Introspective Ramblings and Such

Miami Don recently posted here and here about multi-table tournaments being gimmick poker and that not many people can make money at them. He states that you have to make it to the top 3 of 1,000 players to make any serious money at them. Then he points you to this site and asks you to check the stats of your favorite bloggers.
I along with I am sure several of you checked out other's stats as well as my own. I must say I was very happy with what I saw when I checked my own. It's good to look at your numbers in black and white sometimes and look for leaks or room for improvement, etc.
I saw 3 important things when I looked at mine:

Number 1: I immediately noticed my ROI% is a healthy 86.76%.

Number 2: I used the data to estimate my current hourly rate in MTT's to be a positive earn rate of about 5 bucks per hour spent playing.

Number 3: I also once again had to compare that to my cash game results and acknowledge that it was probably higher than my cash game earnings.

So what does this mean to me? It means a lot of things. I completely agree with Don's estimation that 90-95% of tournament players lose money. Looking at my stats I find myself among the 5-10% that don't. This is not surprising to me as I have been tracking this particular stat for 4 years and have made money every year. My ROI% in live tournaments is over 200% and my 4 year ROI% online is near 110%. I attribute this partially if not entirely to good money management and playing tournaments within my bankroll. The neat thing I discovered by looking at that site and different people's stats are the clear boost you get from one big win (what Don describes as a top 3 finish). I have some of these and my stats go way way way down if you take out my 4 or 5 MTT wins and 2nds and 3rds.
The next thing I discovered from looking at this is that I am "maybe" playing too low. If I increase my buy-in per tournament and it doesn't completely devistate my itm% and/or my ROI%, then I stand to make a lot of money. So thanks Don if it works, because I am definitely going to play a little bit bigger buy-ins here and there and see how it affects my numbers. I will do this with some caution as I am not willing to push it too far too fast and I will still be playing within my bankroll.
Last but not least, I do agree with Don that the most consistent money to be made is at the cash tables, so a lot more studying of cash play and time at the tables is in my near future as I push myself to get better at cash games. I'm not terrible at them, but I have to say I am more at home these days in a MTT so I am going to get out of that comfort zone a bit.

Don also asked for people that are successful or "near successful" at MTT's to post some strategies for the end game. I rate myself in the "near successful" category, so I will be glad to write up a complete MTT strategy guide including an end game strategy for reaching the final table as well as top 3. My writings will be based on what I play the most which is the 2-11 dollar buy-in range MTT's with 1,000 players. I'll try to post it tomorrow.