for everyone else.”

O’Dwyer, who has more than $46m in live earnings and is 14^th on the all time money list, said that some tournaments have made changes in response to his complaints, and he urged others to do the same. “It would be great if we could trust everyone to allow a little bit of leeway,” O’Dwyer stated. “But people like him ruin it for everyone else.”

The PokerStars and PaddyPower Poker-sponsored Irish Open is running from April 10 to April 21 at the Royal Dublin Society in the Irish capital. The Main Event has a prize pool of €2.5m ($2.8m).

The post Poker Pro Steve O’Dwyer Lashes Out at Daniel Smiljkovic in Late Reg Rant appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

In my last piece, I reminisced over five moments from the early days of the Chip Race podcast. Continuing from that, here’s five more memories from the poker podcast, hosted by myself and fellow VegasSlotsOnline News man David Lappin.

6. We appear to be dying

I’m not going to lie: after a bright start to the second season, things went downhill fast. We struggled to get guests that meant much to our audience, and the listener numbers reflected that, dropping from episode to episode. At the same time, we were struggling on the sound quality front, quickly working our way through several sound engineers (in the end David decided he’d have to bite the bullet and learn to do the job himself, which he continues to do to this day). While we had reasonably well-known English friends we tapped up to come on the show, they didn’t seem to be resonating with our audience. That wasn’t their fault: we were learning our craft as interviewers and everything else needed at the time.

7. I’m not sure Pads is a lead guest, Dara

We finally arrested our seemingly terminal decline when we landed Jake Cody as a guest. He resonated so well with our audience we finally had a clear idea of the type of guests we needed to attract. Keen to keep the momentum going, I approached Pads (Patrick Leonard) who I had never met in person but had interacted with a fair bit online, enough to know he’d make a great guest. When I told David, he was somewhat underwhelmed, not convinced Pads was a big enough name. Then even more than now, David basically lived on Twitter, and he pointed out Pads didn’t have a big following at the time. I put my foot down and we arranged to interview him when David and I were sharing a hotel room at UKIPT Bristol. On the day, our internet was hopeless, and most of the time we couldn’t hear what Patrick was saying. This made for a very disjointed interview, but we were relying on the old “we will fix it in post production” cliche. Back then we didn’t use Zoom or any other central recording: instead we both recorded our ends, and also asked the guests to record theirs. David would then stitch the interview together from the three recordings.

a home run with our audience and solidified our listenership numbers

In the days that followed, I chased Patrick to send his recording, and although he kept saying he would, never did. After a period of radio silence, I talked to someone who knew him quite well and used to work with him about it, and they suggested that it sounded like Patrick either never recorded his end or had lost it, but was reluctant to admit it. Armed with this information, I went back to Patrick and asked him if it might be better to rerecord the interview entirely as it was very disjointed given we couldn’t hear him most of the time, and he snap agreed and gave us a tremendous second interview which was a home run with our audience and solidified our listenership numbers.

8. The wonderful Miss Tilly

By now, we had no problem attracting top notch European guests, but America was a different story. When you ask a big name to come on your show, it’s only natural they will look at the list of people who have already been on, and if it’s a bunch of Europeans they’ve never heard of, it’s also natural they’ll decline. Any millionaire will tell you the first million is the most difficult, and so it seemed to be the case here.

I’d interacted quite a bit online with Jennifer Tilly, as we both wrote for Bluff Magazine and our senses of humour seemed to align. I therefore chanced my arm and sent her a DM asking her to come on the show, and she agreed within seconds, with one caveat: the interview had to be done in person. I obviously had no problem with that, and we arranged for me to interview her at the WSOP (David wasn’t travelling to it so the original idea was for me to do it solo). Unfortunately, before I arrived, Jen had to leave Vegas due to a family health emergency. She contacted me a few weeks later to say she was doing a day of interviews in a London hotel to promote the latest Chucky movie, and could fit us in. A spanner was thrown in the works when the film production company flat out refused to put an obscure Irish podcast on the list, but the ever resourceful and generous Jen came up with a solution: she gave up her lunch break to talk to us. The interview itself was a delight: we gelled with her instantly and she seemed to be able to anticipate all our questions from the first few words. It’s fair to say she wasn’t entirely sure who David was and at one point when he interjected into an exchange between myself and Jen about playing live, she came out with my all time favourite line from the show:

“Oh….do you play poker too David?”

This is a line that has become a running joke in the years since, with several other guests posing it. As a final bonus, Jen had the film crew film the whole interview and furnish us with the footage, which kickstarted our YouTube channel which had been struggling to that point. Once we had Jen’s name on the list of past guests it suddenly became a lot easier to get other Americans (and Jen herself lined up a few for us, including Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari).

9. Mrs Doke steals the show

In the early days of the show, our most valuable listener and critic was my wife. Never one to pull her punches, she was often scathing in her criticisms of what we were getting wrong, while also forthcoming about what we were getting right. In the first season, she usually drove me to the studio every Monday so was there in person to hear it being recorded, and I immediately recognised the value of her instant feedback. When we came back and everything was recorded offline, I always gave each episode to her to listen and then fled downstairs before her stream of French invectives started. She’d write up a slightly more diplomatic version of her criticisms which I’d then forward to David, who I’m pretty sure dreaded every Tuesday afternoon knowing what was coming. As such, she probably shaped the show more than anyone else in the early days, and helped accelerate our learning curve.

By the time it came to record our 50th show, we were well established and had a very loyal audience. We decided to interview all our partners for one segment (by now there were four people regularly involved in the show. With the greatest possible respect to the other partners, Mireille simply stole the show, so she became almost the entire segment. When it came to recording it, she insisted I couldn’t be with her in the room, so on the day I set up at my desk downstairs while she went upstairs to her computer. Her interview was so popular with our listeners that when we ran a poll to see which guest they most wanted back for the 100th show, she won in a landslide.

10. Phil’s pissed off

By season 4, the show’s numbers had grown steadily to roughly three times what they were when we started, and came back. We decided to shoot for the stars in terms of a big name guest and go for the biggest of them all: Phil Hellmuth. He and I shared a sponsor at the time (a hand replay app called ShareMyPair) so I asked the CEO to ask Phil for us. To our delight he said yes. In the weeks running up to the interview we told people we had a really massive name lined up but couldn’t say who it was. Dozens of people guessed and nobody guessed Hellmuth, I presume because the idea of him coming on the show seemed inconceivable.

On the day, Phil showed up in his customary sponsors gear, and I do mean all of it, including the Aria hat. We politely told him he was more than welcome to wear the gear but our listeners wouldn’t see it since we were an audio only podcast. This, it turned out, was not welcome news to Phil, who starting tilting and expressing the view it was pointless to proceed. In the end, he grudgingly said he’d give us ten minutes. The thought that our much vaunted “big 8 interview” wouldn’t amount to more than ten minutes of Phil grumpily running through the list of his sponsors was alarming to say the least, so I sent David a message with an idea: instead of trying to cram the interview into a few minutes, let’s just spend the ten minutes explaining to Phil why he is the person we and indeed any sane person on poker admires the most, why he is the clear GOAT, yet somehow underrated.

a compelling picture of how he evolved into the Poker brat

The strategy worked. At the end of the ten minutes Phil was in a great mood and we kicked into the interview. It was meant to last 20-30 minutes but he was in such a good mood he stayed talking to us for over an hour, and only left when his wife all but dragged him away to do some chore. As a result, we had enough not just for one show but for two, both of which doubled our listenership over night. I’ve listened to many Phil interviews since, and he came back in the show, but this one remains my favourite as he opened up about his childhood insecurities to paint a compelling picture of how he evolved into the Poker brat.

That concludes my trip down memory lane to key moments in the early days of the Chip Race. Shows like ours live and die on their guests, and getting the best out of them. We always try to shine a positive light on what makes each guest unique and interesting, and we are immensely grateful to everyone who takes the time to come on the show, and to everyone who listens

The post Memories From Ten Years of the Chip Race: Part Two appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

Predicting a record-breaker

Mark my words. In exactly ten days time, The Irish Poker Open Main Event begins and it is going to be the second largest €1000 ($1097) tournament in Europe in 2025. The €2.5m ($2.7m) guarantee is going to be absolutely obliterated and there will actually be a prizepool generated well in excess of €4m ($4.4m). Players will flock from every county in Ireland, every country in Europe and all over the world for what will be a record-breaking festival of poker on the Emerald Isle.  

most of those venues succumbed to capacity issues as the event grew in stature

The Irish Poker Open has gone from strength to strength since moving to the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) but there was a time when the Eccentric Club, the Merrion Casino, The Ballsbridge Hotel, the Burlington Hotel, the Citywest Hotel, and even PartyPoker were its home. Down the years, most of those venues succumbed to capacity issues as the event grew in stature and reputation. 

In 2003, the Irish Poker Open Main Event attracted over 100 entrants and a six-figure prizepool for the first time. Undoubtedly, a beneficiary of the poker boom, by 2006, the prizepool was seven figures. As the fields grew, so too did the price of admission. In 2008, PaddyPower put up an aggressive €3m ($3.3m) guarantee for a €4500 ($4939) buy-in and Neil Channing walked away with a record first prize of €801,400 ($879,726). Perhaps nobody will ever walk away from the Irish Poker Open with a bigger cheque but, last year, that prizepool was finally eclipsed as the 3,233 entrants competed for a share of €3,152,175 ($3,460,259). 

Troubled waters

It was not all smooth sailing for the Irish Poker Open. After a period of economic decline in Ireland post-2008, the tournament struggled with diminishing numbers and an identity crisis of sorts. It had been a major event with a major event price-tag but it just wasn’t possible to attract players at that price point anymore. 

For a few years, the Irish Open Main Event fell between stools, choosing a €2000-€2500 ($2195-$2744) buy-in that was not enough to attract overseas interest nor affordable enough for the majority of the Irish market. Then, after a lack-lustre damp squib of a tournament in 2015, it lost its long time sponsor PaddyPower. 

the future for Ireland’s iconic poker festival and the oldest tournament in Europe looked bleak

The powerhouse Irish gambling brand had been a tremendous supporter of the event historically but it was in the process of downsizing its poker team and turning the game into a minimal viable product on its platform. Combined with the passing of its owner Liam Flood, the ship seemed rudderless and the future for Ireland’s iconic poker festival and the oldest tournament in Europe looked bleak. 

The rebrand

Enter veteran poker operators JP McCann and Paul O’Reilly who took over The Irish Poker Open in 2016. They moved it from the Burlington Hotel to the Citywest Hotel and created a bumper-festival by pairing it with the massively successful Norwegian Poker Championships. The Main Event was rebranded as a €1150 ($1262) buy-in unlimited re-entry tournament. 

The lower price-point and multi-entry aspects risked turning the tournament into a less prestigious event but McCann and O’Reilly believed that this was the way to attract big numbers of players. That year, Irishman Dan Wilson outlasted the biggest field but won the smallest first prize since 2005. The jury was still out as to whether this change of direction was for the better. 

In 2017, the Irish Poker Open got over a thousand entrants for the first time as Canada’s Griffin Benger overcame a field of 1120 to win €200,000 ($219,547). In 2018, the UK’s Ryan Mandara got €250,000 ($274,434) for being the last person standing from 1340 entrants. In 2019, Ireland’s Weijie Zheng took €300,000 ($329,321) and the title versus a field of 1807.

Proof in the pudding

Two years of pandemic lockdowns then forced the tournament onto the online felt but, since its return, it has showed no sign of slowing. In 2022, there were 2040 entrants and it was won by highstakes legend Steve O’Dwyer for €318,700 ($353,391). In 2023, PaddyPower renewed their support alongside its Flutter-cousin Pokerstars. That helped propel the numbers to 2491 in the first RDS version, the record field eventually whittled down to Scotland’s David Docherty who took home €365,000 ($404,730). In 2024, 3232 players were no match for Finland’s Tero Laurila who won €292,685 ($324,544) and the trophy.

no doubt now that the gamble by McCann and O’Reilly has well and truly paid off

There can be no doubt now that the gamble by McCann and O’Reilly has well and truly paid off and, back in February, the pair deservedly accepted the GPI Global Poker Award for Best Stand Alone Festival Series. (Some say Paul is still in the PokerGo studio doing his speech.) The proof has been most certainly in the pudding and, as I write this, the stage is literally being set for The 2025 Irish Poker Open. 

The buzz around the event is undeniable, evidenced by the uptake on satellites which have been running on Pokerstars and PaddyPower for months. In fact, the smart money is on it being the tournament with the most online qualifiers in history. For that reason, I am willing to stake my reputation as a field-size prognosticator that this year’s Irish Poker Open Main Event will get between 4200 and 4500 entries.  

The post Prediction: The Irish Open Will Generate a Record Prizepool of Over €4m appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

This is not an April Fool’s joke. I repeat: this is not an April Fool’s Joke (for starters, it would have to be funny). On Monday’s episode of High Stakes Poker, Alan Keating, known for the massive cash game pots in which he gets involved, scooped a $1,412,500 pot, setting a new record for the popular poker show.

Keating’s unfortunate victim was Peter Wang, though anyone who can afford to be on High Stakes Poker can’t be that unfortunate, am I right? It was a double-straddled pot pre-flop and Keating played it slowly, calling $4,000 with K-K on the button. Wang took it up to $14,000 from the big blind with A-3, Keating three-bet it to $69,000, and Wang finally called to bring on the flop.

That flop was a doozy: 2-J-K, putting Keating firmly in the lead with top set, but Wang still had an Ace plus the nut flush draw. A bunch more money went into the middle, as Keating led with a $70,000 bet, Wang check-raised to $200,000, and Keating called.

Keating couldn’t call fast enough

The A turn might have been Wang’s undoing, as it now gave him an actual made hand in addition to his flush draw. He couldn’t move all-in for $434,000 fast enough and Keating couldn’t call fast enough. Before he revealed his Kings, Keating asked Wang if he wanted to run it twice and Wang agreed.

Wang couldn’t believe it when he saw the damage, though he smiled and chuckled, knowing this was poker and he just stepped in it. Neither river card was any help to Wang – they actually both gave his opponent a better hand – and the $1.4m pot was Keating’s.

The old High Stakes Poker record was owned by Santhosh Suvarna, who won $992,000 in a single hand last year.

The post Alan Keating Breaks ‘High Stakes Poker’ Record With $1.4m Pot appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

An amazing story regarding famous poker pro Alan Keating has surfaced on social media, prompting many to commend him for his generosity.

Matt Kiefer, another American poker pro, shared the story on X on Thursday. He explained that Keating tipped a poker dealer in Las Vegas’ ARIA Resort & Casino $5,000 after finding out he was getting married, when that dealer tried to thank him later, Keating had forgotten all about it:

Among the comments applauding Keating for the act, Joseph Strazzera popped up claiming to be the dealer in question. He explained that it was actually his wedding night, having gotten married three hours before the situation. “I was in my tux and my wife was in her wedding dress,” Strazzera explained. “It was the most generous thing I’ve ever witnessed.

He said what are you talking about Joe?”

Questioned as to whether Keating did fail to remember the tip at a later date, Strazzera confirmed the rumour. “I walked up to him, shook his hand and said I can’t thank you enough. It was extremely generous of you. He said what are you talking about Joe?”

Alan Keating is an American poker pro with a total live earnings of $237,068, according to Hendon Mob. He now has many fans across the world after appearing on Hustler Casino Live, capturing the attention of viewers for the high-stakes action he brought to the table. In 2022, he broke the US livestream poker record by winning a $1.2m pot on the poker show.

The post Alan Keating Once Tipped a Dealer $5,000 and Didn’t Even Remember When Thanked appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

Philly to host

PokerStars has announced Live! Casino Philadelphia will host its first-ever live US tournament April 21-27. 

qualify for the PokerStars Open Philadelphia via online poker satellites

On Monday, the Flutter Entertainment-owned brand on said players in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, and Ontario can qualify for the PokerStars Open Philadelphia via online poker satellites.

Poker and chess champion Jennifer Shahade took to X after the news, stating the event was coming to Philadelphia, “the greatest city in the World!” 

Buy-ins for the online qualifiers start at $10.

Players that get through will play for $550,000 in guaranteed prize money at the April event in Philadelphia.

PokerStars on a roll

Executives from both PokerStars and Live! Casino Philadelphia expressed excitement over the tournament, which closely follows the recent success of the PokerStars Open Campione Main Event in Italy. The tournament attracted more entrants than the town’s entire population.  

Live! Casino & Hotel Philadelphia is, meanwhile, geared up to welcome its own horde of poker players next month. 

Anne Tran, Director of Poker for the casino-hotel, stated that her casino’s poker room “and all our dedicated team members are ready to welcome poker enthusiasts from across the region.”

Tran added that the Philly casino was excited to be “the first North American host location for this year’s PokerStars Open live series” and that she expected it “to deliver an unforgettable experience during this world-class tournament.”

Philadelphia tournament embodies its host city

PokerStars North America Vice President Steve Priess, meanwhile, said the PokerStars Open Philadelphia tournament embodies its host city, and makes the Live! venue a perfect fit. 

Shades of Rocky

Priess also expressed his excitement over the tournament coming to a city “that knows what it means to compete, fight, and never give up.” 

The PokerStars exec channeled his inner Rocky Balboa, adding: “Poker is about heart, strategy, and knowing when to take your shot.”

“There’s no better place to showcase that spirit than in Philly.”

The post Live! Casino Philadelphia to Host PokerStars’ First Live US Tournament appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Chip Race podcast, I’ve delved into my memory to recall ten significant moments in the early evolution of the show.

1. Do we even know what this is?

It’s March 2015, and after a few meetings with an Irish company that makes podcasts aimed at different niches (they have ones already for rugby, cricket, and horse racing), they pitch the idea that we do one on Irish poker. David and I agree to do it. There’s no money but we agree to give up the next seven Monday afternoons to do seven episodes for free. The hope is if the show gets an audience, a sponsor can be found to make it worth all our time.

in a sea of obscure and in some cases obsolete terms, one immediately stood out: the Chip Race

I had done a couple of podcasts already (Irish Poker Radio with Iain Cheyne about five years earlier, and my own short lived Poker Lounge), but David was a podcast virgin. We both liked the “radio show” idea, recognizing that any show aimed just at Ireland needed to be as broad in appeal as possible, hitting every possible demographic within poker. So it was we conceived the idea of a show of segments: two interviews, strategy, a topical, news, bookended by an intro and an outro. To keep with the radio theme, we originally wanted to use the name “The Calling Station,” but it was already taken. We brainstormed a few other suggestions, only to find they were all taken too. In the end, the head of the company commissioning the podcast gave his secretary a glossary of poker terms, which she then whittled down to the ones that weren’t already gone. This was forwarded to us, and in a sea of obscure and in some cases obsolete terms, one immediately stood out: the Chip Race.

The initial idea actually came from David’s best friend, Rob O’Connor, who worked as the photographer for the company in question. He told his boss poker was a niche with a hardcore audience, and he knew just the guys to do it.

After we agreed the format, we decided we needed a third wheel to do the news. Looking into our wider circle of friends, Nick Newport seemed the best candidate. He wasn’t keen on the amount of work required, so we asked Daragh Davey, a much shyer soul at the time. Daragh had no problem putting in the work but his natural shyness made him uneasy. In the end Daragh and Nick worked out a compromise with Daragh agreeing to do all the research and write the script, leaving Nick just to show up and read it.

As any online poker pro will quickly tell you, Monday is absolutely the worst day to try to get us to do anything. Sunday was and still is the biggest online grind of the week: back then I typically started my grind at 1 pm, and finished 15-18 hours later in the early hours of Monday. So it was that Nick basically didn’t show up to the first show, and we had to twist Daragh’s arm to step in. He did a great job and was therefore stuck with it for the rest of the first season.

This photo of the three of us was taken by Rob. The fourth person in the photo is our friend and future Irish Open champion Dan Wilson who gave us arguably the most memorable strategic concept ever in that first season: the tournament half life.

2. We get stopped in the street

April 2015. The first show went out with the popular Tom Kitt as lead guest. We were very happy when it exceeded our wildest expectations and clocked up over 1,000 listeners. Towards the end of that season, we were dragging our tired asses to the studio in Clonskeagh to interview Andy Black when we were stopped by an excited guy neither of us had ever seen before. He proceeded to tell us how much he loved the podcast. We were obviously aware we were reaching a growing audience as the numbers were growing from episode to episode but this really brought it home that the show was a hit.

Eventually we gave up waiting for him to stop so we could start the interview properly, and just pressed record

Andy arrived at the studio on a bicycle and was already talking a mile a minute before he’d parked it. He kept it up for the next hour in the studio. Eventually we gave up waiting for him to stop so we could start the interview properly, and just pressed record. The next hour became the interview that went out, and afterwards Andy walked with us to a pub in Ranelagh, giving us another hour of his unique insights.

3. Over before we got going properly

July 2015. After finishing the first season we were buoyant and optimistic a sponsor would be found to pay for the show going forward. I returned from the World Series of Poker a couple of months later, feeling even more optimistic after a successful and profile raising campaign that saw me commentate on two final tables and chop an event heads up myself. Then the bad news came: the company who owned the podcast had gone into liquidation. Since they owned everything including the name of the show, that seemed to mark the end.

4. But it better not be sh*t, David

February 2017. We have just signed as ambassadors with Unibet. In the course of researching us, one of their advisors stumbles on the Chip Race:

“You used to have a podcast and it was very well received. Maybe you could bring that back.”

It’s fair to say David was a lot more excited at the prospect than I was (although that may have been down to him being keen to avoid Twitching, which was the other option). There were a number of fresh challenges: we didn’t own the name for one thing. Unibet initially suggested they’d look into buying it from the liquidator, but then came back and said it wasn’t possible. We weren’t that keen on calling it something as self limiting as “the Unibet podcast,” so we ended up buying the name ourselves (for a grand if memory serves).

The next problem was that it could no longer be an Irish only facing show for the simple reason that Unibet were not licensed in Ireland at the time. Finally, after being pampered first season with a professional studio and sound engineer at our disposal, we were basically on our own this time around, using our own microphones and laptops to record the show. Faced with all these challenges I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of bringing the show back but in the end I agreed to it with the words:

“But it better not be sh*t, David.”

5. Ambushing Iany

March 2017. Unibet had signed a bunch of other ambassadors simultaneously, so that at least gave us an initial pool of interviewees to draw from. The problem was that apart from Ian Simpson, otherwise known as Iany, none of them were even remotely well known at the time. David and I both felt it could be a stretch to reclaim our old Irish audience with a bunch of non Irish guests they’d never heard of. For this reason we decided to lead with Ian, also strongly suspecting he’d give us the best interview. 

we were taking a risk with our sponsors, potentially undermining their new ambassador

As a twist, we came up with an idea to make the interview more entertaining and therefore more likely to attract listens: instead of just doing a straight interview, we’d start in that vein but then without warning, pivot to a hostile interview mid way through, effectively ambushing Iany. He was the only one on the team we figured we could take this risky approach with as he had the best sense of humour of the lot and the least sense of self importance. Nevertheless, we were taking a risk with our sponsors, potentially undermining their new ambassador, so we decided we’d better clear it with them in advance. They not only loved the idea, but insisted on being there to witness it, rightly anticipating that the unsuspecting Ian’s reaction would be hilarious. It was, and news of the ambush helped us hit the ground running and recapture our Irish audience. I mean, what Irish person doesn’t love the thought of two Irish men ambushing an Englishman? Revenge for Skibbereen.

That concludes the first part of my trip down memory lane. In Part 2, I’ll talk about the dark days when it seemed the show was dying, how we turned it around, and how we got Phil Hellmuth to give arguably the most honest and touching interview of his life.

The post Memories From Ten Years of the Chip Race: Part One appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

High end advice articulated crisply

Poker’s newest content creator is none other than Canadian high stakes beast Sam Greenwood, who just launched his new series of Substack articles entitled “Punt of the Day.” Five times per week, he will revisit the blunders that he has made on his way to winning $40m on the live felt. He will try to explain his mindset and thought process in key moments when he failed to execute to the best of his abilities.

Having been given a sneak peek of what is to come, the striking thing is how approachable Greenwood’s thought process is. He is a natural communicator, dropping pearls of wisdom that apply to everyone’s game. There can be no doubt that it is high-end advice for high-level thinkers, but it is also articulated so crisply that I suspect that it will find a wider audience.

The beauty of this series is going to be how it will show the difference between having knowledge in a vacuum and being able to deliver on that knowledge under pressure. VSO News sat down with Greenwood to talk about his new venture.

Q&A with Sam Greenwood

VSO News: Do you think there is a perception that the top players don’t make mistakes and is part of what you’re doing here an attempt to show how that isn’t true?

Sam Greenwood: I do think that there is a perception that the top players are so well-studied that they never make mistakes. I’m definitely trying to show that isn’t true.

In my time in poker, I’ve seen two types of errors from casual players. One is they see a top pro (everyone always picks Chidwick here, pick someone else ) make a play and say: “I know everyone says he’s the best, but I don’t believe it.” But there’s a slightly more enlightened level of incuriosity that is: “That play doesn’t make any sense to me, but X did it so it must be right,” without even considering the chance he might have made an error. That sort of incuriosity bugs me.

the insights that I have, shortcuts that I take, and the blind spots that I have”

The beauty of poker is that, in any given hand, one player can outplay anyone, so of course it’s possible that top pros have a bad read or misapply a theoretical concept. It happens constantly. My hope with the blog is that over the long run readers will not just learn poker fundamentals, but also get a window into how I think, which includes the insights that I have, shortcuts that I take, and the blind spots that I have.

VSO: What would make this a success for you as a project? Is it about gathering a large following/subscriber list to your substack, or is it more about satisfying a personal objective to do some writing?

SG: I like writing and always have. I love making videos for RunItOnce, but when I speak I can be digressive so I like the discipline of writing something short and focused every day. However, if this were just about personal growth, I would be doing it in private. I absolutely want to gain subscribers and build a community.

VSO: Define “punt” for me as distinct from “blunder.”

SG: Once a mistake is made in poker, it cannot be undone and, for me, the word “punt” is so evocative. You can spend days making careful, precise decisions and then one decision blows it all up. I played rugby in high school and writing about “punts,” I’m just picturing a ball flying high into the air floating off into the distance, never to be recovered. Now some decisions covered in the blog will be blunders and slip-ups and not, strictly speaking, “punts,” but I liked using punt in the title.

O’Dwyer and O’Kearney weigh in

Fellow high-stakes circuit regular Steve O’Dwyer thinks that Greenwood’s articles are going to hit a sweet spot. Speaking to VSO News, he said:

“I think Sam’s new Substack blog is an innovative idea in the realm of educational poker content. Sam is the first person I seek out on tournament breaks when I want feedback on a hand that I’ve played. He’s got an incredible mind for poker and always does a great job explaining his thoughts in a way that a dumb guy like myself can understand.”

Another of poker’s great strategic minds, Dara O’Kearney, applauded the structure of Greenwood’s breakdowns and said how he particularly liked the “what I got wrong section”. Speaking to VSO News, O’Kearney also commented on the integration of the background sims used:

“I think that the short explanations of why the solver advocates certain things are very valuable. It’s so important to relay the reasons behind what the solver does.”

Different subscriber tiers

Poker players at all levels today run sims or at least grapple with solver output. Greenwood’s breakdowns are going to be a daily treat for those players. His first entry is a hand he played versus the talented young Bulgarian Boris Angelov at the Triton Jeju $20,000 buy-in a few weeks ago. At the end, he grades his line as a D+, believing that he botched two of his four decisions.

so that we never bungle, blunder, botch, slip-up, fail, err, mess up, or punt ever again”

In the introduction to this series of articles, Greenwood lays out his tongue-in-cheek mission statement: “My hope is that you’ll gain some insights from my mistakes and we can all learn something together so that we never bungle, blunder, botch, slip-up, fail, err, mess up, or punt ever again.”

Punts may be inevitable, even from the best, but as Greenwood confesses more and more of his poker sins, his subscribers will be the beneficiaries, learning from one of the game’s great strategic minds.

As a cheeky tempter, unpaid subscribers will get access to one free post per week, whereas monthly plan subscribers will receive every post, plus the ability to comment on the Substack. Premium subscribers will get access to every post and access to the “Punt of the Day” Discord server, where they can see the original sims that Greenwood ran and delve into some additional analysis.

The post A Punt a Day: Sam Greenwood Opens His Playbook appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has announced that the 2025 Tournament of Champions will return to The Commerce Casino & Hotel in Los Angeles from May 15 through May 17. The event will be held at The Commerce Casino for the second consecutive year.

The Tournament of Champions is an invitation-only freeroll tournament with a $1m prize pool. Everyone who won a WSOP Circuit ring or WSOP bracelet from June 2024 to May 2025 is eligible to participate. All bracelet variations count, including those from the traditional 2024 WSOP in Las Vegas, 2024 WSOP Europe, 2024 WSOP Paradise, and online gold bracelets.

this is like the opening ceremonies for the 2025 WSOP”

“We are happy to return to The Commerce Casino & Hotel for the WSOP Tournament of Champions and our 15th consecutive $1,000,000 freeroll,” said WSOP Chief Executive Officer Ty Stewart in Wednesday’s press release. “With a $2 million guaranteed Circuit Main Event, WSOP satellites and nonstop action at the world’s biggest poker room, this is like the opening ceremonies for the 2025 WSOP.”

To Stewart’s “opening ceremonies” comment, the World Series of Poker kicks off on May 27 at Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas on the Strip.

The Tournament of Champions will also coincide with a WSOP Circuit stop at The Commerce Casino May 8 through May 24. The poker festival will consist of 18 official ring events with over $3.5m in guaranteed prize pools. The $1,700 Main Event, which runs May 16 through May 20, has a $2m guarantee.

The Commerce stop will be the last on the 2024-2025 WSOP Circuit schedule.

The post 2025 WSOP Tournament of Champions Returning to Commerce Casino appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

Fusion of influences

On the shores of Lake Lugano sits the quiet little town of Campione, an Italian enclave surrounded on all sides by the Swiss Canton of Ticino. Steeped in history and culture, its cobblestone streets ascend, descend, and wind around the Langobardish hill. Well-preserved frescoes and sculptures adorn the ancient churches. There is an artfulness and whimsy about the place.

There are cute little cafés and bars. There’s a pizzeria that serves sushi. There’s a Michelin Star restaurant. You are as likely to find fondue and raclette on menus as you are bruschetta and pasta. The currency is Swiss francs. The cars have Swiss license plates. There is a small football club in the town called AP Campionese, which plays in the Swiss 4th division. The 2,300 or so residents of Campione go about their daily lives enjoying the fusion of influences, Swiss politeness, and order mixed with Italian gusto and cuore.

Casinò di Campione, a degen’s wonderland nestled into the hill

There are also some financial benefits to Campione’s unique status. The residents do not pay any municipal charges and are exempt from paying the full Italian Value Added Tax. These subsidies are mostly made possible because of the revenue generated by the Casinò di Campione, a degen’s wonderland nestled into the hill, scratching the gambling itch for both Swiss and Italian punters who make the trip to the picturesque town.

Casino declares bankruptcy

Founded in 1917, Casinò di Campione has had its prosperous times but also its fair share of challenges. In 2007, on the eve of the worldwide financial collapse, the city spent $160m building a new ten-story home designed by renowned Swiss architect Mario Botta. This massive investment also coincided with the rise of online gambling.

If you eat too much caviar, you will get sick.”

Difficult years followed, and in 2018, the casino declared bankruptcy, prompting harsh criticism from the residents who believed that the city had failed to sufficiently diversify, growing far too dependent on what had once been easy money. Bernard Fournier, the town’s resident Michelin-starred chef, expressed his lack of surprise to a BBC reporter at the time. “If you eat too much caviar, you will get sick,” he said.

Cute food analogies aside, the consequences of the bankruptcy were profound for the economy of Campione, throwing 490 employees out of work. For a time, empty storefronts lined the main street and cuts were made to city services. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, with Northern Italy being one of the worst affected areas. Pensioners saw their monthly stipend slashed, forcing some to turn to food banks for groceries.

The recovery

The recovery has been slow but steady for both the town and the casino, whose fortunes are intrinsically linked. Casinò di Campione re-opened on January 26, 2022, and in its first year back, it modestly surpassed targets, welcoming 220,000 players to the venue. 2023 was a boom year, and in September 2024, Flutter Entertainment’s Sisal and PokerStars brands sealed a deal to open an “always on” poker room at Italy’s Casinò di Campione.

“This is a further step forward in the development of the company’s activity, which will undoubtedly increase its visibility,” said Mario Venditti, Chairman of Casinò di Campione, at the time. The opportunity was felt on both sides, with Cedric Billot, Director of Live Event Operations at PokerStars, also seeing the potential:

“We look forward to kicking off the partnership with Campione and offering the best poker experience to our passionate Italian audience,” he said.

Fast-forward to March 2025, and that partnership has exploded out of the gate with a 2,423-runner field in the first-ever PokerStars Open. That’s more entrants than the population of the town. The champion of the inaugural main event will be crowned on Sunday night, and whoever wins will deservedly make headlines. However, the really big story for me is that of the quiet little town hosting the festivities and a community that has struggled and persevered through tough times, buoyed by what is sure to be an annual poker extravaganza.

The post PokerStars Open Campione Main Event Attracts More Entrants Than Number of People in the Town appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.

Kylie Jenner is the youngest of the Kardashian sisters and is never far from the headlines. She has a cult-like following and is very influential with her massive fan base. The 27-year-old posted an Instagram story on Thursday to her 394 million followers showing her playing poker at an unknown casino:

Like Mark Zuckerberg, Jenner can easily afford high-stakes play with her $900m net worth but is seen playing with less than $100 in chips. She tagged her friend Victoria Helena Villarroel in the social media story, who reposted the image with the tagline “I almost had you!! smh.”

both took part in a Cartier-hosted poker night recently in Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont

It looks like Jenner and her friend have the poker bug as they both took part in a Cartier-hosted poker night recently in Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont. This was a celebration of Jenner’s boyfriend, Timothée Chalamet’s nomination in the Best Actor award category at the Oscars for his role as Bob Dylan in ‘A Complete Unknown.’

Regarding Jenner’s performance when she beat her boyfriend head-to-head, GQ Editor Frazier Tharpe said she was “sneakily, one of the most formidable players at the table, raising big bets with the confidence of a high roller.”

Chalamet also has a reputation as a decent player. In January, Ellie Fanning revealed that her ‘A Complete Unknown’ co-star is “pretty good at poker.”

The post Kylie Jenner Has the Poker Bug After Recent Success Against Timothée Chalamet appeared first on Vegas Slots Online News.