Tell Me You Didn't See This One Coming --- The New Pamela Anderson Poker Site

--- Pamela Anderson, in a video clip announcing her new poker site. (Source: pamelaandersonpokersite.com)

"Hey, it's me, Doyle Brunson! Just kidding, it's Pamela Anderson." --- Pamela Anderson introduces herself --- and her new poker site --- in a video clip at http://pamelaandersonpokersite.com/.

She may not be Doyle Brunson, a wizened old pro at the tables, but there's no doubt that Pamela Anderson is a savvy pro in a different sort of game, that of self-promotion. The new online skin, called Pamela Poker Online, is part of the Doyle Brunson Poker Network (re: Doyle's Room), on the Tribeca Network, and is also duly tied in with promotional blurbage over at the Doyle's Room home page.

Needless to say, the two skins' selling points are a wee bit different from one another. The poker site's home page already offers links to a photo gallery and a store, plus a poker diary that doesn't look like it'll have too much from Pam herself, but rather have bits of this-'n'-that from someone writing about Pam's exploits (or lack thereof) in poker. The "news" portion of the site promises a focus on Pam, not necessarily on poker --- making it absolutely inseparable from hundreds of other sites that already do the Pam-watching, or Pam-promoting, thing to perfection.

And after all, that's what this is about. It's not the selling of poker to Pamela Anderson fans, it's the selling of Anderson to poker fans... who can safely be presumed to be largely part of the target demographic. That Pamela Anderson just tied the knot (to Kid Rock) is, in this sense, just another cog in the machine, even if it does lead to moments of hilarity. In the press release announcing the site, for instance, we are promised that Pamela will (someday, soon!) write about "why she prefers to be called 'Mrs. Rock.'"

I can find reason to live without knowing the answer to that one, although the thought of hearing the staid announcement of "Kid and Mrs. Rock" at a formal charity banquet or somesuch would almost be worth the effort.