Sklansky NLHE System... tournament report and a question

[DigitalNate]

Well I finally decided to give the all-in or fold system a try. I had been thinking about it for a while, and decided tonights $2 buy in NLHE tourney on stars, with 472 players at the start, was a decent place to try it out. Here's what happened...

I folded a lot early on, as the blinds didn't reach an appropriate level for a while. I took the blinds with an AA after about 4 orbits, but other than that I folded until about the 8th orbit, when I caught a KQs from late position. I raised all in after it was folded to me, and got 1 caller who was about T100 behind me. The caller turned over JTs (huh? this confused my a bit, as I would lay this hand down in a heartbeat to a 29*pot raise heads up), and I took it down with a pair of kings to his jack high. After that I folded quite a bit, but once we reached 100/200 I started taking the blinds once every 2 or 3 orbits. I was sitting at about T3500, a bit below average for that time in the tourney. I then took the 100/200 and then 150/300 blinds about 5 out of the last 10 hands with a nice run of cards that I would have been happy to have callers on, a couple times with a limper or 2 folding to my raise. Sitting 1 off the button I get dealt KJo. Folded around to me (people started getting wary I guess, this had been bit of a loose table for a while), I checked my calculator program I had written during a tourney last night, and raised all-in. Folded to the big blind, who had around T6000. Big blind calls my all-in bet, and turns over AQo. An ace hits on the river and I'm done, in 168th place.

This has got me thinking that it might be beneficial to add in some kind of calculation to take into account the stack size of opponents still to act. I was thinking maybe somewhere along the lines of:

(largest opponents stack still to act/your stack size) * key number

This would minimize you butting heads with someone who will call with almost any 2 cards when you hold marginal hands, which hurts when they get more than a chance or 2 to draw out on you. The only problem I see is that it could cause you to play too few hands. If anyone has any thoughts on this I would appreciate your input.

[bugstud]

System was designed for WSOP-type play where busting out has much greater ramifications. Your proposed adjustment is a great idea, but I would only use it in freeroll-type tourneys.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I haven't read that part of the book in a while, but I thought the Sklansky System has you always folding KJo?

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Copernicus]

He's talking about the modified system published recently in Card Player. There is a link to it in a thread about it.

[DigitalNate]

You are correct, I am refering to the revised system published in Card Player magazine. The newest revision of TPFAP has the modified version published in it also.

As far as the system not applying to lower buy-in tournaments, I disagree. Once you get past the first few levels it seems that most of the players are playing as they would in any other tournament. While it may be more effective in $100+ buy-in events than in $1-20 buy-in tourneys, I think the system still works quite well.

[Brian]

I recently bought TPFAP and I am very intrigued by the system. I have used it a few times with varying degrees of success. Anyways, the new system has you going all-in with KJo only if the number is 60 or below, so I assume that that was the case here?

-Brian

[Scooterdoo]

On last week's WPT event there was an older guy, a dentist I beleive, that seemed to be using a similar system. He only went all-in. In fact, he went about 2 hours and 10 or so all-in's without anyone calling his bets. The problem was that he often pissed away great hands for small pots, whereas if he made more modest bets he could have taken down some bigger pots. He appeared intimidated by his professional competition and didn't want to play post-flop. He really gave himself no chance of winning, however, the strategy did keep him alive and he came in second! It turned out to work really well for him.

I really don't think the Sklansky strategy works as well in a low limit tournament where players are much more likely to call your all-in bets with less than stellar hands. The Slansky system is dependent on your competition mucking most hands (because of the GAP theory and the fact that they feel they have superior ability and don't want to be booted on a coin-flip) against your all-in call.

[trillig]

ALL-IN or fold?

That's going to break you 99% of the time out of the money IMO.

With full or near full table all the time, eventually you AI against much stronger cards and get wacked.

I have seen this occur so many times in cheapo tourneys...
There it's even worse because players have so little invested, they don't mind making a weaker call way out of cash range.

Learn to play flops...

-t