I had an interesting conversation not too long ago with another
webmaster who refuses to trade links with me or recommend my site to
his readers just because it's a poker room review site. The attitude
and the implication were that a site that does nothing but offer
reviews of online poker rooms isn't worth linking to or
recommending. I consider this a kind of intellectual snobbery, and
it's a silly kind of snobbery, as far as I'm concerned.
Why Someone Would Think That a Poker Review Site is Somehow
"Unworthy" or Less Important than Another Kind of Poker Site
Poker is a big business on the internet. There are literally
millions to be made in this industry. And some people who are lazy
and interested in a quick buck launch poker room review sites that
don't really review poker rooms; these sites are basically lists of
poker rooms online and either consist of a collection of sales
letters for the poker rooms, or they consist of lists of cardroom
features. (Lists of card room features are fine, although they don't
constitute a real review, and they're not what you would call unique
content, since that information is available on the poker websites
themselves.)
This has led some of the folks who run real poker sites to look down
their noses so to speak at a site that reviews online poker rooms.
It's a kind of bigotry. Some poker room review sites are nothing but
vehicles for shilling online poker rooms in exchange for an
affiliate commission, so all poker room review sites are worthless
and should just go away. That seems to be the line of thinking.
Why This Line of Thinking is Silly
I'm not sure if you've ever visited
Roger Ebert's website, but it consists almost entirely of movie
reviews. Ebert's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and his insights for the
movies he reviews are entertaining and often thought-provoking. His
site is a true resource for movie-lovers on the internet who enjoy
reading his reviews.
Epinions is a site that consists of nothing but reviews of
anything and everything you could imagine: books, movies, tv shows,
and fast-food restaurants even. Much of what is written there is
poorly written, but much of it is pure gold too. I have a good
friend who wrote reviews there, and it's practically literature,
especially his fascinating and entertaining
review of Long John Silvers.
Amazon is full of reader-written reviews of books. And in fact,
there entire purpose is to sell you a book. It's what of the most
entertaining and robust sites on the internet, in spite of the face
that they're (gasp) selling something!
No Shame Here
So I refuse to feel shame about running a "poker room review site".
I've played at all of the
online poker rooms that I've reviewed on this site, and I've
written my honest opinion of each one. I think the reviews, while
not great literature, are well-written and helpful to new poker
players and experienced poker players alike. Intellectually snobbery
about a type of site is just pure silliness, and I don't let it
bother me.
In fact, it bothered me so little that I wrote an entire article
about it.
Some other pages you might be interested in include our
recommendations for
other sites
to visit. Especially our
other
gambling sites page.
Another recommendation I have is
Baron's Poker
Rooms - another fine site with poker room reviews and poker
player profiles, and some interesting strategy articles written from
a woman poker player's point of view. It's a good site, and another
good poker review site is
Haunted Poker,
which has a rather "unique" perspective, let's say.
Written and published on January 22, 2006.
