POCKET ACES

We need a good poker news service

Lately, I've found it difficult to keep up with all the blogs, the official poker news sites, the newsgroups, poker magazines, and articles about poker on the web.

Years ago magazines and special interest groups could rely on a good clipping service or two to keep them up to date on their interests. For example, a martial arts provider (say a magazine, newspaper, newsletter or manufacturer of items for the trade) would subscribe to a clipping service and ask that service to look for any and all articles pertaining to the various martial arts sports. The clipping service, usually employing people in different areas of the world, would then read all the media available to find these articles. They'd clip them (thus the name) and then mail them off to the customer who would then use the information as needed. Perhaps a small-town newspaper would carry an ad about an expert opening a dojo. This would then be an article lead or a place the gi manufacturer might sell his wares.

The value of the clipping service could not be replaced. It saved people a lot of time.

A similar service for the busy businessman that would be comparable might be Bottom Line, a newsletter that summarizes major stories. Or something like the blackjack newsletter.

Pi Yee Press, which focuses on blackjack, has an extremely good email newsletter (BJ21.com). Compiled by Al Rogers for Stanford Wong's company, the letter summarizes news about blackjack around the world. Rogers puts together a headline, the introductory paragraph to the news, and a link to follow to get the entire story. Short, sweet and to the point, the letter allows the reader to decide whether or not to read the article. More importantly, it makes the job of keeping up with the blackjack world an uber easy task. What's more, advertising is limited to mentions at the end of the newsletter and almost always only for products marketed by the company, and not to a hundred different online blackjack sites. There's no back-and-forth bickering about competition, no community forum (although the site itself has forums) and no nonsense.

This is one of the few newsletters I read regularly and it's one I would like to see someone in poker model.

Sure, we have poker magazines and tons of poker sites, and most of them are stellar in their coverage of the games. But, they don't quite measure up to what a busy person needs and the focus, while acceptable and necessary, tends to be heavy on the advertising side.

And everybody knows that advertising makes the world go round and if you insult, demean, or criticize your advertiser, you lose revenue.

But a newsletter, now that's a different story. Instead of reprinting an entire World Series of Poker Pablum press release, the newsletter might just summarize the story and then link to the entire article.

Therefore, I am putting the word out to the companies that already exist. The first one to create a freely-distributed newsletter (on the web, of course), which certainly can be linked to its own site where all the advertising exists, is the first one I'll read and promote. Check out the BJ21 newsletter (I bet the will send a sample issue) to see what I'm talking about.

Heck, maybe I should start it up myself.