Victorian Champs 8-Game, chess & cash games

The 8-game event should have been one of my better events, however it ended prematurely due to a few factors:
1. A poorly timed bluff in Razz. Although I had a pretty good idea of what my opponent's hand was, as well as the hand I was representing, it didn't stop my opponent from calling down ...
I had a board of A5T2 v 37J5 which saw me complete (one other player called as well as my opponent), bet 4th, only to be raised by the 37 & I 3-bet ... my opponent then called me down & had (as expected) a 7-low, obviously not giving me credit for the wheel or any better hand I thought I could credibaly represent, even saying 'do you have a 6?' before calling on 7th. Of course the fact that I had TTJ in the hole didn't help my cause ... but its simply a spot I should have avoided in this event. Fold 4th, wait for a better spot & move on ... rather than needlessly donking off 80% of my stack.
2. Getting too much respect & not adjusting my play accordingly. Over half the table knew who I was & knew I could play mixed games, with players even asking me if they played their hands correctly after the hand concluded. Of course it also meant that my raises (pre-flop or on 3rd street in stud) often got folds from hands that players would happily play against other opponents. The obvious adjustment to make is then to play more hands & take down more blinds & antes, but I didn't do this anywhere near as much as I should have, so found myself winning a few small pots, while leaving the bigger pots up to the cards ... which sometimes went my way, sometimes not.
3. Not playing enough hands. I'm really starting to reconsider my general philosophy for tournaments of late (a combination of recent results, as well as various videos/podcasts/forum threads on Deuces Cracked) & I really need to play lots of hands in an event like this in order to accumulate chips early.
There are a few reasons for this:
a. The weaker players tend to be the ones eliminated earliest, so I want to get as many of their chips as I can, rather than having to win them from better players (which may prove more difficult)
b. Although the structure looks good on the surface (10k stack & 30 minute levels), it plays much quicker given the extra time it takes to deal the stud & draw games, as well as the extra time that less experienced players take during non-holdem games as they try to figure out what hand they have (let alone worrying about what other people in the hand have - see the ill-timed Razz bluff as an example).
c. Its a (mostly) limit event, so I want to avoid being all-in during the tournament if at all possible. This is best achieved by having more chips than my opponents (or at least enough bets to cover a limit hand with plenty of action).
d. Chips early often means chips late ... and I generally enter tournaments with the intention of winning them (or at least cashing).
Ultimately I finshed around 32nd from the 48 starters the event attracted, which was very disappointing.

I also played a chess tournament on the weekend, the 'Best in the West' event at Yarraville. I managed 2 wins, 2 draws & a loss from the 5 games, which saw me finish tied for 6th out of 22 players. This sounds reasonable on the face of it, but when you consider that I was the 5th seed and was actually worse, if not losing, each of the four games I scored points in (the two wins & two draws), as well as the fact that I butchered a completely winning position in the game I lost, it made for a disappointing result. In some respects it was good to salvage points from such poor positions, but the fact that I found myself in them in the first place is the frustrating part about it.

Cash games have been going reasonably well over the last few days. There are times when I feel I am playing well, yet I still find myself in situations where I feel lost from time to time. If its any consolation, I feel that the last few days have been better than earlier in the week & some of the Deuces Cracked material (mentioned above) has really got me thinking about my game & my approach to it ... hopefully with a positive outcome!

In podcast news, I'm hoping to interview Tim Duckworth of Pokernews/Tilted Behaviour in the next week or so, with some other interview guests also being a possibility. Will see how I go on that front.