july

nothing good to say bout july unfortunately, it was my first loosing month, and i t was emotionally a nightmare, even if i had a winning session i left the computer drained as i was getting hammered for most the session then maybe pulled it back with last few games. had a 2.5k downswing during the month only to win 3 12s back to back, other than that it could of been much worse.
tbh im finding it really hard to motivate myself to grind, when it feels like im getting a beat from tyson every time i sit down.
it was also my least volume for a month since i started, probably owing to the fact that iwas loosing so badly!

June results

Was out in the Rainman house for 10 days last month so managed to get my biggest amount of volume for a month played,was working on adding tables and trying to be more aggressive in spots i was passing up previously, finished the month off strong, and if it wasn't for the $600 i dropped taking shots at the $36's it would of looked a lot better, as chip says...the 36's are like crack cocaine, ya know not to play them but if ya start ya cant stop!!
games played 1641
Net profit $1630
could of been better if i hadn't got off to such a bad start and wasn't playin catch up, but as i say that the same thing has happened again this month, you'd think i try and make it hard for myself!!

Veas Trip

Back now a few days from my trip to vegas to train in the rainman mansion, i have to say it was by far the hardest 10 days work ive ever had to do, anyone who thinks being an online poker player is an easy liofe is sorlely mistaken, between grinding and hand history reviews it was a 12 to 14 hour day, everyday.
the great thing bout being on pacific time is the games pretty much run from morning to evening, so a standard day was get up bout 7, star playing bout 8 for 100 games which usually took bout 12 hours if i took a break during the day then review hand histories for and hour or two, sometimes more if nick got on a roll with the replayer!!
the firs 3 nights i was in bed by half 10 completly shattered, the first time i left the house was 4 days in when we got out for a fat burger!! managed to get out another night for couple of hours to play some live poker at aria an tbh it was like pulling teeth, after pplaying 10-12 tables all day then sitting there at a live table waiting for your turn i was honestly struggling to stay awake!! we fit in a game pof bowling and went for a meal too but apart from that it was all work and the strip could of been a million miles away.
while i was there my goal was to play 100 tournaments a day which meant i had to up my tables to 12 at a time and was out of my comfort zone, and some days would question my ability to cut it with thwe other players, but after some good reviews and noticing some small errors that i was making ive been ables to pull things toghether ive dropped back to 9-10 tables and feel comfortable there which is an improvement since i was 6-8 tabling before i went out.
i would like to thank Nick Aaron and bodeye for all their help with everything, and the set up they gave us to work with, before i went out i bought a laptop and played on iy for a week thinking i would need to get used to it for the trip, but when i got there each student had their own set up with pc, and dual 22@ monitors which was pretty cool, and i would like to give a shout to all the lads in the house, i met a great bunch of lads who are all either crushing or are on their way to crushing the 180's for some ime to come, look forward to meeting up again.
heres a few pics from the house i'll be back on soon give a results update from the month, my graphs like an advert for varience, with the ups and downs due to adding tables and playing longer sessions than i was ever used to.
GL
http://zapslist.com/Yucca/index.html












and lastly the man himself, mr mi_turtle......two tabling!!!

mays over!

May was defiantly my toughest month so far, igot off to a slow start with both volume and results, and i wasn't working as hard off the tables reviewing etc,
i started to review my hand histories and tbh i was happy enough with how i was playing and was genuinely getting unlucky at key points in the game,(not that i wasn't sucking out my own fair share) just when it got down to 12/13 players left i was loosing flips and running into big hands where another day i win the race and have a big stack going onto the final table.
Another reason for the lack of volume is that I'm still only 6/7 tabling,whenever i move up to 9/10 i feel out my comfort zone and start to make unforced errors, that's another thing i will be working on improving, i also have been trying out some new times for playin, since i'm in the eurozone i've been playing through the night, so i've been trying playing more normal times, but unfortunatly the games just dont run enough during the day my time so i guess i'll have to go back to playin more at nighttime.
then for whatever reason in the latter half of the month i started tilting over beats i was getting, when kings loose to jacks I'd spend the next 10 Min's bitching bout it when i have other games i need to concentrate on, before i just got on with it cause i know on another table i prob just cracked aces with my J7!!so that's something i defiantly need to eradicate.
another problem creeping into my game is my concentration, I've started to let my mind wander and on a number of occasions found myself looking at twitter or facebook when I'm playing or just thinking bout random shit that's nothing to do with the games I'm playing.

games played 1026
profit $771
on a positive note since Ive been bitching for the last rant! after all i did make a profit!!
i booked my flights to Vegas to learn from the main men nick, Aaron and bodeye, and also there will be a bunch of students there I'm looking forward to meeting, I'm flying out the 13th till the 24Th June and am pretty excited bout the trip, and tbh a bit nervous, theres some pretty high standards that have to be met out there.
i got a new 17" laptop yesterday for the trip, took me half the day to get it set up yesterday, so I'll be playing my games on that for the next few weeks to get used to it before i go, that's all for now gl everyone,
oh yeah, big congrats to the foxyshazam who took down back to back $36 180 mans last night, some achievement mate well done

Back to work

Well May hasn't started off to good, i started the month late with the log weekend ant then didn't play this weekend with my daughters Communion. so I'm down in both volume and results, also the week i did play i was getting killed in the 12's all week combination of running into hands at late stages getting 8th's and 9th's rather then winning them hands and pushing on to first or second, and also and prob a more decisive factor, just playing bad.
I ha vent been reviewing my hand histories and not been doing enough off the tables, all i was concerned with was getting games in and i ended up making mistakes but rather than correcting them i just kept playing do in the same things making the same mistakes, and when they say The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Lets hope I'm not going down that road!!
this week I'm looking to put in 12 hours a day except wed when i have Kaitlyn I'll get 8 in then, to spend an hour reviewing hand histories from the previous days session before i start and to give full attention to the webiners i attend, to put it simply, work harder, I'll only get out what i put in and that's been evident the past couple of weeks.
GL

Aprils over

had another stutter towards the end of the month couple of days with no joy put a bit of a stain on the month , but on the whole not to bad,and with my live score the other week ended up ok i guess, obv not where i want to be, and i'll just have to keep working as hard as possible to take that next step and get more consistancy into my game, thought i was gonna finish the month off with my first hat trick night, i took down a 3R 180 and in my last 2 games i was on two 12 ft's and felt really comfortaable, there was no regs and it seemed everyone was waiting for everyone else to bust, so as i decided to take advantage of this i ran into monsters lol!
gonna venture out into the real worl again today playin a wsop mirror tournament in the local card club same structure etc, difference being instead of 7000 runners ther'll be bout 50 and instead of bout 70 mill prize pool there'll be bout 10K!!! but hey its as close to the rio as i'm gonna be this summer so i might as well make the most of it!
GL

Internet oh internet!

Just a quick post for anyone out there who like me still hasn't had the good sense to get a back up Internet, go do it!
again last night mine went out, was having one of them nights were nothing was going right and was bout 0 for 30 or so, then as if the poker gods said the yd give me a little something something for my perseverance the cards started falling into place and i started building some stacks, had a bout 8 tables going with nice stacks building and 2nd in chips in 1 of them with 15 left, obv a lockdown at that point lol!
on the stroke of midnight the Internet went out! After bout 20 mins doing laps of the house and Clare wondering why i was getting some extra running in and not working i gave up and brought Ellie for a walk to clear my head, not to many people out at that time but the ones who were gave me some funny looks as to what i was doing walking around the estates at close to 1 am with a German Sheppard in tow!!
First thing on my agenda today is to hit the o2 shop and get hooked up with some mobile Internet
GL everyone

a live outing

yes believe it or not i left the house! needed to get out for a bit and take a night off from the computer, so for my first live outing of the year i went over to naas to the loft for their monthly tournament, when i got their i realised quickly that it wasn't a recreational tournament with a field of 50 of some the faces of Irish poker.
it was a really enjoyable night and i really feel from all the online play that my live play was much different, spots were opening up to me that i never would of seen before and overall i felt much more comfortable with reads etc only needing to suck out once throughout the nigh when my A7 clubs out ran AQ of the BB late at the final table.
so much for getting away from the 180s for a night as when i sat down at the final table Laoise Hammer, a 12 180 man reg was sitting next to me, could of made for some interesting bvb collisions but never happened!!
i got chatting to him at the break and on "my night off" spent the breaks chatting bout the 180's!!
ended up chopping it 3 ways with me and the larger stack taking 1700 each and the shorter stack taking 1400, so happy with my nights work! hopefully I'll get out again before jP's masters in the beginning of May
GL everyone

April update

april been a month of ups and downs that you get with tournament life, im still struggling with the emotional roller coaster that it is, perfect example being the other night playin a session 1 was 0 for bout 40 and was fit to throw the computer mouse monitors and possibly myself out the attic window when bang bang a first and a second in 2 of my last 5 games and it was a good nights work! even still i was drained to say the least, i'm not stupid i know by now the stretches you go on without a win but for some reason it still gets to me and has me questioning all sorts bout my play, when its just shit, and shit happens!!

been working with nick and finding some spots in my late game that i need to work on and turn those 4th and 5ths into 1st's
i'm behind on my volume goal for the month with 606 games played so far, partly down to droppin back to 8 tables again, playing 12 i was out of my comfort zone and feel it was costin me money, at 8 i'm comfortable and am gonna add tables a bit slower, so to make up for playin less tables i'm tryin to find more hours in the day to get the volume in!

after 606 games im up bout 1400, which bring me back to where i was this time last month after the disaster which was the end of march!

GL at the tables all!

Mar recap April goals

All in all things went well in Mar considering the last two weeks were poker hell!!, got out of the traps flyin and felt untouchable for the first two weeks, then got a dose of reality and what tournament life is like and dropped like 150 buy-ins, hence the importance of good BR!! luckily i had bout 200 buy ins in my account.
Still finished the month up bout 1750 for my 180 mans and got moved onto nicks elite team so happy enough. Got a personal best for the stars monthly tlb point too with 4404 leaving me in 400th or so position. as we speak there is bout 5 hrs left in the race for tlb and nick still has a good hold of top spot with bout 800 points between him and bfizz11, so he should lock it down,
heres my 180 man graph for March

as you can see stumbled the latter half of the month but i'll put that to right soon enough!
For April my goals are simple 1500 minimum games ajnd i'll let the money take care of its self.
This is the first month that i will be treating poker as my job firs and formost, the last few months i've been doing stuff in the house and other things, when i was playin at night i was tired and cutting sessions short etc, and by the middle to end of week i was like a zombie. This month i'm scheduling poker work hours and going to make sure i get enough sleep after i finish my sessions, that in its self has to be +EV!!
GL everyone

Elite

Hope the heading didnt mislead anyone, i havent puled a dusty schmidt and hit supernova elite in march!!
What it is, i did get some great news during the week when i was contacted by Arron aka johhnyhilldo, one of nicks coaches, where he informed me i was selected to move onto nicks elite training programme, where i will be concentration on the 12s and aiming to move up to the 32s.
It has been a great boost to my confidence as nick isnt someone who would put his trust or confidence in me if thought i wasnt cut out for this game, at the end of the day this is his business and he cant afford to be wasting time or money on someone if he doesnt think they, 1 wont be good enough or havent shown the potential to be and 2 wont work their ass off to make sure they succeed.
I wanna thank nick and his crew for the improvements in my game as you will see from the graph below, my lifetime stars graph before i started with nick i was clearly a tournament fish!
i was simply a nit and far to passive, and when i would go deep i would end up getting AA,or KK cracked by Q10 etc near the bubble and bitch bout being unlucky when really i just ante'd myself to death and when i did push the big hands players had the odds to call, i just didnt get involved without a monster!!
on the graph below no 1 is where i started with nick at he end of Nov and no2 is where i moved up to the 12's at the mid of Feb.

The last month we have been getting work done on the house so i didnt quit get the volume in that i would of hoped but thats nerly done now so from april1 on i am going to play a mimimum of 1500 games per month, puttin in 50/60 hours per week, i also want to make more time for the GF Clare, shes been great through all this and i wanna thank her for her support, its diffucult to schdule everything with the time difference between here and the US. as your playing half the night and half asleep during the day!!
Well, i'm starting to ramble so i'll head! just again wanna thank nick for getting me this far and i'm really looking forward to working on this programme, and again thanks clare for putting up with my shit up till now!!!

a bit sick and first big downswing

well the las week moved away from the script a little!!
i havent been feeling great the last week constantly tired and not myself, when i was trying to play i was not concentrating 100% and my results have shown, after a great start to the month i've now gone 0 for 90, although this has happened at the 2's, then it was meh 100 bucks, now its over 1K, thats something i find hard to deal with, and this week has really tested my resolve and has been mentaly very challenging.
I can blame being tired or bad luck or whatever, but that would just makin excuses, bottom line i'm responsible for my results and although the last few days i've been feelin sorry for myself, today that shit needs to stop i need to study more and focus more when playin.,
I'm gonna cut back on the 12's i play today and add some 2's, i can either sit and bitch bout not running good or i can get the fingure out and work harder.
so stay out of my way today cause i'm like a wounded lion and i'm, not takin no shit from noone!!!
GL

mid march update

Hi, well things have been going great this month hopefully they continue, Nick been doing some reviews with us and every time i seem to pick up something even if it seems small at the time, if you come across it thousands of times when your playin each of them small edges will add up to big result!!!
Getting work done on the house so volume still down but hopefully in the next to weeks i'll get that back up and i will make sure i hitr my volume goal,
still running good at the 12's for now so long may that last, tried a few 36's but no joy there yet. tried sateliting into some sunday tourneys yestrday but bombed there, also played the mini ftop yesterday busting out close to the money with jj running into AA, oh well gg!
heres a quick look at my 180 man graph for March so far, lets keep it going!!
gl at the tables

Exciting opportunity

Hi, all still going well so far in march, was a little down in volume, i got a few days work last week and couldnt play so only got 158 games in, still running good in the 12s though, just need to amp up the agression, was on a final table with my coach john and realised that i sometimes play like a pansy!! there were a number of spots that i should of pushed but was chicken to pull the trigger, something i need to wean out of my game.

The main coach of the system our very own yoda! nick Rainey, aka mi_turtle on stars is holding a 75 minute webinar on sat and i would highly recommend it, his teaching has has clearly turned my game around, and as you cansee from his graph he knows how to kill fish better than john west!!

"Discover the Secret to crushing MTT/SNG’s

Learn how to crush MTT/SNG’s from one of best online grinders Saturday March 13th at 1:00 pm Pacific time. Watch and listen as Nick reviews from start to finish a recent 180 man SNG on PokerStars. The 75 minute experience also includes a fifteen minute Q&A session at the end. For only $29.95 you can participate in this interactive review and take your poker to the next level. Learn the secrets of MTT/SNG’s and improve all parts of your game, from the early stages to final table strategy.

Click on the Buy Now button if you would like to pay with PayPal. If you want to pay with a PokerStars transfer, send $29.95 to MI_turtle (Los Angeles) and email review@rainmanpoker.net. You will receive a confirmation email with information regarding the live review."

If your still not impressed by his stats head over to mediocre poker and listen to his interview bout how he came up, and his insane work ethic and dedication to being the best he can
http://cstvpodcast.cstv.com.edgesuite.net/poker/011110_Mediocre_Poker_Radio_Seg_1.mp3?_kip_ipx=538550937-1268091086

feb recap...march goals

At a look feb wasnt to bad, nothing great but i guess ok would best describe it, i reached my volume goal of 1000 180 man games, and moved up to the 12$'s so i guess in that respect it was sucessful, i was almost break even for the first half of the month then made a bit of progress, to move up to the 12's, got a little spankin off them, the poker gods just keeping me in check, not letting me get ahead of myself!!

but i wasnt havin that and managed to get back on the horse and grind it back up!

Heres my 18o man graph for feb, hoping to pick up where i left off conyinuing with the 12's, be good to see how far i've come at the end of march with a full month of 12's in the bag.

For march im looking to play 1278 180 mans.....odd number? if i make that then i'll have a 1000 game per month average for 2010, problem for me is playin the 12's i'm not playing as many tables so its either get used to them quick or play more hours either way by the end of march were lookin for 3k games played.

Away from poker had a great weekend there, just back from london, i was over in wembly for the carling cup final, was dissapointed to see rooney not playing after makin the trip, but wasnt long before the great man was in and running things, getting his 28th for the season, in the form he's in i wouldnt bet gainst england going far in the summer.

Climbing higher!!

I reported before that i had reached base camp! Thankfully i've now moved up to the next level and am mixing in some 12's, even better i'm running good at them which is always nice when you move up, gives you a bit of breathing space for when i do have a down turn!!
only playing them 3 days but i've chalked up some deep runs each day, with a couple of seconds and today breaking the duck and logging my first win......its like taking down the lotto compared to winning a 2 dollar!!
my volume gonna be slightly down as i get used to the new buy in dropping back to bout 6 tables so i can focus on whats going on, i was playing a bit on auto pilot with the 2's playing 10-12 tables, really playing my cards and not putting people on ranges so much, the last week nick has been running webinars dealing with this topic and i feel dropping back some tables and applying what he's teaching is really helping me.
i also had a deep run in the daily 80k which is a 200k on sundays which was nice, turned a 15$ sit-n-go sat into just under 400$, bust out hand shipping 55 in the sb to be snapped off by A7, had bout 18 bb so not sure if it was the right move, but at the same time i didn't wanna raise fold so just shipped and let the poker gods play the hand, unfortunatly they decided to give him 2 pair gg !!
Happy enough all in all with my biggest winning day so far profiting just over 800$....mightn't be a lot to the ballers out there but when ya just move up from the 2's its gold!!
gl everyone

im at base camp!!

Hi , i was talking the last day bout getting back to the 7's turning into an everest, so this week i stayed away from the cashier and just concentrated on playing,and sure enough the results started going my way, and more importantly i was enjoying playing more, while i wasnt so worried checking my balance after every hand!! i just played poker and let them come to me.
after 2 weeks of feb i've broken the 500 mark, nick gave me a goal of playing 750 this month but personally i think i should be getting in at least the 1k mark, especially if your grinding the 2's if you wanna show any sort of mark up you need the volume, i'm at 550 now so once i can keep it up i should get 1k and more in this month.
on another note, any you guys in the gym ever look in the spinning class and think it was just for girls? yeah me too!!
so when a few of my mates where doing it (with their girlfriends) i thought yeah sure how hard can it be........my God!!! Its pain on wheels, after bout 10 mins i couldnt feel me legs! needless to say i'm out of shape and that needs some attention!!
gl at the tables everyone

So after a week off work i managed to grind a ton, between spending the mornings looking for a new job and playing in the afternoon and evenings i managed to put in 35 hrs game time with bout an hour study each day, that ran me 278 games for a slight profit.
it seems i've got myself an everest!! By constantly checking if i'm over the hump to play the 7's again it's like i'm always just under i break through slightly then fall under again and so on and so on!!
Nick told me not to set profit goals rather to concentrate on volume and let the profits follow, so this week i'm not gonna check my balance, i'm just gonna grind my ass off and play as best as i possible can.
another thing i'm still struggling with is the beats late in the game, i know its part of it and i'm sure i suck out more than my fair share on route to the final table, but when you get it in with qq v q4 on a j84 board to see a 4 fall on the river that stil kills!! after getting so deep and 4th is basically min cash with trimmings, like ricky bobby says if your not first your last!!
GL everyone

jan recap

Well januarys done, Didnt meet my goals in jan, had a roller coaster month up down and again up again, nearly back up at what i need to play the 7's again, but still a way off the sharkscope leaderboard.
Finished up in my job in the college on friday my contract ran out the end of jan,
so i guess i'll have to find something to fill my days while i'm lookin for a new job....hmmm i wonder what will be!!
Since my family were home in jan i was out more than i'm used to these days, so now everything settled down and back to normal i can start with fullfilling my new years resoloutions,
the main one being, that i want to get fit again, having all my life playing gaa and football i was always fit. but i guess when you spend all your free time sitting in front of a computer eating crap that goes out the window!!
so its back training 3...4 times a week and eating healthy once again.
My poker goals for feb are 1 to keep chasing a spot on the sharkscope leader board and 2 to play 1500 (edit) make that 1000!! short month! 180 mans.
GL everyone

Back to the 2's

Ah well, no sooner had i started playing the 7's then i had dropped under the 150 buy ins i want for them, only played bout 20 of them and was doing ok pretty much even, but wasnt running great at the 2's so dropped the 7's till i get back up.

then when i finally started to run good last night and i was sitting on 2 final tables 2nd in chips on both with 4 and 8 players left on them, eircom decided to go off on me!!!I was running around like a lunatic checking modems, reparing ip address etc, by the time i had got back online it was all over, blinded out in 4th and 5th.

just as well i'm not a high stakes mass grinder, i had 4 tables of $2 going and i was in meltdown lol.

Didnt play a whole lot as my brother and sister are home from australia for a couple of weeks for my dads birthday, so was spending some time with them, Went into town tuesday and done the tour of the guinness store house......very touristy, even though were all from Dublin!! and had a few pints round temple bar so that was a good day out.

Hope to get back into the grind and up my volume as i'm very happy with how i'm progressing and approaching the games even if i'm running into hands at crucial times, my main goals at the momont are to get my roll back up to play the 7's regurly by the end of january and to make the sharscope leaderboard for $2 games <6 tables, So i'm gonna make a real push for that over the next 2 weeks!
Wish me luck lol

Got my stripes!!

As the name suggests i reached the 150 buy in mark for the $7 180's, my coach informed me that i can start mixing them in with the 2's. Still finding it hard dealing with the swings in the 180's, had another 80 game loosing streak, then 1 win and its all sweet again, you just got to keep playing and hope your making the right decisions till it comes back around, it's homer in the simpsons when they dig the big hole and cant get out.....we'll dig our way out!!!
All in all though its still going well, very happy with the 2's still keeping in aroung 50%, started the 7's yesterday got 4th in my first one so was freerooling for the day and broke even in them,
theres a blloging cup on pokerstars worth checking out, looks like a good lineup

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 420676

GL everone at the tables

Happy new year everyone! Now christmas is over time to get back to reality and try build this bankroll with some effect!
been up and down since the last time going on another 100 game loosing streak to turning it around again over the last few days of 09, started throwing in some $4 180's with my $2's and they brought me back to winning ways, they seem handy enough, 15 minute blinds so for the first hour you can sit back while everyone kills each other off!!
all in all between the 2's and 4's played 278 with a 50% roi, so i'm still moving upwards!!
Hope everyone has a great 2010
congrats to doke and big mick on shipping manchester ukipt tickets and big micks elite status