I have a website that I'd like to build some links for. I do not believe that directory submissions or article directories are good sources of links. No one looks at those sites. I'd be more interested in getting links from sites that contain articles of a similar topic to mine. Does anyone have any tips on how I could go about doing that? My site is: http://www.pokersoftwareanalysis.com/
you can send them link exchange requests 7 add their link on your site, that way you can get link from them, but I would differ on the point that links from article site do not have importance, sites like ezinearticles & articlesbase are quite popular and help also with bringing good visitors to your site.
article directories are organized by categories. if you submit your article, you will submit that under proper category and there will be lot more articles there in your niche under that category. btw, article directories are very good source of relevant contextual backlinks.
Poker had become like porn, a lot of webmasters are staying away from linking to those. I would suggest getting a decent budget and pay for some decent links from bigger poker sites.