New B&M FAQ?

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

Wondering about a Vegas cardroom FAQ. It would focus on games offered and amenities, and not so much on whether Bellagio is better than Wynn for 15/30 on weekdays.

I would think something like what www.cheapovegas.com has on each poker room would suffice. I think this might help out with some of the "Which poker room has the best low-limit games" stuff.

Of course, it will also spur a flurry of arguments over whether the comfy chairs at Wynn really are that much better than the chairs at whatever other casino has comfy chairs, etc.

[BottlesOf]

I think we defintitely need something like this. I'm planning on cutting down the current one (eventually) to make it a little more readable.

Maybe a sticky with links to the pokerroom wiki and cheapovegas and things like that?

[Mat Sklansky]

Mason doesn't want links to other sites in any faqs.

[citanul]

Mason doesn't want links to other sites in any faqs.

does this mean that my FAQ needs to be heavilly editted? (there's lots of links out of here, but we've discussed this possibility previously, so i'll be fine making the edits if that's what's necessary.)

citanul

[Mat Sklansky]

Things like pokertracker, which are commercial products we don't want direct links to. You can link to a thread where someone else links, however. Things like two dimes and bison's hand converter are fine.

[BottlesOf]

What about purely informational content like cheapovegas.com and the poker wiki. These sites aren't commercial and provide free information, although I believe they may sell advertising.

[Mat Sklansky]

I'd have to look at the Wiki. Cheapovegas is probbaly OK, buit with a link like that, I need some kind of a disclaimer.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi BigBaitsim (milo):

My position is that I'm very uncomfortable with all these FAQs. The problem is that whatever we say has the potential to damage our "honest broker" status and our ability to constructively criticize.

Here's a simple example. Suppose we say that the major cardrooms in Vegas are Wynn, Belagio, and Mirage. While this is certainly the case, other cardrooms might resent this. Furthermore, the order of how we mention these big three could be a source of complaint.

Put another way, we are not, as I see it, in the supplying basic information business. We are however, in the discussion business. For example, I don't have any problem with any of us saying in a post that Cardroom A has more comfortable chairs than Cardroom B. (In fact, we encourage this sort of thing.) But I do have a problem with a FAQ that makes this exact same statement since it may now appear that Two Plus Two is officially endorsing Cardroom A over Cardroom B.

What has happened is that this site now has a great deal of power to influence many different things related to poker. We need to be very careful that we do this correctly so that (again) we don't effect our honest broker status.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi citanul:

Our policy is to direct our readers to those things that are good and away from those things that are bad. Unfortunately, when you link to a site it may contain a mixture, or just not in general be up to our standards. We also need to be very careful of linking to commercial sites since it now appears to be an official Two Plus Two endorsement.

So as Matty points out, something like Bison's hand converter is fine, but Poker Tracker is not.

Thanks,
mason

[Mason Malmuth]

HI Mat and everyone else:

I actually have cheapovegas bookmarked on my computer. (For Mat's eyes only: It was either do that or forget about your pay raise.) Probably the way to handle this is for someone to compile a list of all possible sites that the FAQ's, etc. might want to link to, and we can look at them. If acceptable we can then add them to our favorite links page, and once a site is on our favorite links, there would be no problem to having someone else link to it in a FAQ or post.

For instance, since ConJelCo is on our links page, it would be available to anyone for anything. Since Cardoza Publishing does not appear, it would not be available for any official links.

Best wishes,
Mason