Late regging considered essential

The late registration period for an MTT NLHE on PokerStars is 44 minutes long. I've gone back and forth on when's the best time to enter this type of tournament, but am now convinced of when the worst time is - namely, before the late registration period has even begun. If you enter then, you guarantee all of the following:

1. there will be no dead money in the pool when you begin playing; this is bad because the more dead money there is in the pool, the better your chances of making the money
2. there will be a higher percentage of donkeys playing than if you'd joined later; this is bad because donkeys can break you with bad plays
3. you'll need to last the full 44 minutes to have a chance of making the money; this is bad because you're more likely to run into bad luck the longer you play

I think joining any time before half the late registration period has elapsed is non-optimal. Last night, I joined with 11 minutes left in the late registration period, and nearly made it under the lights. I'll give that another try tonight :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000 26000       6      53   15     7   534000

delta: $334,000
MTT NLHE balance: $7,114,668
2020 balance: $297,000
balance: $62,105,010