[tribet]

Actually i thought the stats came from pokertracker but i will check with pokerscout on their stat collection procedures.

As far as structure is concerned if you find an example of when it is better to look further than 1 or 2 hours to determine speed let me know. The only cases i have ran into so far are in brick and mortar games and this happens only rarely. The cardroom will actually remove levels from the structure to speed up play and this causes large jumps in the cost per round. This is an unfair practice and players should not participate in these events. I ran into this in Caesars Indiana earlier this year and they actually changed the structure just prior to the start of the tournament.

Another reason I think the early structure is so important is that if you emply the correct game plan and accumulate a decent chip stack by the time the middle portion of the tournament comes around you are happy to see the blinds escalate and it is the small stacks that are being killed off by the escalating blinds. I know, easier said than done to get that large chipstack