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Mad Professor's Mini-Table Craps Tour with the Vegas Ghost - Part XIV- continued The
Edgewaters Odds are set at a full 5x. Not
only can you back up your 50¢ Pass-Line bet with $2.50 in Odds, but also it means that
theyll never short-change you on a $3 Place-bet for the 6 & 8, since the table
is always fully supplied with 50¢ chips. The
dealers are competent, but can occasionally be a bit surly when it is overcrowded. They get very few tokes from the regular players,
so any piggybacked bets that you get them in on are always appreciated. Dont be surprised if they actually ask you
to confirm that it really is a piggybacked bet for them since they see so few tokes
at this place. The
actual table is the BEST mini-tub that Ive ever shot dice on. It rivals the one that was formerly at the Royal
Palms Hotel here in town. Unfortunately that
sweet-payer has been replaced with a 16-foot nogoodnik of questionable parentage (along
with another 16-footer of much sweeter disposition). Adapting
and Re-Adjusting To Tables If you are used to playing on regular-length tables, you
will have to re-target your toss, and re-calibrate your throwing-energy on the
mini-tables. Then when you return to the regular-length ones, you once again have to reset
and readjust both of those Precision-Shooting characteristics. For more details on HOW to contend with various table conditions, you could read Adapting to Tables Part I and Adapting to Tables Part II . Face
Time & Wearing Out Your Welcome Just
so that we are clear, Face Time and Wearing Out Your Welcome
are NOT two inner-city rap groups from Hartford. Rather,
it is the amount of time that you spend winning in any low-budget casino. The Edgewater Hotel-Casino is definitely low-budget. Although this place is amongst the most tolerant
of the 30 or so, $3 and under casinos, it still makes sense not to ding
them for more than they are comfortable in losing to any one player at a time. We
have talked about the whole concept of wearing out your welcome as a Precision-Shooter,
and I want to briefly touch on it
AGAIN. As
you become increasingly skilled, it is VERY, VERY important to spread the pain around. Hey listen, I like using certain casinos as my
personal bank-vault too, but I am also careful not to make major withdrawals too often, or
with the same crew, too often. "Skimming"
also becomes VERY important in your game-plan (see
Profit Skimming -
101). Face time is something
that we have to CAREFULLY track and control. You
don't want the casino, any casino, to associate your face with the constant disappearance
of THEIR money. No, you do not need a
fake or multiple ID's, and you dont have to discontinue the use of your Player's
Card, (however you MAY want to consider doing that at places that are giving you
considerable and sustainable heat, aggravation and hassle for your dice-setting skills). Wearing
Out Your Welcome means
that it isnt a good idea to make the casino that you are playing at, uncomfortable
with your betting levels. You have to
size your bets to the LOSS-TOLERANCE of each casino.
Even
if you have a bankroll that could float the debt of several third-world countries, you
have to restrain your bets to the comfort-level of the casino that you are in. When you overstep that limit, you are opening
yourself up to all sorts of heat and aggravation. While
some people need the ego-boost of being singled-out and having their low self-esteem
pumped up by the extra attention; the fact remains that you will become unwelcome at not
only this place, but every other gaming-house in their stable. In the case of MRG, that would include being given
extra heat at Gold Strike in Mississippi, Grand Victoria in Illinois, Motor City in
Michigan, Silver Legacy in Reno, plus the usual LV haunts like Mandalay Bay, Luxor,
Excalibur, Monte Carlo, and Circus Circus. You
have to ask yourself if your ego needs THAT MUCH boosting or whether your wallet could use
a little more fattening without the added hassle. By
understanding that one of the keys to flying under the radar is to size your bets in
accordance with each casino's risk-tolerance, you should be able to play for years on end
without any undue heat from any of the houses in this stable. Doing your Precision-Shooting thing in moderation,
will keep the good times
and the good profits, rolling right along. Session
One The
mini-table was busy when I got to it, but few players had any meaningful amount of money
on the layout. As soon as I walked up, a
couple of players turned and shook their head to warn of the cold conditions that they
were suffering through. I asked if anyone was
stringing together anything resembling a decent roll, but they all replied that it had
been cold for more than four hours. Its
at times like that when you have to decide if you are going to buck the tide and hope that
it turns around, or whether you should go with the trend, pass on trying to shoot and just
ride the wave of Darkside coldness. I took a
third alternative by waiting for the dice to cycle around to me since they were only two
shooters away. Yes, I did shoot, and NO, I
didnt single-handedly turn the table into a flaming heap of shooting greatness, but
I did manage to make a few shekels before the dice moved on to the next shooter. I
bet somewhat lightly against the next five players who all 7d-Out in quick
succession. I was surprised that in all that
time, I was the only one with DP or DC bets. As
soon as I had a fair chunk of profit locked up, I increased the sperm-count on my base DP
and DC-bets along with the corresponding 5x-Odds. By
the time the dice circled back around to the player next to me, I had $20 DP-Line and
similar value traveled DC-bets, all with maxed-out inversed Odds. In and of itself, a $20 bet is not a big bet even
with full-Odds, however at a low-rent table, its important that you dont cause
undue anxiety with the Pit Supervisor. As far
as I could tell from my casual monitoring, my action wasnt causing any stomach
cramps or dry sweats with the pit folks, so I maintained that new $20 base-level when I
wasnt the shooter. My next roll
was a bit better than the first one. A nice
profit was made, but I didnt get past my third PL-Point before having the dice
unceremoniously moved onto the next guy in line. I
immediately moved my principal action back to the DP and DC, and wasnt disappointed
when the dice immediately returned to their cold ways.
Before long, there were only three intrepid players left at the mini-tub. Throughout all of that, I was still the only
avowed Darksider. I watched as player after
player had their bets knocked off the Pass-Line, I pursed my lips in a sympathetically
grimaced pain as their bets were cleared away while mine were paid off. It
took another twenty minutes of hmmmph
not ANOTHER 7-Out shooting
until I was the only player left. The dealer,
who had been essentially silent up until now, save for a few words of thanks every time
that he dropped my tokes into the jukebox, finally became a little more relaxed and
talkative. He said that he didnt like
to speak too much when everyone was losing their shirts.
I told him that I agreed, and then said that I was surprised at how
fervently most players hung onto their usual betting-methods no matter how badly they were
being beaten up at the tables. He agreed, but
said that he had learned long ago to let people lose their money the way that they wanted
instead of trying to convince them to lose it some other way. I chuckled in agreement as I started my next hand. With
the dice coming right back to me after each throw, the game was moving rapidly. I had to remind myself to slow down and pace my
shooting, otherwise I could be throwing up to eight or even nine times a MINUTE. At that speed, your heart rate and breathing
increases to the point where it can affect your smooth toss. I intentionally slowed everything down and took my
sweet time. In just fifteen short minutes of
solo-shooting, I had more than tripled the amount of profit that the preceding ninety
minutes of play had afforded. A cellphone
call from the recently resurrected Mel came at an opportune time. No one else had joined the table after being
chased away by the hellish brutality of the bankroll-slaughtering 7-Out demon. I caught the eye of a cocktail waitress so she
could bring a gallon or so of her highest caffeine jet-fuel for Mel. He ambled in a while later, with eyes that were
darker than David Blaines after 44 days of plexi-caged deprivation. I
asked him if he wanted to shoot, but he was only able to manage a slight I-cant-even-talk-let-alone-shoot
shake of the head. I waited until he
bought-in for a couple of hundred before I resumed my rolling. The short break didnt seem have any negative
effect on my shooting. Although I never did
toss any singular mega-hand, each one spun off its own sufficiently acceptable profit. What pleased me most was that even the shortest
ones still generated a profit, albeit a small one. By using $88
Inside followed by a steep regression after one paying hit, I was able to wring out a
profit on every hand that I threw. Its not magic, its not voodoo, and
its not cow excrement; its simply the effectiveness of
Precision-Shooting combined with the power of Early Regression. Remember
this: Regression
avoids DEPRESSION. Admittedly
some of that nearly-every-hand profit will be as low as a couple of bucks on the
ultra-short two and three roll hands, but your bankroll will be preserved close to the
status quo. In doing so, longer hands will
generate much greater overall profit simply because youll rarely have to dig
yourself out of a bankroll-hole. By
the time Mel and I had burned up another forty minutes at this table, we were approaching
a casino personnel shift-change. I
didnt want them to carry-over my rating card to the next shift, so we headed over to
the 24/7 Garden Room for lunch. Well, it was
lunch for me, and breakfast for Mel. Comps
at The Edgewater Their
Players Card is part of the One Card system of MRG, so even if you do most of
your play at Gold Strike in Tunica, Mississippi, youll still get the comps that your
action deserves when you get to Laughlin, Las Vegas or Reno. In
addition to that, you will find the play-threshold is quite a bit lower here than at their
sister properties (except Reno). That means
equivalent play equals substantially more comps when you play here in Laughlin. A Mini-Table
Pro? When I was once again able to count Mel amongst the human
race, our conversation turned towards his newest favorite subject; the idea of becoming a Mini-Table
Specialist. He and I delved into this in
Part XII of this tour, but he
wanted to explore it even further. We agreed on the following:
v
Since
most mini-table casinos have low table-limits, you can start with ultra-cheap bets while
you dial-in your shooting; then, once youve figured out the sweet-spot for each
table, you can get more aggressive in Pressing-up your action. v
Although
this method isnt any different than what you should do at conventional-length
tables; it usually takes much less time to get in the groove on the smaller layouts. Therefore, you should be able to get into a
steadier profit-zone much more quickly. v
Once
you perfect a solid throw at one mini-tub or Crapshooter table, the skill is
transportable. While youll have to make
slight adjustments as you go from mini-tub to mini-tub, or go from one Crapshooter table
to another sit-down table; the adaptation is much more subtle and much easier than it is
when adjusting to their larger and longer counterparts.
v
Once
you dial in the mini-tables at medium-sized, medium-tolerance casinos like CircusCircus
and Imperial Palace; you can ratchet up your bets substantially with ostensibly no concern
from the pit. v
While
your bets cant be on par with ones you could comfortably make at Bellagio, Beau
Rivage, Venetian or any Atlantic City joint; they can be higher than you could get away
with at the smaller mini-tub houses like Nevada Palace, Wild West, Speedway or
Barleys. In following the spread
the pain around philosophy of using multiple mini-tub casinos to achieve your
daily or weekly win-objective; you are guaranteeing your profit-longevity. v
On
a related subject, even grind-joints like the Edgewater and Colorado Belle have no problem
parting with their money, but you cant get greedy about it. Remember that the pig who stays at the
trough and gets fattened the fastest, is also the first one to be led off to the
slaughter-house. Session Two I wish I
could say that Session Two was as financially productive as Session One, but it was not to
be. When we returned, its once vacant spots
were mostly filled in with new players. I was
surprised that it was still a 50¢
game. Usually by this time of day, when all
the out-of-town busses have disgorged their fresh meat for the casino-grinder,
the table-minimum has crept up to the still very affordable $1 level. In
any event, the table was trending cool, but it definitely wasnt cold. A shooter would get what looked like a decent roll
going, then 7-Out while trying to repeat his second or third PL-Point. Thereafter, one or two players would fail to make
their Point, but would throw a good amount of Place-Numbers, or there would be a couple of
quick 7-Outs followed by a semi-respectable hand of 10 or 15 rolls. When
I see choppiness
I see profit potential. I
stepped up with my Choppy-Table Short-Leash Method (as set out in
Dodging Bullets As A Darksider). This time around, my darkside ventures were never
higher than $75, yet were rewarded with low-risk profits of $5 to $20 on EVERY SHOOTER at
that table. At the same time, I also
Place-bet $88 Inside and immediately regressed to $22 Inside after one hit. With a locked-in $6 profit from the get-go, I let
my already-paid-for Place-bets collect another five times before Id start doing
alternating presses on every other hit. A
conservative method like this will lock-in early profit, yet keep some of your money in
action in the event that the good rolling continues. My
own shooting was still acceptable, but nothing to write home about. The crowded conditions, mixed with the fact that
the dice were taking an inordinate amount of time to come back around to my spot, was
beginning to bore me. I continued to use the
Choppy-Table Short-Leash combined with my Inside-Bet Steep Regression, and it unceasingly
performed flawlessly. I even used this
For and Against method when Mel shot. Even though he still couldnt properly focus
his eyes, let alone shoot the dice with any level of predictable skill, his somewhat
random, yet surprisingly long roll paid off handsomely with that For and
Against method as well. Any
time that I feel impatience coming on, I know that it is a strong
signal to take a break from the action. I
told Mel that I was going back to check-out of the Colorado Belle, and was then heading
over to check-in at the Royal Palms Hotel-Casino for some R and R at poolside. The Royal Palms has those self-sprinkling
chairs (similar to the ones at The Frontier) out by the pool. You can adjust the amount of mist on these
reclining chairs to keep you in a cool, foggy cloud even when it feels like Laughlin is
about two miles away from the sun. It was the
perfect place to reflect upon the pleasing amounts of sustainable profit that the dozen or
so mini-tables had produced so far on this Mini-Tub Tour. Until next
time, Good Luck
& Good Skill at those mini-tables. The Mad Professor |
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