Thanks Vladimir!

Some news came via Planet Greg yesterday that was a perfect example of ‘Bitter-Sweet’.

Vladimir, who has been a colleague and friend to us at Planet HQ for more than 3 years, followed a string of recent successes by winning his 2^nd PCA Package from PokerStars - and now has the bankroll and confidence to move up levels in tournaments and to invest more in his own poker project – Russian training site (now expanding into English) (no longer available!)

That was the ‘Sweet’ part, a real opportunity to break through to the next level for a genuinely great guy. This success is not by chance, I know that Vladimir has worked hard on his game and his training site for a long time. This should be an example for many aspiring players and / or webmasters out there as to what is possible with a little dedication.

The other side of this is that Vladimir will no longer have the time to work with us looking after the Russian language version of SNG Planet or the smaller sites we still operate in Russia.

That’s a big shame of course.

But instead of feeling sad I’d like to say a huge ‘Thanks!’, right here in public, for all of the great work.

Then add another ‘thanks’ for telling me straight early on that my Russian translation was not good enough, and helping to fix it.

Yet another ‘thanks’ for chasing me up on Skype when I missed a deadline or did not make my requirements clear enough, and for not letting me get away with any half-answers.

One more ‘thanks’ for great the initial work we did together on InstaPoker. I am happy that this project became a success after my early exit when other projects left me without the time to fully participate.

Another 'thanks' for looking after Poker Tema, Wordpress still confuses me to this day!

I’ll add an extra ‘thanks’ for continuing to work with us long after your initial successes, and one more for being super-easy to work with month after month (I know that Greg particularly appreciated this!)

One last ‘thanks’ for showing me just how impressive company stamps could be (my plain and boring stamp still looks terrible next to Vladimir’s one in our working contract, and I will keep this as a reminder for later in life!).

I’m sure there are a lot of other things I could find a ‘thanks’ for too, small day-to-day things that separate the good people from the great.

Let me end by saying that we are seriously rooting for you in the PCA this year – and hope that we can meet up in Vegas for next year’s World Series.

Thanks Vladimir, it has been a great few years!

Mark