How many good players will end up failing?

[sweetjazz]

Reading bk's "admitting defeat" thread and the "how did you get here?" thread, I started thinking:

How many players here who read 2+2, think about strategy and are currently winning players (say capable of making 1 BB/100 at a mid stakes online game like 15/30) will end up busting out for the usual reasons (playing with too small of a BR, moving up to a limit they can't beat or can't withstand the swings, tilting away too much money after a bad stretch, a horribly bad run of cards, some combo of all of the above, etc.)?

It was surprising to see how many players experienced good fortune at a point in their poker careers when (1) their BR was dangerously low and (2) their good results were not commenserate with their skill level at the time. Given how frequently this happens, it's scary to think that the oppositie could occur. Players who have decent BRs but not huge ones could run really bad to a point where they hit a downward spiral they can't get out of. I really hope that won't happen, but I wonder how many people take seriously that there is always a possibility for catastrophically bad results over a long period of time, especially in high limit games where the edges pushed are much smaller. And the likelihood that the games will continue to get easier in the long-term is slim; as times passes, there will reach a point where people are busting out of games faster than new players are coming into them. The edge for winning players will shrink and some marginal winners will become break-even or losing players.

This has all been said before, so I don't know why I bothered to babble this all over again....oh well...