My wife used Sklansky's Tourny Beginners method for 4th place.

[stigmata]

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Let's say we give a monkey two buttons ALL-IN and FOLD and deal him cards. Whenever he hits a button he gets a banana. Sooner or later a monkey will eventually win a tournament - even the WSOP 10k event.

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Perfectly feasible, nice idea [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[stigmata]

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Would this system be a winning strategy in NL ring games as well? I'm thinking as a hit & run, once you double up you leave the table to protect your winnings. Obviously sometimes you'd lose, but if it has a 65%-70% winrate (besides stealing the blinds) it's good.

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No, because your just trying to level the playing field as much as possible. E.g. it produces a better result than if you just let the player play horribly. In fact, their expectatation would be negative in a tournament and ring game, just not as bad as it could be.

However, Ed Miller does describe an essentially expanded version of this technique in his book "Getting started in Hold 'Em". You play shortstacked, raise with a large number of hands, and aim to get all in on the flop. See his book for more details.

[OrangeKing]

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what is sklanksy's tourny beginners method

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Basically it is: if somebody raises in front of you, go all in with aces, kings, or AK suited.

If nobody raises in front of you, go all in with aces, kings, ak suited (I think), any pair, and any suited connector except for 2/3 and 3/4. Everything else: you fold.

I had forgotten to tell my wife about the blinds. One time, I think she folded her big blind when there hadn't been a raise. The very beginner method doesn't address the blinds, but DS covers it somewhere else, with a little more complicated strategy.

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As I recall, you also move all-in with any suited ace. All told, you move in somewhere around 13% of the time; enough to make money by picking up the blinds, but not often enough for people to just indiscriminantly call you with crap.

[idrinkcoors]

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what is sklanksy's tourny beginners method

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As I recall, you also move all-in with any suited ace.

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Yes, Orange, you are correct. I had forgotten to tell her that. Looking back on it, I'm not a big fan of the ace/suited all in move. I don't have the math to back it up, but with say an ace/7 hearts, you are likely to get called by A/Q and AK. At least with a small pair, you are only really out of it if called by a higher pair.

[Xhad]

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you just won't get called all in preflop by anything other than KK or AA in NL ring games, so it doesn't work... you'll get blinded to death and lose most of the time you get called

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Actually it's quite the opposite: the "System" is taking advantage of the fact that your opponents can't rebuy and are therefore forced to fold hands that could be favorites against you due to tournament survival concerns (in Sklansky's initial writeup he mentions that people were folding hands like JJ and AKs due to all the overbetting; this is not happening in a cash game, good players or bad). Do this in a live game against good players and you're going to be taken apart by players who know what ranges to call with.

You're not getting blinded down because you're raising around ten percent of hands (The actual range is 22+, A2s+, 45s+). It only works in tournaments because people fold too much.

[jojobinks]

so far you've left out the advanced system. what you've described is the system as first devised. what was obvious about it, though, is that the risk too great in the early levels. are you happy about pushing A4s UTG with 100X the big blind?

the updated version (also in the sklansky tourny book, methinks), takes into account your stack vs the big blind, and how many limpers are in front of you.

it's much more sensible; almost advisable for a beginner. i would NOT recommend the simple system for a beginner, unless he/she knew nothing at all.