If you are going to play online, I think the best thing to do is to play at all the various poker rooms to find the one you are most comfortable with. However, I guarantee that all but a few of you will try one or two at most. That's where a review site would be useful. Read several. I liked Poker Tips because it had reviews of the major sites and information I want to know such as the play at Full Tilt Poker is tight. However, without knowing when the reviews were written, it is hard to judge whether the information is timely. In comparison, FlopTurnRiver.com lists the number of players as of a certain date and has reviews of the newer sites such as GamesGrid. You will only get a good picture by reading a lot of these sites and none of it will match the experience at playing of the various sites.

If it's news you want, check out the straight press release style reports at Online Poker News. The reports are updated regularly and you do not have to dig through the bells and whistles to get to them.

Though I prefer online play, I've played in poker rooms in Southern California and Las Vegas. This week, we head across the country to the poker room at Foxwoods, the largest resort casino in the world. Look for the report in my next column.

Checkraise is a regular poker column by Justene Adamec. It appears every other Friday.