Big Tournament Weekend

This weekend was a pretty big $20K Tournament at Oceans 11. The buy in was $225 but I decided to go up on Saturday and try to satellite my way in. I played two $60 satellites and won the second one to get an entry into the tournament...so instead of $225 it only cost me $120. I went to the tournament on Sunday and actually missed the first hand when my 10 year old nephew called me just as we were getting under way. Fortunately the second hand I called a $150 raise with Q10 off suit and just about doubled up (started with 4000 in chips) when I got Q's full of 10's. Managed to stay around 8000 chips through the second break. The key hand after that was... i flopped pocket 10's on the button, the under the gun player made a decent raise and it folded back to me... I thought about pushing all in but decided to call and see what the flop brought except... the big blind went all in and the under the gun called him pretty quickly. I put one of them on a big pair and the other two big cards.... again I thought for a while and decided unless they both only had over cards and missed completely I would probably lose the hand, so I folded. Sure enough the big blind had pocket J's and under the gun had KQ suited.... good fold until a ten comes on the flop... agghhhh! Never quite recovered from that and once they started taking antes I had to push all in with and A5 suited but lost to a pair of 6's. Came in 45th and they were paying 16. Felt I played ok and am looking forward to more tournaments with similar payouts (1st was just under 10K).