A simple recipe for MTT success

Looking at the summary statistics from last night's session, one thing jumps out - in the second MTT I entered, the number of hands I played exceeded the number of entrants. That got me curious to see if that had ever happened to me before. Turns out it had - seven times, to be exact. Here are the details:

hands    entries    paid    place    winnings

  235        134      36        2    $554,000    2017-01-17c
  295        116      30        2    $511,000    2016-12-20a
  187        111      30        2    $489,000    2016-12-09c
  128        114      30        6    $261,000    2016-12-22a
  103         90      21       11    $129,000    2016-12-15b
  107        100      24       14    $117,000    2017-02-15b
  125        116      30       16    $109,000    2017-02-01a
  238        234      60        3     $53,900    2016-09-26c

As you might expect, I made the money in every instance. Therefore, my simple recipe for MTT success is to play more hands than there are players :-) Of course, it's simple to state, but devilishly difficult to achieve.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    16500  3500       9     9     549  117   192        0
MTT   NLHE    45000  5000       6   107     100   24    14   117000

delta: $47,000
MTT NLHE balance: $2,367,548
2017 balance: $400,400
balance: $11,818,230