Who needs to go all the way to the Great Barrier Reef?

I swam with sharks at the Bicycle Casino last night, without a cage, even. I managed to outlast about half the field last night, and was disappointed at that result, but I was up against some really tough competition and mostly just got unlucky. In the other tournaments (after the first one), I saw a number of people I recognized from other events. But this time, very few of those faces were around, and instead, I was surrounded by guys who were talking about how they did in the smaller WSOP events. I tried to mostly just play very tight, and not be too tricky. That approach worked for the most part, except these guys quickly realized what I was up to, so I got very little action when I entered a hand. I would have liked to use that to my advantage to steal a few more pots than I did, but there was usually someone else already representing strength, and usually someone who also seemed to be playing pretty tight. My final hand consisted of me losing to a bigger full house (he had AA and flopped a set, I had 99 and turned my set, river made it an irrelevant full house), and for the first time, I can only think of one mistake I made, and that one didn't cost me much. In fact, if I made any major mistakes, it wasn't the hands I did play, but possibly in the hands I didn't. Not hands that I folded many that would have won, and I don't beat myself up too much about those anyway, but I probably missed at least a couple of opportunities to exploit my tight image and steal.

Went back to the cash games after a short break, and that started off so well, I thought for sure I was going to make a lot of money. I managed to double up on the very first hand I actually played (just the fourth hand I was dealt). I got raised out of my blinds, and then folded on the button, but in the cutoff, I picked up A9 suited with little or no action in front of me, so I made a raise. I wasn't exactly thrilled when the big stack on the button called me, but at least he didn't re-raise. I couldn't ask for a better flop, 99x ! I checked, he bet, I called. Turn brought the fourth 9, so I checked again, hoping he made a full house, he bet, I called. The river brought a deuce, and I think a possible flush, so I led out, pushing in the rest of my chips, still hoping he had the full house and had no fear of a flush. He called, I showed my quads, and he mucked, saying he had pocket kings. I probably should have walked away right then, but I thought I could make some more money. Didn't quite work out like that, and six hours later, after a few bad beats and chopped pots, I was out of chips. Since I had been playing off my initial buy-in and was now pretty tired, it didn't seem to make sense to rebuy, so I just headed back to my room. Even though I ended the day down $650 ($500+50 for the tourney and $100 and the ring game), I felt like I played OK. I definitely made some mistakes at the cash game, but there were a lot more people coming and going and crazy drunks, so there were more adjustments to be made, not all of them in time. But I knew adjustments needed to be made, and approximately what those adjustments were, at least, even if I didn't always reach my goal. A fairly expensive lesson, to be sure, but I do feel like I learned from the experience and can meke it work for me in the future.