Years ago, back before the U.S. government bit us all in the ass with their protection theory — in other words, we couldn’t handle the mindless gambling beast that lives within us and the UIGEA was signed into law — I had the dream of having a poker blogosphere here at PokerWorks.  We did start with some of the most well-read poker bloggers at the time:

IGGY at PokerWorks
Michael Craig’s Journal
Quest of a Closet Poker Player
Calistri’s Corner
Dr. Dad’s Poker Thesis
My Poker Life
Witches Brew Poker Stew
Poker Perambulation
Change100
Chasing Chris Ferguson
Grubby at PokerWorks
Joe Speaker
Maudie at PokerWorks

But then the UIGEA wiped the slate and somewhere, somehow, PokerWorks was branded by Google as a Black Hat site after a programmer tripped some trigger or the ‘screw you fairy’ just decided to fuck with my mind and blew it all out into universe. So…my dream went down without a whimper.  We had a few bloggers that stayed with us but eventually the only one left was me.

Things just work better if you have a team — that’s my opinion — but a team of bloggers that keep the information flowing with new ideas and great reading could have built the blog city I really wanted to say I helped create and as it is, I’m now ‘IT” at PokerWorks and I post but much too infrequently and it’s never quite as interesting as the content I used to write about when I was a poker dealer.

With all of that being said, I have a new project in mind.  I don’t even know if it will fly or if it’s a busto.  This is partly where you, my readers, come into the picture so follow along and leave me a comment.

The world always focuses on ‘the player’ as if there is no other part to the landscape of poker and the flaw with that — in my thinking — is that every piece of the picture that creates a poker game — players, dealers, floor people, chip runners, cashiers, cocktail servers, railbirds, and sweaters are all part of the game.  Poker is a game of players like the pieces in a chess game.

What I would like to do is run a series of articles (not blogs) on PokerWorks that would be written by poker dealers, including me, but the articles would have to conform to what I believe the game of poker is all about, hence, the following list as to what they would/could contain and what they cannot contain:

1. Bitching allowed but only if it’s not a rag on a particular player or casino that would be just a bitch session. If the ‘bitching’ is written to give focus to an issue that could be solved and the depth of the ‘bitch’ is detailed out so it’s not a personal issue but a situation that could appear in ‘any-card-room’ and writing it out could teach others to work through the problem instead of letting the issue fester without resolution. (did any of that make sense?)

2. Listing players by name would be allowed if that would lend more credence to the point – but do choose wisely how you intend to represent yourself because your writing will have to be approved by me and you don’t want to come across as a retard that pitches tickets around the table with no social skills or knowledge of what your job position entails.

3. Funny stories are allowed and humor laced with sarcasm is recommended when it comes to expressing a POV.

4. Only articles from a dealer POV will be accepted.

5. There is no payment given for any submissions published.

6. In order to submit an article, you must have general writing skills and be able to express your thoughts and ideas to a world-wide audience.

7. You must supply me with a legitimate email address, the place/places you have dealt, give factual details, and sign the article in blood.  Just kidding about the blood. You may request to have your article published under ‘Anonymous’ and I will never give up your information to anyone but keep in mind that your writing has more impact if you’re willing to put your name on it.

You can write about your favorite home poker game (as long as you deal in it), players, rules, management, where you believe poker will be in the future, poker history in your area, language barriers, tipping and tip compliance, wages, employee benefits, tournaments, cash games, the difference between the sexes at the green felt, and on, and on, and on. The only way to find out if your article will be published is to write one and send it to me at this email address: geenen(at)pokerworks.com.

I may have missed something, and that’s where I’m counting on comments.  If you think of anything that would make this section of PokerWorks more appealing and interesting, please leave a comment.  If you would send this link to anyone you know that has dealt or is currently a dealer, I would appreciate it very much.

I need a name for the category…leave your comments on that too.