9 max considered harmful

I took a brief hiatus from playing poker in the middle of the week, in order to indulge my chess jones :-) I'm currently playing online chess on the lichess site, and the experience is far superior to the experience on the chess.com site. To sum it up: better graphics, better interface, better responsiveness, and no ads.

Although I've compared 6 max to 9 max before, I didn't take to heart just how glaring the profit differential is for me. Here's the side by side comparison for MTT NLHE, with the huge outlier removed from the 9 max result set:

           count     average 

 $450,212    143   $3,148.34     6 max
$-413,064    162  $-2,549.78     9 max

I need to "just say no" to 9 max. Here's my revised list of table selection criteria:

1. only MTT NLHE
2. only tournaments without inflated money up top
3. only 6 max
4. only tournaments with a BI+EF >= $50,000

I threw the fourth criterion in there to increase my chances of getting my 2016 balance back into the black.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    17500  2500       6    38     406   96   143        0
MTT   NLHE    18000  2000       9    26     239   63    84        0
MTT   NLHE    17500  2500       6   124     354   84    18    83600

delta: $23,600
MTT NLHE balance: $892,748
2016 balance: $-306,934
balance: $10,393,430