A couple of days ago, the poker world experienced one of the biggest throwbacks we’ve seen in years, as Pokerati.com, one of the oldest brands in the industry, was revived.
Brought back by iBetMedia and the company’s CEO Tadas Peckaitis, Pokerati was one of the oldest poker blogs around, coming up during the heyday of the game.
Initially launched by Dan Michalski as a blog for his home game, the site grew to become much more, bringing together many players, people from the industry, and fans of poker from different walks of life.
Although Pokerati was a project very close to his heart, after a while, Michalski had to walk away as he got involved with other work, and he was simply not finding enough time to keep the site alive and give it the attention it deserved.
After many years, the brand has finally found a new owner willing and ready to restore it to its former glory and take it to the next level.
In Pursuit of Better Poker: Bringing Back the Memories
As mentioned, Pokerati started as a personal blog for Dan Michalski’s home game, which attracted lawyers, writers, and people from other professions who simply caught the poker bug.
After every game, players would exchange emails with each other, talking about poker hands and reliving the best moments. This inspired Dan to create an actual platform for it, and so the Pokerati blog was born.
Thanks to his background as a journalist, Michalski was able to write about the game in a way most poker bloggers at the time couldn’t, using the blog to describe the hands and interesting moments, but also learn from this analysis.
This is what originally caught the people’s eye, helping Pokerati gain some traction. Then, he started to take things to the next level, going to the WSOP to cover it. This was before big media outlets like PokerNews, and people were keen to know how big-name players of the time were doing at the Series.
From here, things continued to evolve, as they started to host tournaments at the Lodge strip club in Dallas, Texas, giving away T-shirts and hats, with the end-of-the-year tournament offering a WSOP seat for the winner.
Around this time, the Pokerati motto “In Pursuit of Better Poker” was coined, indicating what the brand and everyone around it stood for. They not only wanted to become better players, but they wanted to see the game grow and evolve.
As a part of these efforts, Dan and others from the team tried to bring legal poker to Texas. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t do it at the time, and it took another 15 years before the state finally got its official poker rooms.
The Pokerati home game was as much about playing as it was about meeting people. Over the years, Michalski developed friendly relationships with most of the players who frequented the game, and they always tried to get some pros to the club to do book signings and get in the mix.
One of the biggest things Dan is proud of is that many from the original game went on to become successful in the industry, be it as players, members of the poker media (working for companies like ESPN), or in other fields. Even Andrew Neeme, one of the biggest names in the poker vlogging space today, was in the original Pokerati mix.
Pokerati Returns in 2024
Newly launched Pokerati will seek to build on the legacy of the original brand, sticking to the original message and staying in pursuit of better poker.
The focus of the site will be primarily on the happenings in live poker: big tournament series like WSOP, EPT, WPT, Triton, and PokerGO, interesting and educational poker vlogs, and, of course, live poker streams like Hustler Casino and Poker at the Lodge.
Featuring an event calendar for upcoming tournaments and covering major stories from ongoing events, Pokerati seeks to become the go-to hub for fans and players alike, giving them quick and easy access to the latest information.
At the same time, the site brings highlights from some of the most popular vlogs from the likes of Rampage, Mariano, Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme, and others, as well as the biggest and craziest moments from popular streamed games.
The site is at the very start of its renewed journey, and it will take its full shape over the coming months, but as long as it continues down the path it set out, Pokerati stands to become a very valuable addition to the poker space!
