WPT Global Premier Special: The Chip Race Podcast’s Opener Of The New Partnership

The Chip Race WPT Global Opener Guests

This episode is really quite a show because Lappin and O’Kearney managed to create a truly humorous, captivating and at the same time thought provoking piece featuring:

• Newly-born stand-up comedian Doug Polk, who you may know as a ClubWPT Gold ambassador, professional poker player and the creator of the unique poker content on YouTube.
• Fathers of one of the funniest and coziest poker projects —  the Table 1 Podcast — Justin Young and Art Parmann. They are here to talk about the meaning of poker podcasts and the importance of fun in poker.
• “The bronze medalist” of $1,1K Ladies Championship of WPT World Championship 2024, very open and well-spoken female poker player Sinéad Davenport. She is here to share amazing stories as a nurse and a skyrocketing professional poker player.
• The God of poker memes and an inimitable master of apt and succinct satire Barry Carter. He is here to talk about recent poker news.
• The €5,3K EPT Main Event of EPT Prague 2023 and aspiring Irish poker streamer Padraig O’Neill, who recently partnered with WPT Global. He is here to discuss his strategy during one of the hands of EPT Prague Main Event heads-up against Jon Kyte.

But what did all of them do to make this episode simply fantastic? Well, let’s have a sneak peek into two of the episode’s topics.

The Table 1 Podcast & Doug Polk: It is Time to Make Poker Fun Again

The role of fire starters in this episode belongs to Art Parmann and Justin Young whom the Table 1 Podcast has the only meaning for the last two years — give fun in poker a second wind.

As a guest of The Chip Race, they talk a few hilarious background stories — for example, that’s how Art Parmann describes the dawn of their collaboration:

“We’ve always had this mission to make poker more fun. We all came into poker in the poker boom, 2004-2006 — Justin a little bit earlier, cause he is old.

So, I’m always starting random business ideas — I kinda have an entrepreneurial mind but also the squirrel mindset: “Oooh, what’s that?!”.

And one day my wife said: “Why don’t you direct some of that entrepreneurial energy into promoting your game? You and Justin have a great chemistry, you should just try recording some of your conversations and see if people like it”.

So, that’s when it all started.”

Both players also talk about their mutual belief that poker needs people to actively make it fun as it was — more social, more interactive, more chatty, more gamy and at the same time less money-driven and serious — and dive deep into their values and mission in regard to promotion of the game.

Doug Polk has the similar goal — to bring more fun into poker and thus attract more people to the game:

“Honestly, my favorite staff in poker it’s not what pocket Tens should do on the turn — it’s trying to come up with creative fun content that makes people laugh and that makes me laugh.

When we do a good bit and I laugh — I feel like I’m happy that other people can also get to experience that. […]

I think it also does a good job in making poker a little bit more approachable for any people that aren’t so into the strategy component.

I am proud of my career, I’ve been a great poker player and, of course, I do training content and things like that. But there is another side of poker — that’s the fun side. And embracing that in ways that make people laugh and want to be a part of it, I think that’s a really important strategy for growth.”

Doug also shares his impressions of returning to streaming and plans on new challenges, promos and content (that the poker industry clearly needs) but with only a few details to spice the future full announcements up.

Sinéad Davenport: Online Poker (And Unexpected Fame) Can Be Overwhelming

The English professional poker player Sinéad Davenport started to play poker as a hobby in the 2010s while working as a nurse. She made the game a full time job after meeting her now-husband, fellow poker player Matthew Davenport, who gave Sinéad financial freedom to pursue what her heart desires.

By the end of May 2025, she scored 86 ITM in live poker tournaments, half of which were in 2024, and countless ITMs in online tournaments.

During The Chip Race episode Sinéad shares details of her poker journey, including a few curious insights. For example, despite having a great experience in both live and online poker, Sinéad very quickly realized that she is better in live poker because this format is easier for her:

“I’m not as good as the others when they’ve got multiple tables. All I have is three or four maximum and I just focus on them, to be honest. And I get overloaded with three or four, so I don’t know how people do 16, 18, 20 tables — it is just too stressful in my opinion. […]

I’m very serious [when I play online poker] and I can focus on it now. You just don’t have the same as at live tables — you don’t have live tells, your tables just constantly change, you may not have the same players and have no idea of the hand history. So, in that sense I feel that it’s harder [to play] online.”

Sinéad also opens about her feeling strange about her and Matthew being named “the UK’s power couple” by some poker media because both of them are quite shy people — and she personally now feels quite embarrassed to not know people who recognize her on live events because of this publication.

Finally, she tells a terrifying plane story about assisting in saving one of the passengers’ lives and what it costs for her. As you can imagine, this segment is quite loaded, so don’t hesitate to listen to it.

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