Thanks but I would have been more impressed if they actually knew what MHB stood for.

Nice going.

http://pir.org/node/405

Obviously, this is “the” one-word category killing name, thus the price.
As far as .org, I’ve never subscribed to the com/net/org TLD hierarchy. Matter of fact, in most situations, I will take a .org over a .net, presuming there is synergy between the keyword and the extension. I wouldn’t buy cheapmattresses.org, but I drool heavily over any pure geo.org or deeply definitive names like this, where some sort of community format can be developed and monetized. The way things have evolved, .org is a TLD that ‘makes sense’ in the eyes of the public. No, it’s no .com, but it’s no orphan like .net seems to be, and when I see sales like Portland.org on SEDO @ 10K, all I can do is shake my head and realize that I’m living in the good old days.

One wildcard here, that’s worth consideration.
The poker world is a mind-bogglingly odd place. In this strangest of strange worlds, you have 19 year old kids banging down six and seven figures a year while laying in bed playing online poker on a laptop. You have the upper-echelon pros in Las Vegas who might lose a million dollars in a single five hour session, then go to bed later that night and sleep like a baby without the slightest worry or panic. I can’t think of another ‘world’ where money flows so cheap, easy and is treated so loosely than the poker world. All it would take is a well connected player to make a few phone calls- saying that they wanted to buy poker.org and they had a great idea for it- and that million could be arranged at the drop of a hat. Unquestionably, this name will go to someone who will use it- and fast- but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was actual ‘poker money’ behind it’s acquisition.

This is an encouraging sale for domainers – but like you have stated, could be an one-off perfect storm. Let’s keep an eye on poker.org to see what the new owner does with it – it’s got to have tons of money behind it.

The point I was making (or trying to make) in my earlier post is that general human nature is more predictable than the absolute pricing impact. The one certain outcome is that there will be a flood of new .org registrations, and a flood of lowball email from domainers sent to owners of one word .org domains.

Poker.com is worth $20M-$30M

.Org are worth 5% or so of .com’s value

“those of us with single word .org domains will be flooded with lowball $20 offers”

then yes it is a game changer.

I fully expect more silly lowball offers to start rolling in as a result. No problem, I have fully mastered the delete button on my mailer.