Night at the Borgata

I just switched to the new version of Blogger and while I don't see anything really different from my viewpoint I'm sure it was for the best and this is my first post under the new version.
I stayed at the Borgata Thursday night. Played in their regular Thursday night tourney with a $120 buy-in. There were about 150 players and I felt that I played well, but missed the money by a few seats. I was knocked out in 26th place with 18 seats getting paid. The last two events I played I realized in retrospect that I had been playing a bit "scared", concentrating more on surviving than trying to win. I went into this event with a different mindset. I have been dominating the cash games lately and I planned on using the same style of play that was working for me in the ring games. It worked. I had built my chips up to almost $20k in the first few hours and really only made one big mistake when I lost 1/3 of my chips on a hand. I had King-Ten and the flop came 10-Jack-7 with two hearts. There were three players in the pot including me and the first player went all-in with his last $3200. I still had a player behind me and I put the first player on a heart draw. I thought about it and called, as I didn't want to totally commit to the hand with the player still to act behind me. I could tell he was torn about his decision and he respected my play, laying down a pocket pair in an earlier hand to me pre-flop when I made a large bet. He reluctantly called and I actually put him on a straight draw at that point. The ace on the river gave the winning hand to the first player, who had been on a heart draw with the ace of hearts and made top pair on the last card. I lost the hand but had a good read on the players.
The other mistake I made was in miscalculating the number of players left in the event when I moved all-in. I thought there were 4 tables left when there were actually only three. The "fourth" table I saw was a separate single table tournament and had I known how close I was to the money I might have waited for a better spot. I was in the hand with Queen-Ten and the flop came with a ten high. I bet out, everyone folded but one player who moved all-in. At best I put him on a ten but with a lower kicker, or a lower pair. This hand would give me a substantial amount of chips to make the final table so I called his bet and he turned over Ten-Seven. I was a 4 to 1 favorite with two more cards to come. He caught a seven on the turn to make two pair and I got no help on the river and was knocked out. Disappointing, but I was still happy with my play and my decisions were right the majority of the time.
I enjoyed a nice dinner and went to the room to chill. Friday morning I slept in until about 10am and then played in a cash game from noon until about 3pm. I made about $200 profit and checked out and headed back to Media. I ended up playing Friday night in Media and won a bit more.
While I didn't cash in the event I did get a confidence boost from my play and will try to keep the momentum going while I prepare for the World Series of Poker Circuit event which is coming to Caesars Atlantic City next month.