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Long
Tables = Po$$ibilitie$ A
middle-aged lawyer and a woman meet, fall in love, and decide to get married. On their
wedding night they settle into the bridal suite at Mandalay Bay and the bride says to her
new groom, "Please promise to be gentle... I am still a virgin." The startled groom asks, "How can that be?
You've been married three times
before." The bride responds, Well you see it was this way: My first husband was
a psychiatrist and all he ever wanted to do was talk about it. My second husband was a
gynecologist and all he ever wanted to do was look at it. And my third husband was a stamp
collector and all he ever wanted to do was... ooohhh, God I miss him! But you're a lawyer, so now I KNOW I'm really
gonna get screwed!" About
ten (10) years ago when I started Precision-Shooting, I reasoned that the longer the table
was, the more difficult it was to be precise with rolling the dice. My subsequent experience proved that out, and I
subsequently shied away from the L-O-N-G tables as much as possible. If youve read my
Master of ALL
Well
Slave to
SOME!
article, you know what I am talking about. Ive
also talked about it in a number of other pieces like,
Walking with a Vegas Ghost - Part IV.
Suffice it to say that my earnings from those dreaded land-barge-sized tables was in most
cases, LESS than poor! Ive
spent the last couple of weeks in the Nevada, Utah and Arizona desert. I wanted time to reflect upon a number of things
surrounding the events of 9-11-01. I
wont use this website as a pulpit upon which to preach, other than about craps. I
was pleased to be alone with my thoughts. More
as a diversion, than anything else, I occasionally picked up the dice and used the back of
my AM General Hummer as my personal desert casino. I
also had a chance to give a little bit of thought about my conventional thinking regarding
the avoidance of those lengthy tables. I
knew that the long-tables contributed to the randomness of my dice-roll, especially due to
the particular style of my grip and shooting-style. So
I opened the rear-most doors of the Hummer, and used it as a makeshift craps table. I used the side-table of my BBQ as my setting
surface. My
first attempts from a greater-than-normal distance produced no discernable pattern. Over a three-day period, no real improvements were
noted. At that point, I was pretty sure that
my long-held belief was once again being proven and re-justified. Using
my conventional set of dice-sets, grips and tosses to achieve a higher-level of rolls from
greater distances had COMPLETELY eluded me again. Ill
cut this short and just say that, over a couple of days, from curiosity more than
frustration, I decided to change my grip for the longer-range that I was shooting from. Instead
of using my normal two-finger pincer grip (click
here
to go to grips) and overhand release, I changed to a grip where my outer fingers
drape and lightly grip the side-axis of the dice, while my two inner fingers
were used as a rolling ramp for the dice.
My thumb lightly
stabilized the side of my index finger. I changed my toss to an underhand, open-palmed
toss and release. Heres
a more detailed description:
v
Set
the dice side-by-side on the table as you normally would.
v
Put
your two middle fingers on the "forward-edge of the dice.
v
At
the same time, let your two outer fingers (your index and pinky finger) gently grip the
side-axis of the dice.
v
Use
your thumb the VERY gently support the first (lowest) joint of your index finger.
v
Lift
up the dice in this grip. Now turn your hand over, so the palm is facing UP.
v
In
a soft under-handed motion, GENTLY toss the dice to a spot as close to the back-wall as
possible. The objective is to have the dice gently roll into the wall and have a
MINIMAL one to three on-axis rolls on the roll-back.
I
was pleased with the results, but I still had no appetite for playing. In fact, I hardly felt like spending any time
with people, so I continued to reflect on life, and I used the practice sessions as a mild
distraction. Six
days of following the same routine produced some interesting consistency from distances
that equaled those of some of the most challenging tables that I have run into. I thought
this new grip and release had enough potential to try out in the real world. Ive
got to admit that I did not have a thirst that needed to be quenched by stepping back into
a casino after almost two weeks of mourning. In
fact, I felt somewhat guilty to be returning to play, while there was so many others who
were still hoping-against-hope for some glimmer of a heavenly miracle for their missing
loved ones. I
told myself that returning to work might be therapeutic.
Im glad that I did. I had some success at the tables, but of greater
importance was the fact that I didnt suddenly forget about the tragic events that
have happened. Rather, it put it into a
slightly better, but still poignant perspective. In
Part Two of this article, Ill chronicle the actual in-casino results so far. Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables
and in
Life. By: The Mad Professor
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