[drewjustdrew]

I agree with your hypotheses to some extent. I think they have adopted a good strategy first, but then they have fine-tuned it with lots of playing experience. One of the reasons they seem to do much better than average, I think, is that most good poker playing entrants don't have much deep stack tourney experience, and have not adopted better strategies than "tight-aggressive".

Unknown, good players also may have different theories on when to open up because they may not be focused 100% on winning like these other "name" guys seem to be. They may value winning 50% and cashing 50%, so some decisions are made a little differently, and less advantageously to get them on TV.