Live Tourny Tries

Well after the long weekend of freerolling... with little success (LOL)... I decided to try a couple of live tournies.
First was a $50 tourney with 26 players. Usually run pretty good at the club with a good record of cashes but bubbled this time. Bad play on my part as I put it all in with AQs figuring the original raiser had a mid pocket pair. Didn't get lucky to beat his 9s. I should have waited as there was at least one shorter stack but there had been 3 short stacks but they kept on doubling up.
Next was a tourney on Sunday that I had been looking forward to. It is one that is part of a series that is held for a 12 month period. Part of the entry fee ($50) is withheld for a year end tournament that only those that make the final 10 of a tournament are eligible for. So I was looking to get some more points towards that tourney. Each place earns points that at the end of the year tourney you get $1000 in chips for each point. Normal chip stack is $2000 starting. Started with 140 players, first hand flopped a set and lost just over $400 on the hand when river put up 4 hearts and 4 to a str8. Played tight for next two hours and stayed about even... blinded down a bit. Started hitting a few hands when we were down to 5 tables... about 3 hours in. Accumulated a few chips to get down to 2 tables but still was in the bottom third of stacks. Was patient and made it to the final table probably in 8th place out of 11. Ended up going out in 5th place... on a hand I normally would have folded UTG. Damn AJs... tried to make a move and ran into AK and QQ, both of them in the blinds and 1st and 3rd stacks! I fold preflop I finish 4th. Got 8 points now for a grand total of 32. I check the list of qualifiers before the tourney and there were only 13 people with 30 or more points and only 33 with 20 or more out of a total of 160 qualifiers. Only one more tourney to go means there will be no more than 177 players to play in the year end tourney which will have about a $20,000 prize pool.
Also played in the usual $20 Tuesday tourney, they had 123 players. Didn't have any hands to play early and just before break I committed 40% of my stack calling a preflop raise with 88 feeling that I had the original raiser beat as I have played against her many times and she only min raised also. This allows the bb to call and he flopped two pair. I went out about 20 minutes later. Pretty much blinded out. But as usual lately, was my own bad play that hurt me.
And of course still been playing tons of freerolls online. LOL I have played 101 freerolls since Oct 1 and have been in the top 5% of 35 of them. But still that isn't good enough in most of them as most pay out less than top 1%. Also haven't been doing very good at the cash tournies online lately either.... but I don't feel I have been playing very well.

GL to all at the tables.