Losing with the best of it; standard expectation?

[BPA234]

I recently completed an in-depth study of a 100+ games. I did the study as a practical approach to see why I was losing, despite my belief that I was a better player this year than last.

For background, I have been playing part-time for just over two years. I rate my level of play as C+. I have had some success with mtt's, winning and cashing in top positions on Stars 10r, 100r, and 150 several late finishes w/ the 200 main and second chance mtts. For a period of time I was winning @ the 215 and 109 sng's.

After January I started losing @ a slightly less than break even rate. Around late April I was down several thousand on approximately 180K in buy-ins (MTT/STT combined) and this loss rate has continued where I am now down around $4,500.

This is not a major financial issue, because I work full time and the loss has been strictly poker bankroll. My primary concern is that I am playing a fundamentally flawed poker strategy. I beleive that if I consistently get my chips in as the favorite that I will win.

Unfortunately, I think this approach may be overly simplistic and may be part of the reason why I am losing. Is the expectation that you should win a high enough percentage of the time as a favorite, wrong? If so, than consistent wins would only come from massive chip acumulation where you would be able to sustain the losses in critical hands that appear to contradict the odds of losing.


Here are my results of the study:
When all my chips went into the pot:
As a 60%-90% Favorite I lost 43% of the time
AS a 60%-90% Favorite I won 20% of the time

Coinflips with my overcards to PP lost 9%
Coinflips with my PP to overcards lost 8%

Less than 40% to win I lost 12%
Less than 40% to win I won 8%

The study is a good representation of how I play and is accurate. The conflip results are showing a slight loss. But, I think those results are merely variance driven. Accross more games, the numbers would likely run to their true percentages.

After thinking through the various possiblilities, my question remains. Is the standard expectation that you will win if you are putting in your chips as the favorite, invalidated by variance? Meaning that variaince is so active that instead of seeking to put your chips in the middle as a favorite (even as high as 4:1) you should focus solely on small ball chip accumulation, avoiding confrontation with similar sized stacks and avoiding river showdowns.


Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Please note this is not a bad beat post. Unless Stars has set my doom switch to the on position, I am seriously looking for strategy input. The general consensus has been that getting the chips in with the best of it is the right play. But, maybe that is not accurate?