I’m talking, of course, about Doyle Brunson, the man behind DoylesRoom.com, a leading online poker website and one that remains among U.S. players’ favorite destinations. (The site switched networks earlier this year in an attempt to keep its site available to American players.)

Writing in ESPN.com yesterday, Gary Wise offers a lengthy treatise on just what makes Doyle the living legend we regard him as. Calling him “poker’s Babe Ruth”, Wise goes on to credit Doyle with a lot of poker’s current popularity, stating that he was “responsible for educating the masses” about the game before it was popular to do so.

“Brunson now stands on the precipice of the 40th installment of the World Series of Poker, the master of all he surveys,” writes Wise. “He’s watched as the WSOP has gone from a seven-player excuse to drum up cash game action in 1970 to the 8,773-player extravaganza we saw in 2006; from a family business to a corporate one. He’s had a table-side view of every major development in the history of poker’s marquee event.”

Even if it’s familiar territory, it’s a fascinating article, and we’re glad to see Doyle get this level of praise. Read it here.

Coming this summer, entertainment company Comcast will air a new reality show called “2 Months, $2 Million,” which will follow the ups and downs of four Internet poker players who, using their own money, try to win up a big sum of cash through online competition.

“What makes ‘2 Months’ intriguing is the duality of the guys,” Neal Tiles, president of Comcast’s G4 division told Variety magazine. “On the surface, each comes across as just your average G4 viewer but, in reality, they’re sharks playing for keeps with big money and living a lifestyle our viewers can only dream of. This [is] what we intend to capture.”

The series will consist of ten episodes, each a half-hour long, and is scheduled to begin in August. For more information, please click here.

So, my question to you: Is this a story you’re interested in? As poker affiliates, is the online poker legal situation a story you follow, or do you just pursue players from countries where there are no legal problems? Do you think that, if California legalizes online poker, it could have a ripple effect that leads to the UIGEA being overturned?

For more info on the California poker situation, click here.

It’s been months since these two poker superstars kicked off their pot-limit Omaha match-up, and people are still excited about all the twists and turns it’s taking. Antonius is currently winning, with a lead of about $60,000 over his opponent. But that, of course, is likely to change. (If you’re looking for a great play-by-play recap, check out Nicole Gordon’s write-up over at PokerNews.com.)

So, is this tournament big enough news to benefit affiliates? The short answer should be yes — by creating some unique content on your site publicizing the event, and maybe implementing some SEO adjustments, you may be able to entice people following this story to play a few hands of poker via your site’s affiliate programs. Smart affiliates should have no trouble at all turning this popular story into increased web traffic and affiliate sign-ups.

And perhaps they already are! If you’ve got some news to report on how this big match-up has contributed to your traffic or affiliate success, we’d love to hear about it; sound off in the comments and let us know.

In addition to being a nice source of info for poker players to learn tips straight from one of the game’s biggest names, there may be another benefit to the column, as well. As a prominent New Jersey Senator works to overturn several gambling bans in his state and nationwide, Hellmuth’s new column could act as a valuable PR tool for the game and help to increase its popularity among voters in the Garden State. More on that story here.

Or is that wishful thinking? Hellmuth is well-liked, even with the nickname “The Brat,” but will his probably-lighthearted column be enough to win over the East coast anti-poker crowd? That remains to be seen.

Click here to check out Hellmuth’s column.

Over at the Poker Player newpaper, writer Jennifer Newell makes a good case for why it matters for us to pay attention. She also nicely summarizes what factors currently in play could eventually get the act removed from American law books.

Stressing that the act has had a disastrous effect on the revenue of the poker industry as a whole — and, therefore, on poker affiliates, as well — Newell starts out by reminding us how offshore banks like Neteller had little choice but to abandon the U.S. after the UIGEA’s implementation. The effect was that the entire United States economy lost revenue not only from Internet poker, but from the banking, advertising, and sponsorship services associated with it.

What’s more, Newell reminds us how the UIGEA has had a somewhat positive on the industry in terms of engaging poker players to become more politically active. “The poker industry spoke up,” she writes. “In turn, people of influence began to speak for us. The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) grew into an organization of more than one million members and gained former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato as its Chairman. Members of the House of Representatives like Barney Frank and Ron Paul saw the UIGEA for the intrusive, prohibition-like law that it was and began efforts to reverse or change it. And for what it might be worth, the United States elected poker-playing President Barack Obama.”

She then moves on to the three key positive factors that the anti-UIGEA advocates are most relying upon: President Obama’s power to overturn the Bush administration’s last-minute implementation of UIGEA in 2008; Barney Frank’s commitment to undermining and, if possible, eliminating the law; and the current economic recession that makes any added revenue streams immensely attractive — including, possibly, revenue that could be gained from taxing a newly legalized online poker industry.

Newell is smart to acknowledge that the success of these anti-UIGEA movements will depend heavily on “the unpredictability of politicians and the political process” — and that’s a pretty big wild card, given the United State’s often secretive and, let’s face it, underhanded law-making processes.

So, she ends on a note that calls on the players and affiliates to speak up for their rights:

“One major factor that will be necessary to sway the odds in the favor of the poker industry is the voices of the masses. It is more important than ever that we get involved, especially by letting members of Congress—and President Obama—know how we feel. The Poker Players Alliance provides easy access to governmental representatives. Visit www.PokerPlayersAlliance.org for more information.”

Click here to read the original article over at Poker Player.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #1 – Chastity – Like I wrote yesterday about “Lust”, this is probably the virtue which is least applicable to running a poker webmaster business. Most people think of chastity as abstinence from sex, but what it actually refers to is staying within the norms of sexual behavior in a particular society or religion. Societal norms have changed dramatically over the last 30 years though, so most people are probably well within the “norms” now anyway. At any rate, don’t blow all your money on porn and prostitutes, and you’ll have a more successful poker webmaster business.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #2 – Temperance – This is the opposite of gluttony. It means self-control and moderation. A temperate poker webmaster gets enough links to competed, but not so many links that she gets penalized. Temperate also includes the concept of “mindfulness”, which is an important value in the practice of Zen. Mindfulness just means paying attention to what you’re doing. It should be obvious how that would make you more effective in business.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #3 – Charity – The opposite of the sin of greed is charity. But when Christians talk about “charity”, they’re not talking about unselfish giving. It actually means love, and not romantic love. They’re talking about the kind of love that the the Greek called “Agape”. This is the “love thy neighbor” kind of love. And caring about other people is an effective business strategy. Look at any business that’s had a “blog storm” of criticism surrounding it, and then notice how most of their problems come from not seeming to “care” about their customers.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #4 – Diligence – Chastity might be the virtue that least applies to being a poker affiliate. Diligence is clearly the most applicable virtue. Diligence applies to having a strong work ethic, managing your time, and being careful in your work. (I ask my employees, “Did you double check your work?” all the time.) When I post to this blog every day, I’m being diligent. When I take 2 or 3 days off, I’m being slothful. The benefits of diligence versus slothfulness are obvious.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #5 – Patience – This is the opposite of wrath. You’ll be a lot more effective in any negotiation if you’re committed to resolving situations peacefully. And when you have a lot of poker traffic, you WILL be put in situations where you have to negotiate. Patience also refers to your ability to forgive others. That comes in handy when a program changes their terms and conditions. Someone who’s wrathful might decide to never promote that program no matter what, but someone who’s patient might decide to give them a second chance. That second chance might turn out to be a really profitable move.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #6 – Kindness – This is the opposite of envy. Being willing to help others and just plain be nice to others is almost a forgotten art. Just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean you should be mean to them. Just because someone is doing better in the search engine rankings to you doesn’t mean you should be mean to them either. Show a little kindness, and you might be surprised at some of the kindness that is shown to you. I’ve seen some people say that our industry is so hyper-competitive that it’s impossible to build “natural links”, but I disagree. Some people in this industry are selfish and envious, but not all of them are. And the best way to lead is by example. Be kind, and others will learn how to be kind from your example. Then the whole industry benefits.

Poker Webmaster Virtue #7 – Humility – This is my favorite virtue, and maybe it’s because I’ve got so much to be humble about. Humble poker webmasters don’t think they’re better or more important than others. They’re modest. They say that pride goeth before a fall, and I can confirm that this is true. Whenever I make the mistake of being proud or thinking I’m better than someone else, I pay for it. Usually I pay for it sooner rather than later, too.

Tomorrow I’ll probably write about being a poker webmaster from a Buddhist perspective or something. No, really. I’m serious.

This discussion seems to be about morals and/or ethics, but I’m actually taking a pragmatic, practical approach to the subject. My aim is to point out how avoiding the seven deadly sins while running a poker site can make your more money with less stress. In this way, I hope for this post to be as practical and useful as the one about how to run a poker blog network or the one about how to build one way links to your poker site.

Deadly Sin #1 – Lust

From a poker webmaster perspective, this is one of the least harmful sins. But I’ll share a story about a site I operated once, a gambling news blog. I hired a manager to post to and operate the site, and he posted there several times daily for 18 months. I paid him to do this, mind you. He eventually started posting a “babe of the day” in order to build traffic and interest to the site. It worked too. We got lots of traffic to the site. But the site made no money, maybe $300 in its best month. Even though the site got 500-1000 visitors a day. The point? Lust doesn’t convert gambling traffic into sales.

And it goes without saying that if you blow all your money chasing sex, you won’t have any money to reinvest in your business.

Deadly Sin #2 – Gluttony

Gluttony means to overconsume anything to the point of being wasteful. Most people think of gluttony as being applied to food and eating, which is a common use, but it can also apply to more applicable poker webmaste behaviors like buying links, for example. Buying a link or two here or there might not destroy your rankings or your business. But being a link buying glutton can have drastic consequences. Ask someone who ranked #1 for an extremely important phrase who got Google-slapped for being a link buying glutton how it feels to rank no higher than 51 in the results for even the most obscure phrase, then think about whether or not you want to be a link glutton.

Moderation is key when building links. Your goal should be to have “enough” links. Most poker webmasters are link gluttons, because they think they can never have enough links.

Deadly Sin #3 – Greed

I think most poker webmasters would agree with Gordon Gekko that “Greed is good.” I agree with that too.

But just like gluttony, it’s the “excess” aspect that makes it a sin. Greedy webmasters don’t want to help other webmasters, and eventually they destroy all the friendships and working relationships they might have in the industry. Greedy poker webmasters won’t link to other sites without getting paid back in some way, either via money, or via links in return. Greedy poker webmasters always have to get the better end of every deal. That kind of greed doesn’t make you more profitable, not in the long run, anyway.

Deadly Sin #4 – Sloth

Sloth means excessive laziness. This one seems obvious; if you never work on your website, then you won’t make money. But some slothful webmasters also steal other people’s content, or they use some kind of automated content generator to post to their blogs, or they run scripts which insert their links into signatures in forums or blogs somewhere. None of those “strategies” result in a long term profitable poker website.

Deadly Sin #5 – Wrath

Wrath is excessive anger, and I see this sin all the time in the poker community. Being angry enough to warn people about doing business with a company you find distasteful isn’t a sin. Being angry about getting screwed over on a deal and trying to get the situation made right isn’t a sin either.

Anger is a sin when it becomes excessive. If you become so wrathful that you’re calling people names like “fatass”, “dumb”, “dweeb”, or “idiot” then you’re ruining your credibility as a professional. And it hurts your credibility even when the name-calling is accurate. And worst of all, it increases the likelihood that you won’t solve whatever problem you’re angry about.

Most decent affiliate programs don’t want to deal with people who are constantly angry. There will always be something to get mad about in this industry, but if you spend all your time on forums working out that anger by trying to gun down other people, your own success is going to suffer. Look at how much time and effort some people put into threads about affiliate programs who have terms and conditions they don’t agree with. That’s wrath.

Wrath isn’t constructive.

Wrath isn’t profitable.

Wrath doesn’t solve problems.

Deadly Sin #6 – Envy

It’s one thing to look at someone’s website and say to yourself, “Gosh, I wish my site were doing that well, and I wish my business were that strong.” and to look at someone else’s site or business and say to yourself, “If I can’t be as successful as they are, I’m going to bring them down.” People who spend all their time complaining about corruption in certain volunteer-edited directories are envious of the people listed there. And rather than do the work involved in gettting their listings, like becoming a volunteer themselves, or doing the work on their site to make it listable, they’d rather try to tear down someone else’s hard work. Webmasters who try to “Googlebowl” their competitors out of the SERP’s also demonstrate envy in amazing amounts.

All of that time and energy should be used to try to improve your own website instead.

Deadly Sin #7 – Pride

I’m amazed at the amount of pride that some people in this industry demonstrate. I see webmasters who have no contact information and no about us information on their websites complaining about other webmasters’ lack of “transparency”. I see people who have no problem buying their way to the top of the search engine results complaining about the business ethics of other webmasters. I read a story in the Bible somewhere where Jesus told the person without sin to cast the first stone. I’m sure He’d be impressed with the state of our industry right now. Plenty of people are proud as can be of their roles in judging others right now.

I’d rather spend my time trying to help someone new who’s having trouble getting started in the industry. Or writing content that someone somewhere might find useful or helpful. Or coordinating a sensible solution to a problem.

Excess, Moderation, Profits, and Stress

Refusing to do business with a company when you disagree with their business practices is sensible. Being so proud that you think you can judge other people and try to destroy them and their livelihood is something else entirely.

Being angry if you feel like you’ve been wronged is natural. Being so wrathful that you start denigrating people with vicious namecalling and constant attacks is something else entirely.

All of the seven deadly sins are about excess. Everyone who gets penalized by a search engine gets penalized for doing something “excessive”.

The opposite of “excess” is moderation. Avoiding extremes and avoiding intensity tends to make poker webmasters more profitable and less stressful. If you’re a “sinner”, then give moderation a try sometime, and see if you don’t make money money with less stress.

This formula for running a poker blog network is for people who are good at and who like writing poker content. It’s also aimed at someone who wants to make a lot of money without hiring any employees or contractors, and who want to keep their costs to a minimum. The entire budget for this project I’m outlining is only about $350.

Running a Poker Blog Network Step 1 – Find five domains in five different poker niches.

If it were me, I would launch 5 poker blogs about the following 5 poker niches:

1. Texas holdem
2. Omaha
3. Stud
4. Poker news
5. Online poker sites

I’d go ahead and use domain names that were similar if I felt like it, so that I could build a brand. At the same time, if I had good ideas for different names for the five blogs, then I’d run with those instead. It doesn’t really make too much of a difference. You’re looking at a cost of about $10 per domain in registrations, and then another $50 or so for hosting each year.

You could also host all of your poker blogs on a free host, like blogspot or wordpress, but I don’t recommend it. But if you really want to bootstrap yourself from $0 to a lot of money, instead of from $350 to a lot of money, this is one way to do it. The disadvantages of hosting with blogspot or wordpress is the potential loss of data or downtime of your site if something goes wrong. If you have your own domain and host, then you don’t have to worry about it so much.

Use one of the free templates. Don’t worry about a lot of plug-ins for SEO purposes or anything else; they’re not as important as people let on. Put Google Analytics on the site so you can see what keyword phrases send you traffic.

Running a Poker Blog Network Step 2 – Set up a production schedule and start writing content.

Your goal is to post at least once a day to each of the five blogs. That’s 25 blog posts a week. If you spend an hour on each post, then you’re only working 25 hours a week on producing content. Your blog posts should be keyword-focused and unique. They don’t have to be brilliant, but they should be unique. When you get stuck for content, look at what other people in the poker industry are talking about on their blogs and forums, and express your opinions and thoughts on those issues.

When you do this, be sure to link out freely from within your posts. The people running these other blogs and forums will start to notice that you’re talking about them, and they’ll start talking about you too. You’ll get readers this way. And you’ll get links. Feel free to link to and from specific posts on your other blogs when appropriate too. For example, if you post about the WSOP Omaha winner in your poker news blog, mention and link to that article from withing your post on the Omaha blog too. Or if you post about Texas holdem starting hand strategy on the holdem blog, link to your post about Omaha 8 starting hand strategy from within it, and vice versa.

Shoot for between 500 and 1000 words per post, but don’t be afraid to go longer or shorter if that’s what the content demands.

Make it clear who you are when you write these posts. Don’t try to hide the fact that these five poker blogs all belong to you. It’s unnecessary and makes you look like you have something to hide, and you don’t.

Running a Poker Blog Network Step 3 – Get publicity.

The best way to get publicity to your blog network is to participate in poker forums and poker blogs. Use your blog’s name as your posting handle, or use your real name when you participate, and then use that as your handle on the forums and blogs. If a signature link is allowed, then feel free to include a link to one or more of your blogs. Link all of your blogs together from the sidebar. Don’t worry about getting penalized for crosslinking your sites. You have nothing to hide.

Find new poker bloggers and webmasters, and offer to help them with content on their sites. If you provide them with content and help when they’re starting out, then getting links and publicity for your site will be no problem. Link to a few of the best resources you can find on the particular poker niche for that blog from the sidebar. You’ll become part of the poker blogging community, and that will result in traffic and money.

If you have the time and money, submit your blog to a dozen or so blog and website directories.

Running a Poker Blog Network Step 4 – Monetize your blogs.

Offer advertising or sign up for affiliate programs, and then include the ads on your blog. Shoot for one or two ads per page. You don’t want to look like a bunch of blogs that are just there to create advertising money for yourself. Your blogs should be about poker, not about your ads.

Don’t sell text links. That just cheapens your blog and creates search engine risk. Link to bloggers, sites, and pages you like, and do it liberally, but don’t whore this stuff out. It’s more profitable to keep that aspect of your blog clean.

Running a Poker Blog Network Step 4 – Keep adding content according to your keyword referral logs.

Remember how I suggested that you use Google Analytics? You’ll be able to see what people are finding your site for. Use that information to come up with fresh new topics to talk about. Or display how much you care about the same topics your readers do by writing about them multiple times.

This is a recipe for a profitable poker blog network. Most of the steps and the philosophy apply just as well to running a network of poker microsites as well, or poker minisites, or whatever you want to call them.

A microsite on the same topic would focus on a single starting hand. A great poker microsite might be a 2 page site about “how to play pocket aces”. The homepage could feature information about how to play pocket aces before the flop in various situations. Then the 2nd page could feature information about how to play pocket aces after the flop in various situations.

Another example of a microsite would be a site that focuses specifically on a particular poker room’s signup bonus. I know a lot of poker webmasters do pretty well with such sites, but I always though that was a lame strategy. (But I’m a “write lots of content” geek.)

So what are the benefits of running poker microsites? For one thing, they can focus on specific keyword phrases in a way that big content websites and minisites might not be able to do. “HowToPlayPocketAces.com” is such a focused domain name that it almost wouldn’t make sense to include much more information than the two pages I outlined before. And with Google giving extra weight to exact match domains without hyphens these days, that can make ranking easy. Sometimes it’s nice to get an immediate and resounding win, and that’s a confidence builder for a new webmaster.

Another benefit of a poker microsite strategy is that you can focus on highly profitable phrases in a tightly-focused way. “GenericPokerRoomBonus.com” is a high conversion phrase. The amount of money you can make per 1000 visitors to a site focused on that phrase is naturally going to be a lot higher than what you would make from a poker basics tutorial site, just because the intent of a searcher looking for a specific poker room’s bonus is going to lead to a higher conversion rate. “How to play poker” might be a great, high-traffic phrase, but it’s not going to convert nearly as well as “pokerstars marketing code”.

One caveat about this second type of poker microsite though: most online poker cardrooms do not allow you to use their trademark or name in your domain. Some of them used to allow this, and some webmaster violate this policy, but it’s always best to doublecheck with the program before launching a microsite like this.

Keep in mind too that a company’s policy regarding using their trademark in your domain can change. I used to own a great Party Poker microsite, and I had their permission to do so as long as I agreed to use the domain just to promote their site, but they changed strategy and seized the domain. Golden Palace did the same thing eventually. The lesson to take away from this experience is that even when you get permission to run such a poker microsite, it’s usually a short-term source of earnings from a program.