[willie24]

hmm. the winner is always the favorite to knock out the most players, relative to the other places.

for example, 1st place on average might knock out 4.9 players. 2nd place 3.8, 3rd place 3.3 etc. in any format, 1st place is going to be highest relative to the other places, simply because he always knocks out 2nd place. fairly obvious.

however, more important for what you are asking is- who knocks out more players, 1st place, or the non-first place player from the tournament who knocked out the most players.

i would guess that in most very large tournaments, it is the non-first place player.

here's why: we know that the 1st place player gained A LOT of chips (on average) by knocking out 2nd place, and any other player he might have knocked out at the end of the tournament. but over the course of the tournament, most hands where a player was knocked out were for much smaller pots. there are usually some players who showdown allin a lot early, and a few of them get lucky and win a high number of times, resulting in a lot of "KOs" but a relatively small number of chips (compared to the chips that are changing hands at the final table). since showing down all-in a lot early is, in general, a -EV strategy, we would expect the player who does this to be a poor player, and would give him less of a shot of winning the tournament.

on the other hand, the strongest players tend to lay low when the stakes are low, but steal when the stakes are higher - resulting in a lot of chips being gained without a lot of showdowns. so they usually have fewer KOs than their chipstacks might suggest.

these factors would lead me to guess that the typical KO leader is someone who goes nuts early, gets hot and knocks out a bunch when the stakes are low...and then is lucky enough to knock out a few when the stakes get higher also. has a lower chance of taking 1st because he is not an excellent tournament player, and because he gained a relatively low # of chips from his KOs