Unlucky, but above average at SNGs

I played 50 sitngos today/yesterday. Yes, 50. I chose the 10+1 limit of NLHE for this experiment.

Here are my results:

2x 1st
6x 2nd
13x 3rd
6x 4th ---
23x 5th-10th ---

I spent $550 in buyins and won $540. Net -$10.

Now I will say that the high amount of thirds is largely due to getting unlucky many many times during the late stages of three handed play with big blinds. I could easily have had more 1sts/2nds had a few 80-90% hands gone my way, but what can you do.

My average finish is 4.5 and my average amount won is 11 (not sure how that worked out considering I'm down $10).

Anyway, I did get unlucky a lot, but then occassionally I'd get lucky myself so who knows if I can even factor that into my results. I also was stealing short and ran into aces in 4 SNGs in a row. Which equaled a 4/5 finish in all of those. My early knockouts usually happend because of huge coolers, (set over set) or because I got sucked out on (AA vs AQ with a Q high flop - he hits trips on the river after money is in).

My big problem with these overall is that I had an overall above average run in terms of results. BUT I still came up a loser. I do not see how you can be that proftiable playing these. The best expectation I think a player can have is an average finish of 4 and an average amount won of 12.5-14. With those sorts of results you could make about 75-150 per 50 SNGS, but even that seems like a lot of work for very little gain. I would imagine you could also consider moving up stakes to 30+3s or so. But even then. 50 SNGs at that level would be harder to win, and best case (and I mean like the best player in the world) would only win you 450.

Am I missing something? Is it much easier than I think? I cannot see how you can consistently have 1sts as opposed to 2nds and 3rds. Its usually a bit of a crap shoot at those late stages. Yes, you can play better than some opponents in these spots (usually those playing too tight). BUT that doesn't mean that you won't get unlucky a couple times and be out...

Anyway, I was pleased to see that only 3 times I finished less than 6th. And I finished in the money 21 times, which isn't all that terrible - Fischman said that the best player in the world could expect to cash in 40% of the SNGs he/she plays...

I'm gonna try to write up some strategy discussions about these tomorrow. I'm curious how you tend to handle the early/middle/late stages of SNGs and other various situations...