March 13, 2004

In a continuing effort to find solid, informative, interesting and enjoyable poker information, we stumbled one called the United Poker Forum (www.unitedpokerforum.com) and another, which we really stumbled into, called www.texasholdem-poker.com/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/index.php. (Trust us on this one, folks; we tried to find a simple doorway but failed.)

It doesn't take but a second to identify the former site as an arm of an online casino, namely www.planetpoker.com, but from the start page it's obvious there's some attempt here to keep the posts and conversations on topic and without hype or advertising (the latter excluding Planet Poker plugs, of course.)

Mike Caro -- player, theorist, author -- whose name has become synonymous with poker and the movement to bring people to Internet poker, issues the welcoming message on the home page letting readers know the site is free and moderated. He then asks you to "enjoy yourself" because the site is "your new poker family online." (That last line is a bit mushy in our book but it's typical Caro.)

United Poker Forum's home page lists the most recent (80) posts. You can tell if any of these is a new topic or a response to an old topic and if you want to follow either one, clicking on the topic will navigate you to the appropriate page.

Better still, don't bother with the current list of posts. Click on the Forum tab and get to the second page where there's a great index of categories -- 11 in all. So if you're interested in questions and answers about psychology, click on that category and be prepared. At this writing, 1,496 messages appear and these include poker quizzes by Roy Cooke (author of "Real Poker I and II"). Sometimes the questions are simple, which makes them good for beginners, and sometimes they're tough, which is good for experts but also forces beginners to think poker.

We couldn't tell if the second forum we found is related to any particular online poker room. It appears to be an independently run Web site with affiliate links to different cyberpoker rooms. Nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong with the site except that someone named Geno moderates virtually every topic. We much prefer knowing who's in charge in cases like this only because we want to make sure the moderator doesn't have any hidden agendas.

That said, there's an individual who calls himself Adam Marshall, Site Admin. Adam maintains the segment of the forum called Tournaments Added and this is a great feature for players who favor tournament action over live play or players who are looking for satellite tournaments that can get them into big events. When there's an addition, deletion or change to the listing (and it's an extensive list -- 19 pages at this time), Marshall posts an announcement. But the neat part has nothing to do with the forum. It has to do with the site's tournament listings.

When you check out the link you see information by poker room, game type, style, date and time, buy-in designation (amount or free), description (rebuys, points awarded, etc.) and when the tournament starts. The latter ranges from minutes to days. Nice, nice feature! Plus (yes, there's more) you can search in five different categories ... but you can't search for a "name," such as World Series of Poker satellites.

And there is some information about the people who run the site. Adam (Marshall, we presume as mentioned above) and Carson (could this be Geno?) show up when we clicked on the link to Texas Hold'em Poker League, which is another story altogether but one that could be worth investigating.

So far, we're finding forums to be a terrific source of idea exchange and information. If you have the time, bookmark them and get involved, even if you never post a question or an answer because you will benefit.