7 Clans Main Event--Day 2

--Bad Beat Story I started with 28,100 in chips. I made some mistakes, no doubt. I tried a blind steal with 55's, a semi steal, it was the second hand in a row I'd gotten the 55's. 8 seat to my left re-raises me, and I called...wrong. Flop doesn't help me, I tried another bet, got raised and folded. I also got involved, in the SB, with 10-4 diamonds. I was getting like 9-1 odds, so I called with a half bet, why not? I end up with an open end straight draw, and a flush draw, lots of outs and calling an all in bet for like 1/3 of my stack, and miss the draw. So I find myself after an hour down to 8,000-10,000 with the blinds at 500-1000. Not quite panic time, but getting there. So I decide to shore up my game real fast, tighten up, and wait for a real hand and maybe double up before the blinds go up. Careful what you wish for. So I catch 99's in the small blind, I'm in seat 7, it's folded around to seat 4, a neurotic(based on her clothing) woman who limps in. I bump it up to 3,000, my standard 3x raise, BB folds, and she calls. Cool. The flop comes rainbow 9-6-5d. So there's no flush draw (not to any reasonable person anyway), to have the straight she'd have had to have called my raise with 7-8, which I doubt (again, assuming reasonable people here), and I've flopped my set. This is the best possible outcome for me, I am ecstatic about this. I'm back in this event if I can double up here. I look at her stack, she has a little over 15,000 left after calling my raise (remember that, called a raise). I look at mine, and I have 5400 left. With a 3,000 call pre-flop, I figure she might well call a 5400 bet, so I push all in. She calls!!! I'm ecstatic now, I'm gonna double up. Dealer says show, I flip up my 99's with pride, listen to the "ooohhhs" of the other players at the table, hear a "good hand" from somebody, see the crazy woman put her head down on the table in agony, I feel like the smartest guy in the room! Then....she picks her head up off the table, flips up her 4-6 of diamonds, and I'm just elated. She flopped a pair of 6's, middle pair and a low one at that, I've got TOP SET, and I'm all in, right where I want to be. Nothing can help her....except.....for............. The turn comes 10 diamonds, the river is another diamond, she draws a flush, and the first words out of her mouth are "I'm sorry". Her draw was so outrageous, that it surprised even her. I doubt seriously she ever even hoped it would happen. So I'm busted out. That hurt bad. Worse than the beat the other night in the 1 day $300 entry event. This was a 3-Day, $3100 entry event, a MAJOR event. My week is done, but I've learned some things about tournament poker. The bigger the event, the more I want to win it and the more stress and anxiety, body chemistry, it elicits. Maybe it's the better I play, too. I wish that when these beats happen, I could look at my play and be OK with it because I made the right move. The reality is, when I play it right I'm more pissed off BECAUSE I played it right. Poker players are gluttons for pain.