Boomtown Saturday - Take 2

Went out to the Saturday am tourney at Boomtown on the West Bank to take in a little tourney practice. This will be the last one I can play in before heading out for the 1k event the Saturday after next.
The structure for their tournament is 5k in chips, blinds start at 25-50 and go up every 20 minutes. I had a 3 people at my table that I had played with before, 1 whom I think is a very solid cash player, another who I played with in this tourney 2 weeks ago (I doubled him up when I called his AA all in and then took out about 15 hands later when he called my AA), the last players I recognized is a jibber jabber machine who I never had a lot of respect for, since I once saw him muck a winner because he was too busy pouting about getting beat the hand before. Things started pretty slowly although mister mouth took 2 or 3 big hands early and got a monster stack. By the first break I was up around 10.5k in chips and we were down from the original 80 to about 45 or so. The fact is I only had high pocket pairs twice and was able to hit some nice AQ and suited connector hands to survive. I made 2 mistakes of note:

With AQ suited in early position with the blinds 200/400 I raised to 1200 and got folders all around until the BB who moved all in for another 3,200 or so. I had just been moved to this table so after thinking for a bit I laid it down because I figured I was in a race at best. After the guy got busted out I asked him what he had and he told me (and I believe him) that he had A10. Bad read, could/should have taken him out there and pushed my stack to about 16k.

In the BB with J9 suited was raised by the button from 600 to 1600. Called thinking he was pushing and the flop came K-10-6 rainbow. I checked, he bet 2000 and I immediately raised to 5k on my gutshot. Hope was that he would go away, but he called almost immediately. At this point, I knew I was beat and checked the turn which brought nothing of value. He of course moved all-in and I folded. I suppose I could have made another stab at the pot, but since I felt like I was beat (he was a much older player and someone I figured to be a very tight player) I decided to cut my losses. That took me from about 14k to about 6.5k and left me weak as we moved closer to the money.

In the end I was able to hang on and make the final table, finishing 10th out of 80 and getting 155 back on my 100 buy-in.

I am feeling good as we approach the WSOP, consistently making it either close to or in the money. I am trying to improve how I get there and would love to be able to get to this point in a position of power instead of hanging on. The second mistake I made is indicative of the problem I have getting to the end with a decent chip stack.

On a side note, as I was waiting to get paid after I got busted out, I was asked by the poker room manager if I wanted the last 1/2 nl cash seat at a table they had just begun. I waffled and he said, "I really think you want this seat". Decided that was good enough for me, and man was he right. It was the wackiest cash game I have ever been in. The play was loose and the action ridiculous. People were raising enormous amounts with mediocre starting hands and calling big bets down to try and hit straight and flush draws. In about 1 hour of play I made $615 profit and then left. I guess I'm getting better at being able to walk away with my winning intact and being able to master the art of the retard table a bit better. Between that game and last Monday at Harrah's I ended up $1100 bucks or so up for the week in cash games.