UB fun

Last night, I sacked up and ventured back to the NL tables, $.10/.25 blinds this time. I bought in for $25, the maximum. Just a few hands into it, I called a x3BB preflop raise with 55, and started salivating at my flop of J53 rainbow. Presto!! It's checked to the preflop raiser, he bets, and everybody folds to me. I want to milk this one, and raise 2-3x his bet. He calls, and the turn is a K, for two hearts. I bet into him. He raises me all-in, not much more than a minimum raise. The river is a blank, and he wins with his set of kings. Set over set is easy enough to get away from in pot-limit Omaha, but in holdem it's a tough fold. I don't think he would've folded his overpair to a huge checkraise from me on the flop.

So after about 5 minutes, I'm already reloading. Bah, this sucks. Why did I come back to the NL tables? One mistake, and BAM, goodbye money.

But I'm stoic about it. "That's poker," I think to myself. And I proceed to play excellent, solid, sneaky, winning poker for the next few hours. No hands stand out, but I was left with a feeling that I extracted all the money I could on my good hands, and got away quickly and cheaply from losing ones. I was "in the zone" - It felt like that poker nirvana where everything I tried worked, and people were willing to pay me off while holding second-best hands. After three hours, I had doubled my second $25 to $56.60, which I guess is +13BB.

I celebrated my cash comeback with a 100pt SNG, and promptly busted out in 9th when my AK on the button went up against A8s with an AJ8 rainbow flop. By the time I figured out he might have two pair, my chipstack would've been crippled. I decided to hope he was a dummy with just a pair of aces and press on. Oh well.