What Makes a Good Poker Blog? (Summary)

Since we're leaving tomorrow for Tunica, I'm going to just touch on each one of these a bit. I may elaborate more when we return.

Once again, this is what I, personally, think makes a good poker blog. It's subjective.

1) Don't post bad beat stories
2) Don't post hand histories
3) Don't whine about losses
4) Don't post pics of kids or pets
5) Give your opinion
6) Are you a poker journal, or not?
7) Try to act serious about your play
8) If you are going to enable comments, actually REPLY when someone leaves one

1) I covered yesterday, to much anger and hysteria among the blogger community, lol.

2) Hand histories are complicated to read through. Use a converter, or better yet, tell a narrative. If you aren't literate enough to walk us through a hand, you probably shouldn't have a public poker journal.

3) Everyone loses. Whether you are running bad or playing bad, no one wants to listen to you whine. Take your variance like a man and buck up. Just tell us you lost, and let that be that. You don't have to whine about how badly you are running (or more likely, playing).

4) This is a personal one. Lots of people like cute little pics of pets and kids. I don't. If you see "me" playing online with a stupid little dog avatar, blame Glenn.

5) Opinion is the whole concept of keeping a public poker journal. It's YOUR journal. It's about YOU. We can get watered down media anywhere. We want to hear about YOU, for good or bad. Don't back down, state your opinion.

6) Do you keep a poker journal? Or are you a politician? Keep politics, kids, pets, religion, marriage and other topics off of your journal if you advertise yourself as a "poker journal." There are obvious exceptions, like if your wins or losses have to do with something personal in your life. Or if something "political" is threatening your livelihood of online professional playing. A personal anecdote can also be used as a segue into your post, and is done very successfully on many poker blogs. But if you find that over 25% of your posts aren't about poker, change the name and description of your blog.

7) Giggly goo-goo about playing the beer hand and cracking aces is cute the FIRST TIME. It ceases to be cute when 50% of your blog describes you getting wasted and showing down 72o in order to tilt the table. Table screen shots, distorted and demeaning pics, losing buy-in after buy-in at small stakes while purposely playing like a monkey aren't cute when posted more than once. Save the comedy for another type of blog, not a serious poker blog.

8) This one is so obvious that I don't have to elaborate. Then again, after yesterday's fiasco, perhaps I do. Reading comprehension seems to be non-existent these days. If you enable comments, and someone leaves you an encouraging one, an informative one, or compliments you on something, it is generally GOOD ETIQUETTE to respond. If you keep ignoring comments, you can watch your sitemeter bomb like a California mudslide.

Felicia :)