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Best finish in the Open for a while: went out in 9th, and went out going all-in preflop with the best hand: A6 against KT. And it was still the best hand on the turn...

One problem with my game is that I don't hammer away at weak players, and finding myself straightaway on an easy table, I tried to push a bit harder and I made a good start, betting fish out of three early pots.

Here's all the hands I played where there was a flop. I've put the time, followed by my nett winnings or loss, followed by my cards if there was a showdown:
9.02 +505
9.04 +465
9.10 +575
9.14 +200
9.18 +250
9.21 -2235
9.24 +700
9.24 -1100
9.28 +3460 (JT)
9.40 +1000
9.43 +2760 (Q8s)
9.45 +10630 (AK)
9.50 +3795 (QQ)
9.51 -750
9.55 -3000
9.56 +3132 (A8)
9.56 +6020 (AJ)
10.37 -4000
10.43 +12510 (36s)
10.51 +55575 (7Ts)
10.52 +5980 (86)
10.53 -10000
10.58 +15000
11.00 +67775 (QK)
11.05 -41700
11.14 +20000
11.23 -155417

(Of course there were also plenty of blinds I either stole or gave up.) I haven't done a detailed analysis before and it shows some interesting facts:
1. No-one saw any of my cards for the first half an hour, even though I won six pots.
2. Before the biggie, I'd only lost four major pots in over two hours of play.
3. I didn't go all-in till 9.45, and then at 10.27, 10.40, 10.51, 10.54, 11.04, 11.14, 11.22 and 11.23. I mention this because when we see the leaderboard after a few minutes several players already have 6,000 or even 9,000 chips. Best to ignore them; putting in 3,000 chips when the blinds are 15 and 30 is something pretty exceptional.
4. Remember that to get from 3,000 to 200,000 chips (enough for the final table) only needs 6 double-ups. So patience is an acceptable strategy as long as you hang on to your blinds. My success was based on winning just three hands: at 9.28, 9.45 and 10.51.
5. The second hour was pretty amazing. It looks like I was hibernating for most of it. I was pretty card-dead, but I did in fact win the blinds five times, with A2, JT, 65, 44 and K7. Meanwhile the other players were stealing a march on me chipwise and I was sliding down the leaderboard. My lucky break came when I had 63s in the big blind, the flop came 468 and I rivered another 6.

My best moment came soon after. I push all-in UTG with 7Ts and got two callers. Oops! Whew: flop 3T5, more rags after that and my 22,000 chips became 77,000. I know I left it late to make that move but I don't think I'm ever going to lose the tight side of my game. Sometimes I see situations where a looser player would push and probably get their cards through but I bottle it.

A few of the hands I was in were featured on the TV show, and between them, TK and DP said a couple of complimentary things about my play. I wonder what they would've said about my final move...