13 Jul 10

Introducing New Video Producer: Douglas "pzhon" Zare

PokerStrategy.com is very happy to introduce new producer Douglas 'pzhon' Zare. In the following interview he talks about what videos will be focusing on and other interesting things you should know about.

PokerStrategy.com welcomes its latest addition to the video team. pzhon is the newest coach to join us and he will provide you with SnG videos. He is also actively posting in the English forum, as you can see here and here.

We sat down with Douglas in order to find out more about how he got into poker, what kind of videos and topics we can expect from him and more.

As the following video marks Douglas' premiere here at PokerStrategy.com, we are celebrating this by offering all members access to this video during the first week.

Watch Douglas' first video now ( Basic)

Interview with Douglas "pzhon" Zare

PokerStrategy.com: Hi Douglas, it would be great if you could give us a short introduction about yourself for our users.

pzhon: I'm a trained mathematician. I have been writing a book on practical poker maths with Collin Moshman and I have created a shareware program called ICM Explorer which lets you investigate tournament situations.

PokerStrategy.com: Since when is Poker a part of your life and what does it mean to you?

pzhon: I got into poker after I had been playing backgammon competitively for about 5 years. Quite a few backgammon players started to play poker because poker has become more popular, and is more lucrative.

Online poker was easier when I started because the games were softer and the bonuses were more generous. I was a winning player from day 1 and turned a free $5 into $10,000 in about 6 months. That's much harder to do now.

I enjoy teaching people many things, including poker.

PokerStrategy.com: What has been the greatest success in your online poker career?

pzhon: Paying my rent with it for years! When you play ring games or SNGs, there isn't one single triumph. I did have some nice success in multitable tournaments, including making the final tables of the first two MTTs I played on Party Poker. This doubled my poker bankroll and I went on to win two 1000 player MTTs in a row.

Another level of success comes from coaching. I took one of my students from 0 knowledge, learning that a flush beats a straight, to being a professional player on the Sharkscope leader board and making profit on any stake she played in 2010.

PokerStrategy.com: Since when have you produced videos?

pzhon: I think my first videos were in 2007 or 2008. One early project was recording and annotating tournaments played by contributors to the Beginners' Questions forum, within the TwoPlusTwo forums.

I was also an instructor for another site.

"Classroom style videos"

PokerStrategy.com: What kind of games do you cover in your videos?

pzhon: Most of my videos will be classroom style videos as opposed to commentary on live play. I take some idea and show how you might want to think about it.

I plan to cover SNGs primarily. However, I have played a lot of cash games, both limit and NL, and I may make some videos covering generally applicable topics such as game theory or analysing your database. .

PokerStrategy.com: What limits do you play yourself?

pzhon: The highest limit I have played was a $3000-$6000 limit game. However, I usually play for much lower stakes, such as NL $200 or $3-$6 limit or $22 SNGs. At the table I try to win as much money as possible, but I don't always do that with my choice of which games to play. I play some lower stakes games because it's fun for me to win more consistently and to have a high ROI.

PokerStrategy.com: Are you in touch with any other video producer of PokerStrategy.com? Are you planning to collaborate with anyone?

pzhon: I know some of the other coaches on PokerStrategy.com because we made videos for another site in the past. However, I don't have any collaboration planned at present.