This morning we were asked to analyse two websites, from the standpoint of their content and the quality of their services and PR strategy; we are referring to NoticiasPoker and Escuela de Poker pokersapiens.

We do not usually publish this type of analysis, but today it seemed to us that it could be a good initiative. In short, almost all heavy users of online games have learned how to play through daily practice, often harsh. Gaming sites offered tutorials, but nothing beyond introductory videos, a brief “follow these steps”, and, of course, a forum where you could post your questions. Pokersapiens has taken it a step further: from its page you can, in addition… I have some games installed and some websites I access to play, and just yesterday I discovered NoticiasPoker. Let’s analyse it a bit. Noticias Poker has a poker school that pokersapiens.es has just launched.

It struck us as a good PR strategy: they launch a product and, in parallel, a page where you can build yourself up as a poker expert. This helps them understand how the world works and then they show you the tool where you play. All from a perspective of professionalism, transparency, and fair play. A perfect plan.

To enter the school, you must register as a student; therefore, it is not something anonymous—those behind it are identified and fraud is prevented. They leave a channel open for questions to Bedel (on this side we achieve transparency and a human touch—there is someone behind it who answers you), as well as professionalism.
To have resources available at any time, they have opened the poker library (as in any good educational centre) and a community space so that students can access it and keep online activity going. The tutorials section is very good, as is the café-style chat so you can discuss the hand.

Once enrolled—again, the internet is not anonymous—you can access materials and, as added value, in Spanish, since we always find poker topics in English.

The idea here is to generate a better image for the poker product and to clean up the image of the entire sector. We have already seen more brands such as caradepoker.

As for the product itself, NoticiasPoker—or rather, the tool where the game will take place—has several sections, always following the same content and training strategy: professionalism. The News section seems really comprehensive; it has a part dedicated to Strategy where it discusses different ways of playing from different players, and it also covers venues such as casinos and clubs. It also provides Tips and offers interviews with top players and industry professionals.

It has its own live poker room where it offers a live cash guide; until now I had only seen this on caradepoker.com, but here they seem to push the topic further.

Regarding this tool, I would highlight a section called Poker Hands, where they discuss the most typical mistakes and leave an open space to comment on questionable hands with more experienced players, so that people can get advice and feedback to help them correct errors.

Another section is Players: it is a place where you can find your ideal opponent, a space where you can see how many poker professionals there are in Spain and how many are semi-professionals. From this section you can find different players via the search tool or view them all directly.

At Onbranding, we view this change in the online sector positively. We must all work together to ensure that ethics are rewarded and placed above everything else in the market, and that is why we encourage more people to analyse this product and, of course, to try it.