Vegas Poker - $130 NLHE at Caesar's Palace

Last tournament I played, I started at noon on Sunday for the $130 NLHE at Caesar's Palace.

I started out at a table of fish, so I fished with the rest of them.  I chipped up with a few lucky hands from the starting 15,000 to about 23,000 in the first hour.  That set the tone for me, I chipped up slowly except for a couple of setbacks. I wiped out a loose aggressive player with a flopped straight versus top pair. I bluffed a weak player with a well timed reraise.   I was above the average for most of the afternoon.  I kept up pressure and then lost a big hand to the table chip leader. Ugh he would not fold anything. That cost me my comfortable standing so I went into survival mode. I wasn't beat but I didn't make any mistakes.

 After 4PM, I was above chip average again until I got called by a desperate player and my pocket Aces made the full house.  I folded KQs and could have taken out 2 players and I regret not calling it would have cost me only 25% of my stack.

From 4PM till 5PM, I was absolutely card dead as the blinds rose and rose. Suddenly my superior chip stack was now somewhere in the middle of the pack. I didn't give up.  At dinner break I was maybe 7 blinds deep.  I went to see my wife and said I wouldn't be long.
Back from break I decided to go all in with A-rag, six deuce, and pocket jacks in the first 3 hands. Now I was back in the race.  I changed tables and looked down at pocket Queens. I raised under the gun and got reraised all-in by a loose player that was a chip leader at my original table and now was short stacked.  He turned over pocket nines and I sent him packing.  Now I was the table chip leader.  I made some moves to gain some chips and then survived to the money bubble. I made the money and then had to fold an ace to kings and Aces.  I survived that hand in the big blind, but that left me short stacked and shoved with K9s in the small blind.  I lost to a lucky QJ and was out in 34 place. 

Not bad for a field of 271 players.