Stephen “Adiprene1″ McDonald has been contributing on Nutblocker in the past, check out his interesting article series with Gavin “Gavz101″ Cochrane

 A Leveling War: Maximizing This One Hand by Stephen McDonald (Adiprene1)

 Leveling Wars: Facing a Strange Line with History, by Gavin ‘Gavz101′ Cochrane

About You

1. What is your name, age and where are you located? What is your personal twitter account?

Stephen, 26, Dublin. no twitter, instagram, or any of that bollocks.

2. What are Your online poker Screen names?

adiprene1 (stars), 1stugetdmoney ( ftp).

3. How would you define yourself as a poker player? / What poker games do you normally play?  Are you learning any new games?

Define myself as wreckless, unprofessional, underachieving, genius of some kind.
6m plo is what I’ve always played except when I get bored then it’s hu til I remember how much I fucking hate hu.
I was sorta tryna learn 8game but gave up pretty quickly.

4. What do you most enjoy about your job?

That I don’t get fired for being unproductive and unreliable and missing entire weeks of work for no good reason.

5. Who are the top 3 players in your main game from your home country in your personal opinion?

Valorian, Flounder, Cheap cheap. and John o Shea if he still plays on some account.

6. What reg in your game do you respect most? Can you briefly describe why?

Noone in particular, just all those guys playing 5/10-25/50 in any line up all day. Especially the guys playing 10/20 deep ante w/o fish.

7. Besides yourself who do you think the most underrated poker player is?

Noone’s really underrated so much as under the radar. I think a couple of the faggy scripting hunters get no respect despite being pretty ok. Only a couple of them though.
Also someone like deldar who seems to get zero respect on 2+2, but has been a successful high stakes player for a long time. He’s defo underrated.

Past

1. Why and when did you start playing poker?  Do you still play for the same reasons?

Grew up in pubs playing pool, darts, and fruit machines so poker was probably always gonna be something I played at least sometimes. Got into it in college and I just liked the allure of it all. I guess when I started I liked that I could turn a small tournament buy in into w/e 1st place money was.
Now I just play to earn a living.

2. What were the best and worst months of your poker career? What happened?

My best month was December of (I think) 2011, had something like 45k to my name at the start of the month and was playing davin hu at 25/50 ante tables. Think I did some hit n runs vs him and then went on a rampage killing everyone hu and 6m. Won 300k and made a bbv post on 2+2 about it.

I think I had 2 almost equally bad losing month…
The first was may 2011 where I got fucked up by rui cao hu and then lost to everyone I played after losing to him aswell as losing in 6m. I was chasing losing, playing long hours, going after tough players etc and just spiralled out of control. iirc, I lost 400k in 3 weeks. made a bbv post about it.
The other was jan ’12 immediately after my +300k month. I lost 250k In the first 5 days of the month playing berndsen, Isildur, rui cao, and maybe cts hu 50/100. made a bbv post about that too. Then I emptied my balance over the rest of the month. i haven’t had a +/- 50k month since then iirc

3. Are you satisfied with your 2014 poker year?

Fuck no. I’ve underachieved every year of my career.

4. How did Black Friday impact you? How did you adapt after Black Friday?

Well the first few weeks were great, so many of the best players had been taken away from the games and more of the 5/10-10/20 regs were taking shots in the 25/50 6m games. I think at that time I was one of the strongest 6m regs. I was the biggest 6m winner in the first 4 weeks after black friday. I was feeling pretty untouchable especially at deep ante games ( but then had my biggest losing month ever as outlined above).

5. What was the biggest factor in your development as a player?

Thinking im good enough to play people better than me. Thus becoming good enough to beat mediocre players.

6. What was the biggest mistake(s) you have done as a poker player?

lol where do I even start. HU. Playing HU ever. BRM. Doing things for the sake of bbv. Not cashing out enough. Not playing more than 100 hrs/month for the last 3 years. Not taking care of my health problems sooner. Not having a proper office chair until 3 months ago. Consistently running crazily below ev at HU and continuing to play it. I think lack of brm has to be #1, though.

7. What’s your biggest prob bet?

Haven’t made many big bets tbh.

Present

1. How do you prepare for your poker activities?

Sometimes I’m in a great routinue of going swimming or running every morning before I start my day. Other times I eat my breakfast while watching netflix, then just start playing. There’s a noticeable difference in my focus and endurance.

2. If you could pick the brain of anyone in the world for 3 hours, who would he/she be?

I have to go poker related here so I’ll say ben86.

Best answer I ever saw here was Lex saying sticthes. Bitch I got extendos.

3. What 3 poker pros should PokerStars sign to their team online roster?

For Team Online rather than team pro? Guess they don’t need too much marketability then so I’ll say Lautie, Oddsen, Supernova9 (that the right name? I mean Ansky anyway).

4. What is your favorite way to relieve stress when running bad?

Drinking. always been drinking. Other things that are good are pizza, shooting people in video games, swimming. Getting laid works well too, but that’s not always an option ;p

5. How much volume are you playing on Eurosites?

More than none but it’s tough to get a seat because of scripters. When a site has no wait lists and table is full, it’s impossible to get the seat when someone leaves. I prefer Stars and FTP anyway. Or I used to like FTP but now they’ve no deep tables and I hate shallow.

6. Why are you not playing mid/high stakes already? If you are, what are the 3 most important things that got you there?

I’m not playing high cuz I’m adhering to a stricter BRM now. I’ll be shot taking some at 10/20 soon enough I hope but I’ll be game selecting a lot.

7. What is the most important positive change you’ve made to your poker approach for 2015?

Being healthier. both in terms of diet, exercise, and drinking habits.

Future

1. What are your poker and other goals for the next 12 months?

Be playing 10/20 regularly without having to move down.

2. Are you confident that you will meet those goals? Why?

Meh, I should do. If I can sort out a regular sleep schedule, be productive and play a lot, and not dick around too much in other games/ formats.

3. Do you see yourself still playing poker in 10 years?

Probably. Don’t really see what else I’m gonna do for a living.

4. Do you have any ambition to coach/teach other players?

Don’t think I could/ should.

5. What’s the poker dream for you?

Reversing time to 2007 with what I know today and retiring by now.

6. How do you see the poker landscape changing in the next five years?

Just getting worse and worse same as it has in the last 5 years.

7. How much time are you putting into studying financial issues like investing. What are your preferred sources for this? What investments are you making with your poker winnings?

Zero. I used to have some money in a couple of investments but when I busted my roll in jan ’12, I ended up cashing in each of them over the following months for living expenses and further poker losses.

Other

1. Do you have any regular non-poker hobbies? Whats your favorite way to spend your spare time?

Football, swimming, pool/snooker, netflix, nights out, ‘the last of us’ on ps3, cycling.

2. If you could give you from five years ago (make it ten if over 30) one major piece of advice, what would it be?

Just grind 6m plo with proper brm. Oh wait I’d tell myself I have coeliac disease and to go gluten free immediately

3. What are the 3 things everyone should have on their bucket list?

1. have a crazy drug fuelled binge that you’ll vaguely remember for the rest of your life.
2. travel to several places very different from where you grew up and experience different cultures.
3. bang someone way hotter than you.

4. Do you follow any poker podcasts or poker players on Twitch?

Naw

5. If you could change one thing with online poker, what would that be? What if you could change one thing with live poker?

I’m the only reg allowed at every table? Really though I’d have there be no hu tables, just 6m with no table selecting, no zoom, but not anonymous. All deep ante tables.

6. What is the best place and the best restaurant your have ever visited?

Best place was proly NYC.
Best restaurant idk. no one in particular stands out, there’s tons of great ones.

7. Who do you challenge to do the Poker Player Snapshot next and why?

All the guys who have been posting on 2+2 HSPLO forever, but we don’t know much about.