Patience and discipline

About 10 hours after sitting down, I finally walked out of the Grand Lisboa poker room. Some highlights:

• Starting from $2000, after a few small pots, I was up to about $4000... including a J-5 full house that beat a 10-5 full house when the 10-5-5 flop was followed with a J on the turn.
• Ops, I'm back at about $1000 after my K-K was met with A-A. A semi bluff when the flop showed a J didn't work. It made him think though.
• Top pair top kicker lost to trips. I need to re-buy. $3000 more.
  
• It's been 2 hours since my re-buy... and I'm not going anywhere with the cards I've been dealt
• Finally, some decent cards netted some decent pots... current stack at $8000
• Ops, holding top pair with a low kicker, I folded the best hand when my opponent made a big re-raise with a low pair... at about $5000 (breakeven)
  
• Phew... different opponent who has been catching cards all night folded his pocket 10s against my pocket 5s (flop was 7-7-3)
• A few big pots against some players who didn't know what they were doing got me to $9000 again

Well well... the key is to be patient and pick your battles. I'm glad I did this though as it was a good test of my skills under unfamiliar settings.