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.