The 11th SNG Don't

I'm fairly proud of my earlier post titled 10 SNG Don'ts, and I have a feeling that if I can continue my measured success, I'd like to put together some kind of free pdf/txt booklet on SNG strategy eventually. In order for me to feel confident about leading others down a path however, I'd like to actually have gone down that path myself... and that's what I'm trying to do: become a long-term winning online SNG player.

The 10 "don'ts" I've linked to above are pretty basic, but I'd like to think there's some good advice there. I've been working hard to avoid those things, and diagnose the obvious leaks in my game that must be present: I've found it difficult to climb above 33% ITM, and long-term, my ROI is hovering near 0%. Other's are claiming upwards of 50% ITM and respectable ROI's, so what's wrong with my play?

The answer to that question has been difficult to ascertain, but it's possible I've found one key, and short-term results suggest that, for me, it is indeed key. So here's the 11th SNG Don't:

11. Don't play too much.

You would think that the best way to become a winning player is to play, play, and then play some more, and this is fundamentally correct; nothing is a better teacher than experience. But there can be costs to playing too much... perhaps you're not allowing ample time to think about how you're playing, and perhaps results and beats in one game can steer a whole session off course (amplifying your initial loss). And even if things are going well, you can just plain get burnt out and bored, and anytime your mental state is less than optimal, you're probably playing less than optimal poker.

I had been playing a lot: sometimes upwards of 6 SNG's per day, and at least 2-3 nearly every day, with the above results. Starting to feel burnt out with just breaking even and struggling to improve my play, I decided to scale back a little. 1 SNG a day, or maybe 2 if I felt up to it... and so far, the results have been as good as I had hoped for: in the past 3 days in 4 SNG's I've logged 4 ITM finishes (two 1sts, and two 3rds). I'm sure some of this success is indeed luck, but overall I feel more into the game... more focused, and appear to be choosing my battles much more effectively.