Poker Blog Roll, part I

I haven’t kept up with many poker blogs.  I always wanted to read a blog about a player in my area – that seemed exciting.  When I couldn’t find one (it’s not exactly the poker capitol of the world, these parts), I gave up, other than a few good threads on 2+2.  However, now that I am invested in being the blog I wanted to read, I am more inclined to check them out.  Over what looks to be a long series of intermittent posts, I will review the cornucopia of poker blogs out there, large, small, good, bad, active, dormant.

1.

http://www.sleepwiththefishesdineonthewhales.blogspot.com/

Posting Frequency: Winding down

Design: AOL

Writing quality: Reportage

Overall rating: Donkaminty

This one seems to be about a middle aged man who loves tournaments, which is of course quite a burden to overcome, but he does a yeoman’s job. Highlights of the past year are a post on the Colossus and a friend’s review of Mississippi Grind. In his best years of blogging, he put up an astounding number of posts but is likely to be less than ten percent of his peak going forward. It’s a Blogger site, so it’s going to in general be a little harder on the eyes, with its pixelated graphics and noisy sidebars, but the posts themselves are black on white with a smooth sans serif font. If this guy gets back on the horse it could be a good one – but mainly around WSOP time, based on history.

2.

http://sirfwalgman.blogspot.com/

PF: When he remembers

Design: Tiley

Writing quality: Convincing

Overall: Drunk

This guy can communicate.  His posts are well written, formatted nicely, and have great topics.

Know what bothers me about people? They never listen to me. I am not sure if it is my presentation of the material or if people are just stupid. I am ALWAYS right.

This sort of style will take you far.  However, his PF is down in penny stock area at this point. His blog design is excellent for a Blogger site, but the choice of a small font (white on dark text, no less) is just not good for extended reading, as if you’ve found a very long and interesting fortune in your cookie that you might pass to someone else to decipher. This one looks to be a highlight of the poker blogosphere – but is definitely on the wane.

3.

http://jonathanlittlepoker.com/blog/

PF: Fibrous

Design: Big picture

Writing quality: Unambiguous

Overall: Promoie

This poker celebrity blog almost doesn’t qualify but does share some characteristics of a true web log. Jonathan doesn’t date his entries, and his category links don’t work, so the purpose of his writing is less about communication and sharing than promotion.  That’s only fitting, of course, as he is a heavyweight in the poker education scene. A good place to get a flavor of what you might be paying for.

4.

http://briankoppelman.com/

PF: Only between acts

Design: Fully coherent

Writing quality: Strong

Overall: Fleeting

Brian Koppelman wrote Rounders, Tilt, and is a poker player. I like his blog because, being an artist, he has an innate sense of how the parts work with the whole. It’s a streamlined blog. He posts infrequently, literately, and persuasively… so entries can be read years after they are written. Which, unfortunately, is what you have to do, as his PF is impossible.  It’s not exactly a new script, BK!