March 6, 2004

The Internet can be one of the most effective tools you'll ever use for digging out what many might consider esoteric information. Unlike the local library, where you have to dig through reference sources or use a touch screen that's so old you can't see anything beyond the scratches to find something related to the particulars you're researching and then hope the item is available, the Internet will definitely have it. And it will be available at the press of a few keys with a good search engine.

But since this web of information sources is free (and entangled with heaps of sales pitches, rip-off offers and lackluster blogs) and since anyone who knows how to input information into the universe via a keyboard can contribute to this source, you're not always going to find legitimate, truthful, trustworthy, interesting data. (I can't count the times I've uncovered disinformation and outright lies while "googling.") In fact, disseminating bad, skewed or absolutely wrong information seems to be a hobby of sorts, and to combat the plethora of drivel, various companies and individuals have become hoax, legend and myth busters.

Now, if you're a poker aficionado, you know that the first and foremost place you could go to for reliable stuff about your favorite game was rec.gambling.poker, the newsgroup. Initially and especially before online and televised poker became so in-your-face, posters and lurkers alike on rec.gambling.poker would have been considered the nerds of the subject matter. They submitted intense questions and often received like responses. Sometimes the delayed conversations were heated, sometimes humorous and sometimes flippant, but in the main they offered solid advice and good answers to tough questions.

Sadly, as is often the case in life, all good things must come to an end. While you can still find legitimate, interesting and helpful posts there, today's rec.gambling.poker is overpopulated with wiseguy jerks who seem more intent in making names for themselves or slamming pies in the fact of sincere posters.

The secret to sifting through the garbage on rec.gambling.poker is fairly simple. If you subscribe to the group via your service provider and use Outlook Express, for example, you can actually block messages from certain senders. So, if screen name joschmo annoys you, just block him. If you're using other subscription methods, say AOL, or if you're going directly to google for your group searching, then you have to learn which screen names post the most trash and just scroll on by them.

Does this sounds like a lot of work? What if you don't want to be your own censor?

But wait! There's more!

Yes, there are other options or should I say there are other groups that aren't so unruly.

Yes, rec.gambling.poker isn't the only game in town and the newer, younger, improved forums now provide some of the most illuminating discussions on the subject of poker.

An arm of www.ultimatebet.com/ is www.thepokerforum.com/, the online cardroom. Get to this red, white and blue URL, scroll to the bottom and click on Forums. The designer of this part of the site should be commended for organizational skills. The forums (categories) are broken down into five major areas -- Games, Theory and Strategy, Tournament Poker, Online Poker and Miscellaneous. Each of these is divided into topics. For example, the Games Forum covers Texas Hold'em live action, Texas Hold'em online play and other games. The final row of the matrix lists a total for the number of posts in each sub topic and the heading for the most recent post with the screen name of the poster and the time the post was recorded. We found a very lively discussion of folding pocket aces before the flop in the most recent posts. Some offered statistics, others offered opinions.

As thought-provoking as the topic was, not a single person cussed out or dissed another. How refreshing!

What's especially attractive about Ultimate Bet's forum is the sanity. Nobody's calling others unseemly names and no one's harping on topics with no resolution; no one's appointed himself the dali lama of poker and no one's pontificating that her way is the only way to play the game.

So far, this we consider this the benchmark of poker forums. In upcoming articles we'll look at other discussion groups and compare them to this benchmark.