Cash Game Donk on the BBT Tour

I played in my 6th blogger tour event last night, after filling out forms in triplicate and getting a rare exemption to play on a Monday night. It would be worth the effort as I would get leaderboard points for the 6th time in 6 attempts, and work my way to my first final table, and first decent cash of the tour. I am going to Hoy it up a bit with some screenshots I happened to take along the way for those interested.
About 1/2 hour in, I got AA and was able to stack the constant trash talking smokkee, and send him to the rail. It felt great! Then just as I was starting to feel some momentum, I raised preflop and called drizz's push with AK. He would have A7 and out flop me. It was not looking to be my night.

I was not sure if I would put this in, but this was the hand that I pushed Hoy off JJ preflop with. Lets just say it was going to be a race.

So I ended the first hour with the stack and stats shown below.

In the second hour, I really got nothing going for the first 45 minutes. My stack was heading down towards 3000, and the blinds were starting to be a problem. I was playing my cash game style which works pretty good in the doublestack tournaments, but would need to chip up if I wanted to keep playing it. When the button tried to steal my BB for like the tenth time with a T800 min-raise, I jammed back 3200 with A4o (not a cash game move). He called pretty quick with J8s and I doubled through. The very next hand, I picked up TT and made a standard preflop raise, and cmitch jammed. I called (not a cash game move), and he had A8o, and I doubled through again, and went from second to last to second place in two hands. I ended second hour as shown below.

From here, I held tight, eventually calling a short MiamiDon with 22 and sending him home so that the final table could form. Below is the final table when I got there.

I had my first real (and only) suckout of the tourney when it folded to me in the SB and I raised what would be 1/2 the BB's stack. BB pushed, and I had to call. BB had AQ and I had KQ, but I would get the better board, and move into the lead for the first time at the FT as shown below.

From here I would hang on and Scots_chris would knock out most of the rest of the field. He would take a 4-1 chip lead heads up. On the first hand heads up, I would get A2o, and would be facing a preflop push. My read on Scots was that he was over betting and pushing with the goods, but it is tough to laydown an ace heads-up and semi-short. I made a bad call, and was against AJ or AQ and IGHN, with a nice second place and about a $275 cash. Yeah me! This is my typical run through MTTs when I do well. I just play cash game as long as I can. If I happen to be catching, I can continue with it till the FT. If I am not, I make some moves in the second hour, and go home or chip up. In this one I was not in the top 20 for the first hour and 45 minutes and popped right into second place after two big hands. As long as you are getting your big hands paid off in MTTs you can sit out for several orbits and play a pretty tight cash game style most of the way. I was also able to buy quite a few pots, because it is hard to believe that a player does not have anything after watching them sitting out for 30+ hands. When these types of tighties start firing at the pot it's best to get out of their way.