One Monster gives me some breathing room..

Not a bad night, but mostly because of one monster hand at the end.

Still feeling pretty confident about my game at UB, and before the monster hand came up, I had dug out of my negative hole, and was enjoying the slow grind that was limit poker. I had a nice long, but cool conversation with Thomas today where we discussed how he plays nowadays, and my desire to beat $2/$4 limit. He is nicely concerned that I will simply never be able to beat the rake there long term. I wish I had a solution to that, but I don't. All I can do is try and avoid the bad beat jackpot tables every chance I get.

Unfortunately, right now the jackpot tables are the looser tables. So I have to try to play them and hope I can beat the double rake. So far, I am successful, but I'm still very cautious about the long term prospects. Here's my stats for tonight:

Table 1 - 8.13bb/100
Table 2 - 26.08bb/100
Table 3 - -11.14bb/100
Table 4 - 183.59bb/100 (rofl gg massive pot of doom on a table that died shortly after)
Table 5 - 5bb/100

Obviously the fact that I play short sessions really makes these numbers look skewed. Currently right now overall I am running 12.41bb/100 which is "hotter than the sun," but it's still so few hands that one monster like this one is what takes it to the tipping point:

Absolute/UB Cereus Hold'em, $4.00 BB (9 handed) - Absolute/UB Cereus Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com


Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9, 9
Hero bets $4, 1 fold, MP1 calls $4, MP2 calls $4, MP3 calls $2, CO raises to $6, Button raises to $8, 1 fold, BB calls $6, Hero calls $4, MP1 calls $4, MP2 calls $4, MP3 calls $4, CO calls $2

Flop: ($55) J, 4, 9 (7 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, MP1 bets $2, MP2 calls $2, 1 fold, CO calls $2, Button raises to $4, BB calls $4, Hero calls $4, MP1 calls $2, MP2 calls $2, CO calls $2

Turn: ($79) 5 (6 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $4, MP1 raises to $8, MP2 calls $8, 1 fold, Button calls $8, BB calls $8, Hero raises to $12, MP1 calls $4, MP2 calls $4, Button calls $4, BB calls $4

River: ($139) 6 (5 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $4, MP1 calls $4, 1 fold, Button calls $4, BB calls $4

Total pot: $155 | Rake: $3.50

Results:
Button didn't show
BB didn't show
Hero had 9, 9 (three of a kind, nines).
MP1 didn't show


By the way, I am not sure I played this well. Probably going to post it on 2+2. On the flop I wanted to see who would keep betting for me. On the turn, since it stopped so quickly on the flop, I wasn't willing to risk missing any big bets, so out I came firing, and wasn't willing to let up with anything less than a turn cap, which I would take to me "crap, someone had pocket jacks."

If you take out that monster I am making a much more reasonable 2.8bb/100.

Still, I'm very thankful for this hand. It gives me some nice variance leeway to keep learning the tables here.