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If you want to steal the idea go ahead since this is strictly a mental exercise for me. I don't really have any intention of going through with it.
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This I wouldn't encourage, unless you want the Troll Gods to come get you...
Okay maybe some folks don't know what that particular Bhelliom is, I might be the only Eddings geek here.
You're a bit late getting on the poker bandwagon, so you might want to target a little better. Rather than a general poker site, go for a particular poker player (newbie, or intermediate, or pro).
Your general idea is sound for mainstream - communities bring good money. The thing is building the community and building trust. That takes work. Standing out in the crowd takes work. You'll want to lay out a plan within your business plan about how you're going to stand out and what you'll offer to the community members that they can't find elsewhere. As with any business plan, set objectives and then list out how you'll meet those objectives and in what timeframe. You can't just say "oh I'm gonna throw together a poker community with a message board and reviews of different poker sites with lots of ref links thrown in and it's gonna make a ton of money". It's a lot more work than that.
Basically, start by researching. Leg work - get out there and look at all of the different poker communities available. Really LOOK at them. See what they've got, see what they're missing. See what their members are interested in, what sets 'em off, what gets 'em going.
This is why your teacher assigned this to be due at the end of the semester - to really understand all of the nuances of what you're going to be planning out, you've gotta get out there and take the time to do the research. Once you really know what the folks who visit poker communities are looking for and you've looked past the hype and identified the qualities of sites that make them "click", THEN you can really envision the "perfect" poker community and start to build it. (Even if it's only on paper.)
And that goes for any type of community site.
If you *really* want to learn how to do it right, poker communities won't be the only ones you study.