I've been getting myself fired up for the Mega Stack series which starts later today at Foxwoods. This is the event that spring boards me right into the rest of the year. From mid August right up until November there are some big events on my calendar and I want to be ready for all of em. It was right about this time last year that things really picked up for me and that momentum carried me all the way to a big score at the World Poker Finals in October. Now with the schedule winding up again, I'm excited to see what will happen this time around.

The first big thing on the horizon is the Mega Stack series at Foxwoods August 17th-23rd. It's a series of 3 events that runs a few times a year, one $340 buy in, one $560 buy in, and the big $1650 over the weekend. The smaller buy in events are 2-day MTTs while the $1650 is set up for a 3-day run. These events are very deep stacked pretty much from start to finish. They don't miss any of the standard blind levels for a 2-day event, there is plenty of play late in the day, and the prize pools are guaranteed which brings in more than enough players to make a deep run worth while. Last year the $340 event had over 1100 runners, we were playing 11-handed at one point early on just so everyone at the table would fit. First place ended up being around $75K, if that doesn't get the blood pumping at a mid stakes grinder, you have no pulse. I'd like to get into the $340 and the $560 but we'll see how the first event goes before I make plans on playing event 2.

After the Mega Stack, the MiniFTOPS starts up in early September. Online poker, specifically MTTs has taken a backseat for me recently. The swings and the grind were starting to get to me and so I took a little bit of a break. I plan on reloading my online accounts by the end of the month so I can once again start grinding my life away. For now though I'm concentrating more on cash games, rakeback, and live poker to pad my savings account and pay off some bills. Ideally I'll play something like 10-12 events in the MiniFTOPS. I've been profitable in the past during the series, but never to a huge extent. A couple of top 100 finishes to make a few hundred on the series is about all I've been able to muster so far. A big score can't be too far away.

Starting in early October the World Poker Tour comes to town with the Foxwoods World Poker Finals. This series is the WSOP for me. This is my backyard, my hometown casino, it's where I began this crazy career of mine and it's always going to be a special series to me. This year I plan on taking another step forward in my development by getting a seat into the WPT main event. That is going to be the main focus of the 4 week event for me. I was on the rail at the Final Table last year and it only made me want to work even harder to get there. I'm a better player today than I was last year (aka I have the balls to trust my instincts now) and I'm excited to try and take that next step.

In closing, as I leave for Foxwoods for event 1 of the Mega Stack I leave you with a quote that's been in my head for a few weeks now. I've had some tough times personally but there is one thing I've tried to live my life by:

"Don't let fear of striking out keep you from swinging."
-Yogi Berra

I'm calling out my shot, let's see if I can back it up. If not, then at least I have the stones to try.