Fastest 8-game third place

As you may know, just before I start a new poker session I always write a blog post about the previous one. It's uncanny how often something I write immediately gets refuted :-) Last night, I wrote about how long my 8-game tournament sessions usually are. Of course, I then went out and had an abbreviated session; it only lasted about half as long as the average. Since I always try to find a silver lining, I looked for and found one. Though I ended up out of the money, I had my fastest third place finish ever. Here are my 8-game third place finishes, ordered by number of hands:

num_hands  poker_session_date

       62          2014-09-16
      108          2014-03-01
      115          2014-09-12
      122          2014-09-10
      153          2014-02-28

The longer it takes for you to finish out of the money, the tougher it is.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6        62     3        0

delta: $-50,000
8-game tournament balance: $414,500
balance: $9,862,270