Curb Your Enthusiasm

The snowstorm kept the tables light at the MHPP tonight--the entire back room was empty--which meant I finally got to start playing 1/2 NL at a decent seat. To my left was a fat Korean kid with a noticeable double jowl--the worst fate for the moon-faced asian male-- who was on horrible tilt when I sat down. He had this hideous stubble sprouting out of his neck in very sparse patches and seeing how much it resembled my own facial hair made me want to shave immediately. The seat to my right was empty, meaning that there was someone in it, but that person only had about $40 in chips and looked like an idiot. The only big stack at the table was some chachi asshole in a black sateen shirt who probably was the worst poker player I've seen at the place. I sat down, waiting for my stomach to calm down, and began folding a bunch of terrible hands.
About twenty minutes in, Richard Kind of Spin City, Mad About You and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame sat down next to me with only $50 in chips. I haven't watched more than a couple episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but apparently Richard Kind is one of the auxiliary characters. I guess he must live in the Upper West Side because a couple months ago, I saw him in front of the filthy Gristedes on 100th and Broadway. Anyway, he was a horrible poker player-- you can't sit down at the 1/2 table without at least $200 in chips, unless you're playing the poker table like a slot machine, hoping to get dealt a massive hand that will pay out big. He played the typical chump role--fidget a lot, frown, limp into pots and then quietly fold when you miss the flops.
The only thing he said to me was, "you sure do mutter a lot to yourself. Is that cause you're good?" My response was to smile nervously.
At some point, he got a phone call on his busted-ass Motorola green-screen phone. He said some things about Los Angeles and golf. When he hung up, he announced to the table, "See guys, I get phone calls from big TV stars..." Which was a really fucking weird thing to say. Everyone already recognized him and the chachi in the sateen shirt had already asked him a bunch of questions about the use of improv in the filming of Curb.
A couple hands after Mr. Kind busted out, restoring order to the table, I picked up A-10 on the button and raised the bet to $7 after the table limped to me. Two people called, including the guy four seats to the right of me. The flop came A-7-9. The first caller checked and the second caller bet $10. The bettor had been limping into every pot and consistently betting the flop, so I thought that he might be representing a 9 or maybe even a middle pocket pair. At best, I thought I had a decent chance that I had him outkicked, given the hands he'd been showing. I re-raised to 40 total, and much to my annoyance, he called. The turn, though, was a great card for me-- a 10--giving me top two pair. The second caller bet $40 and after some acting, I raised him to $80, which was about half of my remaining stack. The second caller paused, looked at his cards and threw all his chips in the pot. I called immediately, thinking that I probably was up against AK or AQ. The dealer dealt the river before we had a chance to flip: a J. The second caller called out his 2 pair and threw A-7 on the table. I turned over my higher two pair, which caused him to curse loudly and punch the table. I took down about a $520 pot.
*-a quick note: the only reason why this was a reasonable call was because I'd been watching the guy for two hours and thought that he'd have just slowplayed a set on the flop the entire way. The $10 bet made me think that he probably had an Ace, at best. I was wrong to raise his bet on the flop, but if he had come back strong over me, I would have immediately folded. I hid a lucky card on the turn and got him to commit all his chips. I'm not saying I played this hand particularly well, but I do think I properly thought it through, given the player. If it had been anyone else at the table, I probably a) wouldn't have reraised the $10 bet and b) would have strongly considered folding the all-in bet, even with 2 pair.
There wasn't much action for the rest of the night. I won 2 pots in the next 2 hours-- one was a top pair on the flop that no one else hit and the other was a steal, probably my best play of the night, when I re-raised sateen shirt with nothing, because I was pretty sure he had missed his flush on the turn. I left at 1 AM up $388.

I suppose if there's any lesson learned over the past week of winning at the MHCC, it's that Hellmuth's book isn't really that bad. I've been playing extremely tight, waiting for big hands, and when I get to see a flop, I usually have the respect to steal if the pot size and my reads are right. I think I probably re-raised at least 4 times tonight, so it wasn't like I was playing passively and just waiting for monster hands to hit. Anyway, I suppose that for this week, at least, my motto is "tight and aggressive..."

winnings: $388
Semi-semi Pro stats to date: $735