10 Dec 11

Korn: We're Rolling Out a New Website

In the second part of our interview with Dominik 'Korn' Kofert, the PokerStrategy.com CEO talks about the TV World Championship and the new coaches. He talks about the effects of Black Friday and shares his plans for the future with us.

Dominik Korn Kofert

Read the first part of the interview here.

PokerStrategy.com: Korn, next week sees the final table of the PokerStrategy.com TV World Championship. You'll be playing as well, how ready are you and how excited?

Dominik Korn Kofert: Well, I'm really looking forward to it. However, there is a problem: I wouldn't say I'm a bad No Limit player, but I'm certainly not as good as some of the top players there.
 
I'm not the favourite, I'll do my best, then we'll just have to see.

PokerStrategy.com: What do you think your chances of winning are?

Dominik Kofert: In tournaments, there's always the chance to win. In my opinion, it's not even a low chance, I can still master ICM and other strategies. I'm certainly not the favourite, however I don't assume I'll be the underdog at the final table. I have enough faith in myself, I'm sure I'll be able to hold my own.

"I hope the Full Tilt players get their full bankrolls back"

PokerStrategy.com: Let's talk about the current situation at PokerStrategy.com: you've taken on a few new coaches, such as Daniel junglemandan Cates and Collin CollinMoshman Moshman. How important is it that our PokerStrategists only learn from the best players?

Dominik Kofert: The problem is always that the best player isn't necessarily the best teacher. It's important, but also difficult for us to find the right balance between people who play extremely well and people who can educate. What is important regardless, is that we always bring in the best people in order to be able to offer some variety as well.

We want to get the right mix of game variants and coach profiles. I do think we're doing a really good job there at the moment and we don't need to hide from anybody anymore.

PokerStrategy.com: We had Black Friday. Did this affect PokerStrategy.com as well?

Dominik Kofert  : Of course it did, definitely. Black Friday definitely affected us as well. Not in a sense that it threatened our existence, but it was a bitter pill for us. Of course, not in comparison to the many, many players who have had to worry about their bankrolls.

I hope that a solution can soon be found, also for the poker community in general, so that the Full Tilt takeover by the investor happens successfully and the players recover their full bankrolls.

"I'm very happy that we've come this far"

PokerStrategy.com: Is PokerStrategy.com still well positioned for the future, despite Black Friday?

 Dominik Kofert: Yes, absolutely.

PokerStrategy.com: We'll take a look at the future in a moment, but we still want to glance back. When you take stock of the past six years, what's your conclusion?

 Dominik Kofert: That's a good question. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, I swing from day to day and try to make the best of each situation. I'm certainly very pleased that the whole business has come so far. In my opinion, we shouldn't look backwards so much, but focus more on the future.

Never be complacent or lazy, that's my motto.

Korn on the PokerStrategy.com sofa

"There's no timeline for the new website yet"

PokerStrategy.com: What plans do you still have for the future?
 
Dominik Kofert: We try to continually improve when it comes to coaching and teaching offers. We also want to work more on our appeal to beginners - we want to make poker popular, so poker is still successful in ten years' time.

We are currently working on a new website. There's no timeline for it yet, it could still take some time.

We have also developed some fantastic software with the SideKick. It might not be to the taste of VIP grinders, but I think it's a really cool tool for lots of users and makes poker more fun. There are also some promotions with it.

PokerStrategy.com: One more quick question about the new website: what can PokerStrategists look forward to in the future?

Dominik Kofert: Certain things will be optimised. You might be able to write messages more quickly or have a better overview. There will be other features which will help you learn. With the new website, we want to migrate everything to a new technology, to better incorporate customer requests and improvement suggestions. The whole thing will be getting a makeover as well, including the forum.

I can't say when yet, but it will certainly be a little while. There can always be delays where IT projects are concerned, although I don't anticipate any at the moment. Nonetheless, better to not name a date than have to keep on pushing back the deadline.

PokerStrategy.com: Korn, thank you for the interview.

by Tobias Frey