The value in domain names like this is down to a) the value to the buyer and b) the potential for earning created through development IMHO. Unfortunately the names are not particularly memorable – there are many like them – although one or two could be branded in the right hands i guess.
If you develop them into useful portals with unique content and get decent SERPS, then that will increase the value, but as stand-alone domain names my guess is most won’t sell for much beyond the Reg Fee. The issue here is that unless someone specifically wants THAT name, they can simply register close variants, or buy them cheap somewhere like Namepros. There is some strength in the .com extensions, but for example taking “pokergameforum” as one of the more obvious ones, someone could easily register “poker-game-forums”. Plus you’ll have confused identity between the two as both will obviously be doing a similar thing.
The strength of a succesful money-earning website is in the “brand” it builds, and the domain name should be part of that branding. Sure, having keywords in a domain name can help, for now at least, but at the end of the day a branding excercise needs to deliver quality content in an easily brandable form to encorage loyalty and long-term value. Look at the name Amazon.com – nothing to do with books. Ebay – auctions? Yahoo – search? Google. Expedia. etc. How many websites do you use regularly that have domains totally unrelated to the content…quite a lot i’d guess as they have chosen snappy names which people remember easily and thats the foundation on which they’ve built up such a following. Although most of the good ones are gone, there are still some good ones if you put the effort in (or use a dropfinder – lol). I got a good one on Friday (albeit with some help from someone else’s friendly brain!)
That said, you can still brand domain names which are more OnTopic well. TripAdvisor, LastMinute and in our field, Casinomeister and CasinoChoice are perhaps good examples of that – but that is “niche” branding and probably not known to the layman.
Sorry – i’m going a bit OT here, but you get my gist I’m sure
I buy up domain names regularly and i’ll pay decent bucks if need be, but with the odd exception, i’ve gone for names i feel people will remember and if they like what i have, they’ll remember to come back
IF.
To your original question, StellarPoker and ChipRankings strike me as the best brandable names there, but speaking personally, i’d probably look for something stronger. WPTnews might have some mileage in it in the longer term too.
Cheers
Simmo!