Did it really matter what day you started the Main Event?

[mblax10]

It seemed like the popular opinion before the ME started, Day B was the most favorable starting day. Day C by far the least favorable having to play straight through without a day off. Harringnton said last year he was the only player who started Day 1B and made the final table.

I looked at this year's Top 45 finishers and what day they started, none of the day's appear to produce drastically better/worse results. If anything, Day C starters appear to have marginally better results. I may extend this data further to see if the results vary more for top 100, 200 or all players who cashed.

Final Table
Day 1A:3
Day 1B:2
Day 1C:4

Top 18
Day A:5
Day B:5
Day C:8

Top 45
Day A:14
Day B:16
Day C:15

Top 45 Players & starting Day
1 A Joe Hachem (Melbourne, Australia)
2 C Steven Dannenmann (Severn, MD, USA)
3 C Tex Barch (McKinley, TX, USA)
4 A Aaron Kanter (Lodi, CA, USA)
5 A Andrew Black (Dublin, Ireland)
6 B Scott Lazar (Studio City, CA, USA)
7 C Daniel Bergsdorf (Umea, Sweden)
8 B Brad Koudrachi (Kingston, PA, USA)
9 C Mike Matusow (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
10 B Ayhan Alsancak (Gothenburg, Sweden)
11 B Sharam Shublem (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
12 A Conor Tate (Bury, Manchester, United Kingdom)
13 B Bernard Lee (Wayland, MA, USA)
14 C Oskar Silow (Gothenburg, Sweden)
15 A Tiffany Williamsen (London, United Kingdom)
16 C Johnny Howard (Lexington Park, MD, USA)
17 C Michael Kessler (Spotsylvania, VA, USA)
18 C John McGrane (London, United Kingdom)
19 B Minh Ly (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
20 C Phil Ivey (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
21 B Bryant King (Liberty Lake, WA, USA)
22 B Tuan Vu (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
23 B Joe Connor (Atlanta, GA, USA)
24 B Tim Phan (Westminster, CA, USA)
25 A Gregory P. Raymer (Stonington, CT, USA)
26 B Tom Sartorv (Buffalo, NY, USA)
27 A Per Hildebrand (Stockholm, Sweden)
28 C Gregory Rice (Birmingham, AL, USA)
29 C Russell Salzer (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
30 A Radu Butan (London, ON, Canada)
31 C John Juanda (Marina Del Ray, CA, USA)
32 A Dustin Woolf (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
33 A Karlo Lopez (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
34 C Bing Wang (Jersey, C.I.)
35 C Steve Marx (Bellevue, WA, USA)
36 B Will O´Brien (Robinsonville, MS, USA)
37 B Roland Israel (New York, NY, USA)
38 A Terry Burt (Mesa, AZ, USA)
39 A Frank Caldwell (Lexington, KY, USA)
40 A Tony Abesamis (West Covina, CA, USA)
41 B Farzad Bonyadi (Aliso Viejo, CA, USA)
42 B Raymi THORN (Stockholm, Sweden)
43 B Adam Friedman (Gahanna, OH, USA)
44 C Kenna James (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
45 A Lee Watkinson (Long Branch, WA, USA)

[Easy E]

If you're really dedicated (or anal) you could evaluate the play of the players based on published reports and see if there is a correlation.