The Online Poker Community

One phenomenon that online poker engendered is the online poker community.  While it is true that poker communities such as "rec.gambling.poker" were present before online poker proliferated, players became much more involved in strategic discussions online once online poker became widespread.

This blogger postualates that this occurred for the following reasons. First, the Internet became an avenue for players to access all things poker.  Many poker magazines established themselves online to capitalize on the growing popularity.  This meant that players not only had places to play online, but they also had a place to read strategic articles.  Eventually, these publications came out with live tournament reporting, podcast, user forums, and other various forms of what is now called "pokertainment," a term coined by Pokerroad.com's CEO and professional poker player, Joe Sebok.

Once user forums became available an widely used, members could connect with other poker enthusiasts from across the globe.

Currently, the largest poker community is twoplustwo.com.  Twoplustwo forums are divided over a plethora of subjects, ranging from poker strategy and gossip, to general lifestyle and joke forums.  This community is filled with professional poker players, some who've become psuedo celebrities, who routinely post strategic opinions and answer questions about rumors that have sprung up.

Twoplustwo's biggest accomplishment as a community was uncovering a cheating scandal that was happening at a major online poker site, UltimateBet.com.  Through a series of data analyses and a few missteps from the site, players gradually came to the (now proven) conclusion that there were a handful of people who had "super user" capabilities, meaning they were able to see every player's cards throughout the hand, giving them an insurmountable edge.  Some players lost millions of dollars. Players were eventually refunded, however those players still speculate they were not refunded the full amount.

You can view the thread in its entirety here:    http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/superusers-silence-how-ultimatebet-let-players-get-cheated-millions-208114/

In closing, the Internet has become a place for poker players to interact internationally. Often, playing poker is seen as a vice or charachter flaw.  The Internet gave poker players a place interact with others who shared the same interest, besides brick & mortar casinos.  Because of this, these communities flourished and even became powerful enough to expose a corporate scandal.