Surviving vs. thriving

Tournaments are a dicey dicey business. There's a razor sharp line between success and failure. If you want to do well in a tournament, it's important to have great survival skills. If you actually want to win a tournament, however, you must know how to thrive. Last night I had ample survival skills, coming in second three times. However, I wasn't able to thrive when I got to heads up. Sometimes, that's fine; I accept the fact that I was on the receiving end of a lot of luck to get to that point, and the odds finally caught up with me. Other times, however, I can't help feeling I somehow blew it :-) Of my three runner up finishes, I was fine with the first two, but got the feeling I blew the third.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        33     2    94500
 45000      5000           6         8     6        0
 45000      5000           6        13     4        0
 45000      5000           6        24     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        37     2    94500
 45000      5000           6        18     4        0

delta: $-16,500
tournament balance: $2,178,840
balance: $9,061,539