About

Mark Zavadsky. Twenty years at the junction of Russia, China and Europe. I started as a journalist in Hong Kong: opened the RIA Novosti bureau there, then spent seven years covering Asia for Expert magazine. In 2014 I moved to the other side of the table and launched Alibaba's Russian business: four years running Alibaba in Russia and AliExpress's growth, then Sberbank's ecosystem – up to thirty companies under management – and then two and a half years as CEO of Riki, the animation company that owns the Smeshariki and Fixiki brands. The last two years are iGaming: partner projects and joint ventures in an international group, thirty-plus countries. Alongside that I invest: an angel at RedAngels, co-owner of China Digital.

A sinologist by training: Moscow State University's Institute of Asian and African Studies and a year at Peking University; in 2019, Stanford's executive programme. I live in Portugal.

I think poker is the most interesting game in the world and the best source of insight into yourself and the people around you. More on that in “Pavlov’s Cards”.

Why the numbers can be trusted

There is not a single number on this site that I guessed. Every one is computed from the hand histories the room exports, by the scripts described on the How it works page, which also keeps the error log: what has already been counted wrong, and why. Where a number is a model rather than a measurement, the text says so: “by my estimate”. And the honest part: on this sample my win rate is not yet distinguishable from zero, and I say so in the analyses themselves. What deserves trust here is not me but the log.

I play on GG Poker: NL100, Rush & Cash, two tables, three hundred hands a session – about half an hour. The running score of the whole series is on the front page.

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