2 For 2 On Saturday

I played in the VIP NLHE freeroll and the $11 2K Guaranteed PL Omaha on Saturday on Pokerstars at 1430 and managed to squeeze out a cash in both of 'em. At one point early in the freeroll I managed to win 5 pots in a row without having to show my hand once (I did show the 4th of 5 because it was the second hand in a row I had reraised a limper preflop and I wanted to show off my red Aces) and that run doubled my starting stack. I then treaded water until I got KK and managed to triple up vs Ace-2 suited and 66. As the bubble got close I didn't have enough chips to maneuver with so I just folded my way into the money (except when I shoved AK once and AA once), ending up about 1050th/6900+ for a min cash of $6.
The PL Omaha tourney had close to 300 runners and paid 45 spots. Although I rarely play Omaha, I did manage to Final Table the same type of tourney a while back so I felt pretty confident going into this one. Early on, my tablemates wanted to see a lot of flops, and then not bet them, so I was able to steal some pots in position and also get paid a lil bit when I hit a few big hands. I also ran really g00t, getting it in with KK76 vs AAK3 and making 7's and 6's vs his AA, and sticking it in with KK-10-x vs 10-7-x-x on a 10-7-6 flop and turning a King. The roller coaster hand of the day occurred about an hour in. Several players limped for 50, I potted it to 650 with A-Ah-10-6h, and got one caller. The flop came 9-8-7 with two hearts, he bet 2K, and I obviously shoved my 4000+ with the nut flush draw and the 2nd nut straight. He insta-called and showed me 8-8-7-6 and after a blank turn we CHOPPED when a non-heart Ten came on the river. Could have been worse...
Once we got close to the money there were two kinds of stacks left in the tourney - monsters and survivors - and I unfortunately was in the latter category after suffering a bad beat with about 60 players left. Since the blinds were still low I basically shut it down and waited for either a monster hand or for a bunch of limpers to give me a chance to see a flop. With about 50 left I somehow managed to find AA45 in the small blind, chose to just complete after a bunch of limpers, and potted for 3200 on an Ace-3-7 flop only to see eveyone fold behind me. At the time that was exactly what I wanted (gimme the pot now, I have the nuts but I don't want to get sucked out on and not cash), but in retrospect, since my hand and redraws were SO strong and there were 4 or 5 other players in the pot I should have given one of them the chance to stab at it and in the process enrich me further. That being said, if an opponent had had a set, two pairs, or something like Ace-4-5-6 they probably would have called off anyways so maybe I didn't lose much in the way of equity. In addition, although the tourney paid 45 spots, the pay bump for getting to 36th and then 27th was only about $1.40 (it was like 17.20/18.60/20) so it was more in my interest to just survive the bubble. After that hand I had enough chips to easily make the money so I continued my folding ways, finally shoving about 2.5BB's in early position with Ad4d3d4x and losing to AKJ6 on the obv A-J-6 flop. I did manange to make the first pay jump as I finished 35th.
This weekend I will probably play both of these tourneys again. CU at the tables !!