Sweet victory

Last night's game went about as well as I could have hoped for. The table was full (9-handed), and the players were, in clockwise order starting at my left (hey, position matters): Jake, Chip, Dale, Daniel, Andrew, Randy, Marc, Chris, and me. I spent the vast majority of the tournament playing my usual tight/aggressive style, and then opened up a bit toward the end when it got down to four/three handed play.
There were a couple of spots in which the other players walked into monster hands and were trapped for their chips preflop. In one instance I was reraised all-in by Marc, who held AQ when I held the two aces. In another, I held two queens against a bluff raise by Chris (who held 78, 79, or 89... something like that).
As the night went on, Chip and Chris went out outside of the points, followed by Randy and Dale. Dale, in particular, took a bad beat when he went all-in with his ace-king. It had been raised to $2 (double the blind at this point) by Andrew, and folded around to Dale on the button with the AK. As he had only $5.50, raising the extra $3.50 was a no-brainer. Unfortunately for Dale, with $8 now in the pot, Andrew was getting a fairly good price on his call (better than 2:1), which he made with the A4 of diamonds. A nightmare flop came for dale in the form of the 2 of clubs, and the 3 and 6 of diamons, giving Andrew something like 15 outs twice. The turn gave him the straight, and the river, the flush.
So, we were into the points, and my closest competitors for the leaderboard had already been eliminated. I had amassed an early lead, but as blinds went up, pots were more frenzied and enlarged, so I decided to hang back a bit and let a person or two stack off. By the time we reached three-handed play, stacks were pretty much even, at around $50 a person. Fortunately, this is when I picked up some speed and was able to win a few pots as well as steal the blinds several times (they got up to $1-2 before we finished. Actually we played like two hands at the $1.50-$3 level before the game ended, I believe). When Marc stacked off in third (earning 7pts and $10), I had about a 5:3 chip advantage. I held out, letting Daniel bet and raise a lot, knowing that since I have a tight reputation, he was going to be stealing a lot. I decided the best chance was to try to trap him for all his chips. On the last hand, just such an opportunity presented itself.
In the big blind, I held the king-ten of diamonds and called a small raise to see the flop. It came 89J with one diamond. I knew my hand was unlikely to be best, but that if a seven came I'd have the low end of the straight, or if a queen came I'd have the nuts. Also, a diamond would give me a second-nut flush draw, adding nine outs to my hand going to the river. I checked the flop, hoping to get a free card. Daniel checked behind me. The turn was the beautiful queen of spades, giving me the nut straight. I figured maybe this was the spot I'd been looking for, and didn't want to scare Daniel away at this point - if he was behind, I wanted him to think he was ahead, or at least get a bluff out of him. I checked. He thought for a minute, then bet $6 (into a pot of $10. this is an okay-sized bet). I went into the tank for a bit, and called. When the river came off, it was a low card blank, and I knew both of us thought, "if I was ahead on the turn, I'm ahead now still." For some reason, I felt Daniel would fire again on the river. I felt like he was strong given the way he had put chips in, and the general look about him, his stare, etc. Plus, the pot at this point was $22, which amounted to more than half of what he had behind. If I was wrong, and he had nothing, he'd almost have to fire again on the river just to avoid giving a pot of that size up to me. I checked, and Daniel went all-in. I instantly turned my hand over and said "I call. Nuts." and the game was over. Daniel showed QT!!!! he had flopped the nut straight, and was checking on the flop to trap me, but the queen devalued his straight, leaving him drawing dead to a split, if one of the three kings left in the deck had appeared on the river. I took down a nice-sized chunk of the prize pool and added 9pts. more to my leaderboard standing.