Okay, so here’s the deal. I’ve been messing around with trying to track poker-related stuff on Twitter, specifically anything coming out of Hard Rock Cincinnati. Figured it’d be a good way to stay on top of any promos or events they’re running.
First thing I did was just head over to Twitter, now X, and started searching directly. Tried simple stuff like “Hard Rock Cincinnati Poker,” “Cincinnati Poker,” and variations of that. Honestly, it was a mess. Tons of irrelevant stuff, mostly just random people talking about poker near Cincinnati, not actual news from the Hard Rock itself.
Then I thought, “Okay, gotta be smarter about this.” I dug around and found the official Hard Rock Cincinnati Twitter account. Seemed like the most obvious place to start, right? But they don’t tweet specifically about poker all that often. Mostly general casino stuff, concerts, restaurant deals… you know, the usual corporate feed.
So, I started looking for unofficial accounts. You know, the kind run by poker room staff or even just dedicated players who are super active. That took some digging. I tried searching for hashtags like #HardRockCincinnatiPoker, #CincinnatiPokerRoom, #OhioPoker, stuff like that. That was slightly better, but still a lot of noise. I did manage to find a couple of accounts that seemed promising – guys who were regularly posting updates about tournaments and cash game action.
Here’s where it got a little more involved. I wanted a way to track this stuff without constantly refreshing Twitter. So, I started looking into Twitter lists. I created a private list specifically for Hard Rock Cincinnati poker info and added those promising accounts I found. That was a HUGE improvement. I could just check that list periodically and see only the relevant tweets.
Then I thought it would be really nice to be able to get notifications when something important came out. Twitter notifications are a pain, so I tried IFTTT, I set up a rule where any time a new tweet was posted from one of those accounts on my list, I’d get an email notification. That worked pretty well for a while. But, after X made some changes to their API IFTTT no longer worked.
Finally, I decided to use a web scraper, built in Python, to target specific keywords in tweets from my list. The script runs automatically and delivers the info to my email, it is pretty ugly but it gets the job done.
Lessons Learned:
- Official accounts aren’t always the best source for niche info.
- Unofficial accounts and dedicated players are goldmines.
- Twitter lists are your friend.
Overall, it’s been a bit of a process, but I’m finally at a point where I feel like I’m getting a decent handle on what’s happening in the Hard Rock Cincinnati poker scene. It’s all about filtering out the noise and finding the right sources.
