Single Table Sit-n-Go's Are For Losers?

Was persusing http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/ today and found an interesting statistic. I looked through the stats of the top 25 ranked players on FullTilt poker. Of these top 25 players, only eight have positive ROIs in single-table SnGs , and of those, only two have played more than a couple dozen of the games during the entire year of 2008. In contrast, the majority of these winning players have made their money at either heads-up matches (average in-the-money, or ITM, rating of around 55%) and/or in multi-table tournaments.

The average ROI of the top 25 players in single tables is a pathetic -3%. If you exclude the people that have played in fewer than 20 SnGs, the ROI drops even further: something like -8 to -10%. A week or so ago I saw this same sort of trend with the top 25 on PokerStars.

So what is this saying? Are people who regularly play SnGs wasting their time (and money)? Dunno, but if you were to surmise that the top 25 players on OPR have figured out how make money at online poker, it's obvious that they don't think the answer is at the single-table SnGs.

FWIW, in 2008, I played 411 single table sit-n-go's, and I monied in 169 of them, or 41%. My ROI was +11%, which, compared to the numbers above, is pretty damn good. Unfortunately, my SnG numbers for the last few months of 2008, combined with my 2009 numbers so far, have led me to believe that either a) I was lucky in early 2008; or b) something has changed since then. Lately, I've been assuming that the players have simply gotten a lot better at the single table games, but maybe there's something else to consider. Maybe SnGs just aren't profitable in the long run? Maybe my time would be better spent at some other venue, like multis, heads-up, or just plain old fashioned cash games.

In other words, maybe single-table sit-n-go's are for losers. The top twenty-five ranked players on OPR can't all be wrong, can they?

All-in for now...
-Bug