Poker Websites
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Newer Poker Websites
The last type is the new poker website. Although many established poker websites are of high quality ( and you'll find many links to these throughout the poker sections of this site) I thought it might be a good idea to have a section dedicated to new poker websites, or at least those which have been formed over the last few years. These offer an alternative way to search for poker related information. I can't recall seeing a section such as this on any other sites, so this might well be a first - or at the very least among the first.
Almost exclusively these newer sites are going to be business orientated, money making sites. Generally they're at a disadvantage, because they have to compete against long running, well known competition. Their age can be a disadvantage, as is their level of content. But change is something that we all know is contant. With some good ideas, and a lot of effort and hard work, a new poker website can make it. Of course. the site you're on - WinMoney101.com - currently falls into this category. I hope you like it, because without you I have almost zero chance of making it a success.
I'm working hard on it.
There's every reason to think that this could become a popular well-visited section. We might just find the great poker websites of the future covered here, and that would be something! With a lot of competition, new poker websites can often struggle to make an impact and get noticed - but we all know that it's good to try something different once in a while, and who's to say that a new site of today won't grow into one of the leading sites next year?
I think it's good to spell out what makes a new poker website here, because it isn't necessarily as obvious as it sounds. I'm classing a new poker site as one that's probably been launched sometime in the last 2-3 years (but could be longer than that), and almost certainly has a PR1 to PR3 classification on Google. PR stands for 'page rank' and is a numerical grade scoring system that Google used to apply to denote the general quality, or search engine ranking of a site. It's not quite used in this way any more, but Page Rank still shows up if you know where to look. Of course, new sites are going to always start out at PR0 ( or actually unranked), and will grow as they age, as they have good content added to them, and as other sites link in to them.
You can read more about Page Rank on Google's page dedicated to it. There's a lot of debate about the true value of PR for poker SEO, but there's no denying it does give some indications of the current strength of a site.
Here's a directory of some of the new poker websites I started listing from 2009 onwards. It may be interesting to see how they're doing now, so with that in mind, I'll date any entries below (update - note the directory is only one site!...I just checked all the others and they've disappeared. I guess they all folded, which is a shame as some looked to have a lot of potential.
New Poker Websites Directory
1. FirstTimePokerPlayer.com - The owner and creator of this site has provided a showcase article titled ' Five Online Poker Tips' which is published on it's own page here on WinMoney101.com. This article is a taster for a full and comprehensive listing of '101 Poker Tips For The Ambitious Beginner' which you'll find on the FirstTimePokerPlayer site.
Review of FirstTimePokerPlayer 16th Nov 2009
The webmaster describes FirstTimePokerPlayer as a site which aims to ''guide you through the world of online poker, learn what to look for in an online poker room, and provide extensive articles covering poker rules, hand rankings and poker strategy.''
This is probably the first time I've needed to review a poker site that isn't a poker room, so I hope I do this well.
Certainly to me the content on this site reads well, is accurate and well written. I felt 'entertained' during my reading. In particular I was impressed with the collection of 101 poker tips, and the 'Crash Course For The First Time Poker Player' section - easy to read, easy to follow, and definitely valuable for players new to the game. Plus a sense of humour in the play on the word c(r)ash. That got a smile.
If you're a webmaster who's just starting out with a new poker site, or you know of a site that's newly built in the last few years and has potential, I'd welcome the chance to add that site here. You can find my contact details on the 'about' page of WinMoney101.com. For now, here are some other useful sites you can visit:
The last type is the new poker website. Although many established poker websites are of high quality ( and you'll find many links to these throughout the poker sections of this site) I thought it might be a good idea to have a section dedicated to new poker websites, or at least those which have been formed over the last few years. These offer an alternative way to search for poker related information. I can't recall seeing a section such as this on any other sites, so this might well be a first - or at the very least among the first.
Almost exclusively these newer sites are going to be business orientated, money making sites. Generally they're at a disadvantage, because they have to compete against long running, well known competition. Their age can be a disadvantage, as is their level of content. But change is something that we all know is contant. With some good ideas, and a lot of effort and hard work, a new poker website can make it. Of course. the site you're on - WinMoney101.com - currently falls into this category. I hope you like it, because without you I have almost zero chance of making it a success.
I'm working hard on it.
There's every reason to think that this could become a popular well-visited section. We might just find the great poker websites of the future covered here, and that would be something! With a lot of competition, new poker websites can often struggle to make an impact and get noticed - but we all know that it's good to try something different once in a while, and who's to say that a new site of today won't grow into one of the leading sites next year?
I think it's good to spell out what makes a new poker website here, because it isn't necessarily as obvious as it sounds. I'm classing a new poker site as one that's probably been launched sometime in the last 2-3 years (but could be longer than that), and almost certainly has a PR1 to PR3 classification on Google. PR stands for 'page rank' and is a numerical grade scoring system that Google used to apply to denote the general quality, or search engine ranking of a site. It's not quite used in this way any more, but Page Rank still shows up if you know where to look. Of course, new sites are going to always start out at PR0 ( or actually unranked), and will grow as they age, as they have good content added to them, and as other sites link in to them.
You can read more about Page Rank on Google's page dedicated to it. There's a lot of debate about the true value of PR for poker SEO, but there's no denying it does give some indications of the current strength of a site.
Here's a directory of some of the new poker websites I started listing from 2009 onwards. It may be interesting to see how they're doing now, so with that in mind, I'll date any entries below (update - note the directory is only one site!...I just checked all the others and they've disappeared. I guess they all folded, which is a shame as some looked to have a lot of potential.
New Poker Websites Directory
1. FirstTimePokerPlayer.com - The owner and creator of this site has provided a showcase article titled ' Five Online Poker Tips' which is published on it's own page here on WinMoney101.com. This article is a taster for a full and comprehensive listing of '101 Poker Tips For The Ambitious Beginner' which you'll find on the FirstTimePokerPlayer site.
Review of FirstTimePokerPlayer 16th Nov 2009
The webmaster describes FirstTimePokerPlayer as a site which aims to ''guide you through the world of online poker, learn what to look for in an online poker room, and provide extensive articles covering poker rules, hand rankings and poker strategy.''
This is probably the first time I've needed to review a poker site that isn't a poker room, so I hope I do this well.
Certainly to me the content on this site reads well, is accurate and well written. I felt 'entertained' during my reading. In particular I was impressed with the collection of 101 poker tips, and the 'Crash Course For The First Time Poker Player' section - easy to read, easy to follow, and definitely valuable for players new to the game. Plus a sense of humour in the play on the word c(r)ash. That got a smile.
If you're a webmaster who's just starting out with a new poker site, or you know of a site that's newly built in the last few years and has potential, I'd welcome the chance to add that site here. You can find my contact details on the 'about' page of WinMoney101.com. For now, here are some other useful sites you can visit:
Poker websites can be classified into 3 main types - the websites of the poker rooms themselves, established standalone, information type sites, and newer, more recently launched standalone sites (let's say in the last few years). There are thousands of online poker websites to choose from, offering varying degrees of content and quality. You could theoretically classify poker blogs as a fourth type, but for the purposes of this article I'm going to include them in the 3 main types.
The term 'poker websites' is a broad one, and within each classification there are a number of sub-types to cover. So, it's a good idea to break them down into separate groups and cover one by one. This article will help you understand why the different types of poker websites exist, how they work, and with that knowledge how you can use them to best effect.
Once you've got some understanding of the reasons why and how these sites operate - and we've covered some of the better known ones - there's an additional section further below which lists some valuable, well put together, but less well known sites too.
1. The Poker Rooms
There's a lot of money to be made in online poker. The poker rooms exist to make a profit, purely and simply, just the same as pretty much every business. They aim do this by providing an excellent experience for their players, with the best of them providing clean, high quality poker software, a wide variation of game types and cash levels, good value bonuses, and interesting promotions.
I say they exist to make money, and clearly if they didn't they'd go out of business. So you can see a great testament to poker's popularity here, with dozens if not hundreds of online poker rooms operating consistently, some for many years.
Finding the best among them is not difficult, with the well know names of Pokerstars, 888 Pacific Poker, and PartyPoker immediately springing to mind..but there are a dozen other poker rooms who's names might not be so familiar to a poker beginner and which do offer strong gaming experiences. The more experienced among this sites' readers will know who they are - but if you're in any doubt the next classification will cover the websites that will clear that up for you......
2. Standalone/Information Type Poker Websites
These can be broken down into two types - pure information websites and advertising sites. There's a major difference in their intent, but both offer seriously good information in many cases.
I call these standalone sites in the sense that they're not generally run by poker rooms, but by independent poker webmasters (or teams of webmasters). This may not be totally true, because I believe that some independent sites have been taken over by poker rooms and then solely dedicated to advertising just that specific poker room, by taking advantage of the existing visitor base. At this point I don't know the names of any, but will attempt to find out and publish here.
Anyway, as I said there are two main types, and the big difference is in advertising. There are a handful of pure information type sites. Good examples would be Wikipedia, DMOZ, and Pagat (the last named does carry some subdued advertising for Poker Stars). Then there are hundreds of other sites which provide great information (in a lot of cases), and not so good information (in a lot of cases), which actually exist as businesses which make money. It's fair to say that the best among them are run by dedicated poker enthusiasts, and that shines through in the content they provide. Some make a lot of money, some make a reasonable return, and many make a small amount or nothing. Most are marketing a range of online poker rooms, occasionally focussed on one or two, often many more.
And how does this work? What are these poker websites trying to achieve?
The answer is they provide information to attract visitors (you), if the information is good the visitors stay on the site for more (and hopefully return regularly), and while they're on the site they will hopefully join a poker room via the advertising on that site.
When they do this, the visitor to a poker room is tracked or associated to the link that they arrived from, and the sending site gets paid for sending the new business. It's called affiliate marketing, and is in use throughout the internet, not just for poker. Big comanies use this as a way of advertising on the internet, and marketing to a user base which they might never get access to on their own.
My site is no different, though I have tried to keep advertising subdued - but I will make some money if you register either with PokerStrategy.com (via my links at the top of the pages) to learn how to play poker successfully, or directly with any of the poker rooms you can find on some dedicated pages.
That's a poker webmasters business. He or she provides information, you the visitor get the information you need, you sign up to play, the poker rooms get a new player, the webmaster gets paid, you get to play poker, and the poker room earns money. Everyone wins.
You can see from this that there's a lot of money circulating, and as in any walk of life this attracts more and more people looking for a share of it.
You might ask if there are any risks of you losing out because of this? The answer is not really. When you register with a new poker room through an affiliate site, you're not losing anything. It's as if you'd signed up with the poker room directly. In fact, some affiliate poker sites are powerful enough to negotiate special deals with the poker rooms where you'll get better bonuses and promotions than if you'd signed directly.
But 'shopping around' is a good phrase to remember here.
The only obvious way you could lose out is by following misleading information. Many poker websites use point scoring/rating systems to denote what they believe are the best poker rooms. There is a risk ( though I don't recall encountering this, and certainly not on any of the popular long standing sites) where some might be tempted to rate the rooms that get them the best return more highly than others. The reality is that in most cases the leading poker rooms are able to give the better affiliate deals to the poker webmasters anyway.. I don't believe you need ratings to tell you the best sites anyway, though they do have their value in certain circumstances.
The term 'poker websites' is a broad one, and within each classification there are a number of sub-types to cover. So, it's a good idea to break them down into separate groups and cover one by one. This article will help you understand why the different types of poker websites exist, how they work, and with that knowledge how you can use them to best effect.
Once you've got some understanding of the reasons why and how these sites operate - and we've covered some of the better known ones - there's an additional section further below which lists some valuable, well put together, but less well known sites too.
1. The Poker Rooms
There's a lot of money to be made in online poker. The poker rooms exist to make a profit, purely and simply, just the same as pretty much every business. They aim do this by providing an excellent experience for their players, with the best of them providing clean, high quality poker software, a wide variation of game types and cash levels, good value bonuses, and interesting promotions.
I say they exist to make money, and clearly if they didn't they'd go out of business. So you can see a great testament to poker's popularity here, with dozens if not hundreds of online poker rooms operating consistently, some for many years.
Finding the best among them is not difficult, with the well know names of Pokerstars, 888 Pacific Poker, and PartyPoker immediately springing to mind..but there are a dozen other poker rooms who's names might not be so familiar to a poker beginner and which do offer strong gaming experiences. The more experienced among this sites' readers will know who they are - but if you're in any doubt the next classification will cover the websites that will clear that up for you......
2. Standalone/Information Type Poker Websites
These can be broken down into two types - pure information websites and advertising sites. There's a major difference in their intent, but both offer seriously good information in many cases.
I call these standalone sites in the sense that they're not generally run by poker rooms, but by independent poker webmasters (or teams of webmasters). This may not be totally true, because I believe that some independent sites have been taken over by poker rooms and then solely dedicated to advertising just that specific poker room, by taking advantage of the existing visitor base. At this point I don't know the names of any, but will attempt to find out and publish here.
Anyway, as I said there are two main types, and the big difference is in advertising. There are a handful of pure information type sites. Good examples would be Wikipedia, DMOZ, and Pagat (the last named does carry some subdued advertising for Poker Stars). Then there are hundreds of other sites which provide great information (in a lot of cases), and not so good information (in a lot of cases), which actually exist as businesses which make money. It's fair to say that the best among them are run by dedicated poker enthusiasts, and that shines through in the content they provide. Some make a lot of money, some make a reasonable return, and many make a small amount or nothing. Most are marketing a range of online poker rooms, occasionally focussed on one or two, often many more.
And how does this work? What are these poker websites trying to achieve?
The answer is they provide information to attract visitors (you), if the information is good the visitors stay on the site for more (and hopefully return regularly), and while they're on the site they will hopefully join a poker room via the advertising on that site.
When they do this, the visitor to a poker room is tracked or associated to the link that they arrived from, and the sending site gets paid for sending the new business. It's called affiliate marketing, and is in use throughout the internet, not just for poker. Big comanies use this as a way of advertising on the internet, and marketing to a user base which they might never get access to on their own.
My site is no different, though I have tried to keep advertising subdued - but I will make some money if you register either with PokerStrategy.com (via my links at the top of the pages) to learn how to play poker successfully, or directly with any of the poker rooms you can find on some dedicated pages.
That's a poker webmasters business. He or she provides information, you the visitor get the information you need, you sign up to play, the poker rooms get a new player, the webmaster gets paid, you get to play poker, and the poker room earns money. Everyone wins.
You can see from this that there's a lot of money circulating, and as in any walk of life this attracts more and more people looking for a share of it.
You might ask if there are any risks of you losing out because of this? The answer is not really. When you register with a new poker room through an affiliate site, you're not losing anything. It's as if you'd signed up with the poker room directly. In fact, some affiliate poker sites are powerful enough to negotiate special deals with the poker rooms where you'll get better bonuses and promotions than if you'd signed directly.
But 'shopping around' is a good phrase to remember here.
The only obvious way you could lose out is by following misleading information. Many poker websites use point scoring/rating systems to denote what they believe are the best poker rooms. There is a risk ( though I don't recall encountering this, and certainly not on any of the popular long standing sites) where some might be tempted to rate the rooms that get them the best return more highly than others. The reality is that in most cases the leading poker rooms are able to give the better affiliate deals to the poker webmasters anyway.. I don't believe you need ratings to tell you the best sites anyway, though they do have their value in certain circumstances.
9 Of The Best - Visit these well-presented, respected poker websites for more poker info.
For some alternatives to poker, slots tournaments are good fun and a great way to play casino games .
PurePokerStrategy.com - poker strategy website written by an experienced player which aims to simplify the poker game as much as possible by breaking down learning articles by Game, Stake, Type, or Variation.
Another great site focussing on a lesser known area of poker - PlayLowballpoker.com is the home of lowball poker strategy, with in depth strategy articles covering all lowball poker games, including Razz, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw and Omaha Hi Lo. You can read more on lowball poker at my dedicated page.
PokerDepositOptions.com is a site that contains one of the most comprehensive listings of poker deposit options that you'll find anywhere online, covering the different deposit methods in an easy to read format.
Pokersavvy offer a site which brings you the best poker bonuses.
Other valuable poker websites include:
Poker-Tomorrow.com
BurnPoker.com
Pagat.com
For some alternatives to poker, slots tournaments are good fun and a great way to play casino games .
PurePokerStrategy.com - poker strategy website written by an experienced player which aims to simplify the poker game as much as possible by breaking down learning articles by Game, Stake, Type, or Variation.
Another great site focussing on a lesser known area of poker - PlayLowballpoker.com is the home of lowball poker strategy, with in depth strategy articles covering all lowball poker games, including Razz, Badugi, 2-7 Triple Draw, 2-7 Single Draw and Omaha Hi Lo. You can read more on lowball poker at my dedicated page.
PokerDepositOptions.com is a site that contains one of the most comprehensive listings of poker deposit options that you'll find anywhere online, covering the different deposit methods in an easy to read format.
Pokersavvy offer a site which brings you the best poker bonuses.
Other valuable poker websites include:
Poker-Tomorrow.com
BurnPoker.com
Pagat.com