No More 3 Tabling For Me

So I completed Day 3 of my Mini-Steps Quest and the last 3 games were CRAZY!!

I bought in to each tournament about 6-8 minutes apart from each other.

Of course, I make it to the final 2 in each one AT THE SAME TIME. Ever tried to multi-table 3 games heads up? It made my head spin!!! The result: On two of the tables, I went into heads-up as the chip leader, then proceeded to finish 2nd... IN BOTH.

The one table where I had 1/2 the stack of the chipleader, I won. Because that was the table that I could concentrate after I lost all my chips on the other two tables.

oh well... such is life.

On to the stats:

20 Step 1s played
3 Step 2s won
13 Step 1 replays earned
4 completely dropped out

I mentioned yesterday that I felt like I was hitting my stride... Well today just reinforced that feeling. 5 tournaments and not a finish lower than 3rd (one 3rd, three 2nds and one 1st). After placing 7th or lower in 4 of the first 8 tournaments I played, I haven't placed lower than 5th in the last 12 tournaments.

Looking at this statistic, I am placing in 5th or better a lot more than I originally thought. I gave myself a 67% probability to finish 5th or higher and now I have done it 16 out of 20 times (80%). Because of this, I have started to re-think my original idea of spending $300 on buy-ins (50 first step SNGs). I am thinking about cutting it down to 30 buy-ins and then playing the rest of my 1st step replays until they are all gone. After a few days of stats, I figure I will still end up playing in close to 65 1st steps by buying into just 30. At my current rate of (15% wins), that will get me 10 step 2 chances. I hope over the next few days to get that number up to more like 20%, earning me 13 chances at step 2.

I feel extremely confident in my ability to place in the top 2 consistently. Where I do lack confidence is in closing the deal and winning the damn thing. After tonight's play, I now have 7 second place finishes and only 3 first place finishes (a combined 50% of all tourneys played). At steps 2 through 4, top 2 move on so this will definately be a worthy statistic.

I haven't decided for sure to call it at 30... but I am definately leaning towards that number. This limits my buy-in expense to $180 meaning a 5th place finish in step 5 will = $20 profit rather than a 4th place finish = breaking even.

Either way, this will not be my last quest. I will take on the "Regular Steps" ($12 step 1s) next and hopefully the "Step Higher" tourneys ($33 step 1s) before the end of the year.