It was wild and wooly outside this afternoon with lots of wind and rain coming down all over the Pacific Northwest. I started playing another EPT Steps 15 FPP Special tournament and two hands in my connection died. I don’t know if it was the weather or something in my local network for sure but I managed to get back in only to have things go sour again just as I tried to call a raise with a pocket pair of kings from UTG+1. By the time I hooked up an Ethernet cord to my cable modem, that hand was long gone and I was down to 895 chips from the starting stack of 1,000, with the big blind of 100 about to take another chunk out. On the 75 chip small blind the next hand I pulled [ac 4s] and went all-in over another all-in of 60 chips and the big blind of 150. The big blind folded, an [as] hit on the flop and that was good enough to put me back up over the starting stack.

Two rounds later the blinds were at 100/200 and I was dealt [kc 7c] in the UTG+1 position. I went all in for 1,005, the next player to act raised all-in to 1,860, and everyone else folded. He flipped over [as kc] but the cards came out [5c 3s 8s] [2s] [jc] and I got some breathing space with 2,285 chips.

Six hands later at 150/300/25 I got [7c 7h]. Not a pair that’s the best to play nine-handed, particularly from my UTG position but I put in 300. UTG+1 went all-in for 1,872 and it folded around to the big blind who pushed everything in for 2,960. I was completely covered but called. The flop was [6s 7d 7s], which left me in pretty good shape. The big blind with [ad ks] was out of luck but there was a minimal chance that UTG+1’s [td jd] could turn into a straight flush, at least until [tc] came on the turn. I took in 7,852.

Someone else’s middle pocket pair was my downfall, when I paired a [td] with the top card on the board at the turn and [6h 6c] tripped up with [6s]. Out in seventeenth position.