Maybe I can give some reality here.

One, you can't win an SNG in the early rounds, only lose them. Getting a bunch of chips early on, I believe, doesn't correlate to winning. It may, MAY, get you a higher ITM% as you can survive a bad beat. You can only win if you get to heads up.

Second, you are never far from the chip lead in any SNG. One or two double ups and you're ahead.

Three, winning is luck. Heck, any tournament really comes down to who's lucky and who isn't. Heads up, no matter how good you are, if the opponent gets better hands, you probably aren't going to win.

With 10 players starting, an expert SNG player may have perhaps a 25% equity, at most, which is far, far better than more than half the table. Even with that advantage, he's never the favorite.

Make good decisions. Get your money in the middle with the best hand. Then, hang on and hope the poker gods aren't pissed at you that day. From the sound of it, you're doing fine.

CJ

I have played 65 $5 +50 tournaments and my ITM % is very good at 80%, ROI 115%

Although it's a small sample size, you're doing fine. 80% ITM is absolutely ridiculous, but it explains all your 3rd places. Basically, you seem to be playing just to place ITM, not to win the whole tourney. On the bubble, I don't play this fold into the money game except for very specific circumstances (someone else short-stack and the other two have 3x or more chips than you). You only get 20% of the prize pool with a 3rd and 50% with a 1st. If you like money, you should be fighting for 1st.

I agree with CJ for the most part.

One of the biggest problems for the bad SNG players - they call too many all-ins. Be the one pushing the all-ins, not calling them, unless you have a monster in that situation.

Early on you're playing it right - playing it tight. I play slightly looser with pocket pairs (PPs) here since doubling up really does help you (assuming you don't donk it away like the fishes), and PPs have HUGE implied odds. If there's a min-raise, I call with every PP. If there's a 3x BB raise, I'll call from the blinds with any PP, or if there's already a caller, I'll call with every PP. You're only playing to hit your set. Until you're proficient at hand reading, I wouldn't play it beyond set value.

As the blinds increase, relative stack sizes decrease, and amount of players decrease, you should be opening up your game more. Especially when you get closer to the bubble. No one wants to bubble out, so take advantage of their cautious play. Just raise 2.5-3x BB with any semi-decent hand in late positions (and of course raise good hands from any position).