Dice Setter Precision Shooter's Newsletter      

Given the state of affairs in the world, I'll keep this issue of the Precision Shooter Newsletter brief as possible.   Personally, March has been a month of extreme highs and lows.  Sadly, the dice influencing community lost one of it's best and brightest this past month.   MickeyD, aka yoelevenman, passed away suddenly.   In addition to contributing articles to the site, MickeyD was a true shooting talent, an excellent instructor, and above all else, a good man.  His positive outlook and knowledge of the game will be missed and our prayers go out to his family.

On the other side of this emotional roller coaster, one of the high points of my dice influencing journey occurred this month.   On March 7-9, Heavy, Dice Coach held another successful Axis Power Craps seminar in Las Vegas.   It's always great fun to meet aspiring dice influencers, and through the course of the weekend, see their dice shooting skills increase.  It's even MORE satisfying to take the students out and demonstrate to them how powerful dice influencing can be in live casino play!.  On four different occasions, in four different casinos, at least one of the instructors had a monster roll for the entire class to witness and profit from. One of the students also had a great hand, just before he left for the airport! It really was an amazing weekend.  To those who attended, and to instructors Heavy and Dice Coach, thanks for your camaraderie, friendship and inspiration.  Let's shoot together again real soon!

Looking forward to the spring and summer, Heavy is in the planning stages for a seminar in Chicago sometime in June.  Look for an official announcement regarding this and some other seminars sometime in April. 

Let's hope that world affairs are less "dicey" very soon.

Betting On The Chicken Feeders
by Heavy Haltom

There comes a time in this game where you reach a decision not to bet on the chicken feeders - or if you DO bet on them to severely limit your action. This will ultimately help prolong your bankroll while increasing your table time - ultimately positioning you to take advantage of your precision shooting ability. But there's something else you must position yourself for as well - taking advantage of the "streak."

But what if the streak occurs when a chicken feeder has the dice? Ah, there's the rub. Last weekend I was standing at the table with three precision shooters when the dice went to an elderly random roller. He was a "snatch 'em up - shake 'em - and bang 'em into the crotch of the table" kind of shooter. And I followed my own rule of not committing anything to his hand on the come out. Then something happened. He threw and eight, a six, another six, another six. And that's when I decided to get in the game.

I took a page from my heat-seeking craps strategy, placed the six and eight for $12 each and played a $5 come bet. Due to the hedge effect of the come bet I had 3 units at risk. Next call was the eight and the come bet traveled. Single odds was the call, regress the six to $6 and play another $5 come bet. Less than three units at risk now because I had $4 locked up from the hit on the eight - which rolled again paying me off-and-on for $11. Nine is the point so I place the five for a nickel and play another $5 come bet. I have four units action plus the come bet - net three units - less the two units I've locked up. My net exposure is one unit. One more hit and I'm in fat city. Next toss - the five. Ka-ching.

I let the action on the layout earn its way off the board, re-placing each come bet hit with place action and building the bets up until I had three units on the six and eight and two units on the five. Starting low and going slow - I moved on out with a $5 four and ten on subsequent hits. The precision shooter next to me was making similar moves, relying entirely on come bets with double odds - progressing his odds bets on subsequent wins. At the other end of the table - the players were shaking their heads, conversing, wondering how something like this could happen. They didn't have a chip on the layout.

The shooter continued to bang out number after number, pass after pass, as his hand stretched to the half-hour mark. I'd built my bets up to $60 each on the six and eight, $25 each on the five and nine, and $30 buy bets on both the four and ten. Along the way I'd taken multiple regressions - stepping back to $44 inside, building back up, then regressing to $66 inside and running the progressions again. When the seven finally showed I had over $200 action on the layout. I shook my head as I watched the dealer rake it over to their side of the table. But how could I be disappointed? In forty minutes of madness I'd turned the morning's $400 loss into a $500 win. And all on the hand of . . . you got it . . . a chicken feeder.

There comes a time in this game when you have to be willing to commit. Wild swings will happen - often on the hands of the random roller - and the only way to win on those hands is to get some money on the table. Start low - go slow - use hedges in the early minutes of their hands - but when you have a profit locked up and no sevens are in sight - don't be afraid to take your shot. The only thing you have to lose at that point is your "I should have . . . "

Mad Professor's Mini-Table Craps Tour with the Vegas Ghost- Part VI

(Read Part I , Part II, Part III or Part IV or Part V)  

“Ya gotta remember that craps tables weren’t always the huge 16 or 18 player mother-f%#&ers that most casinos have now.  In the early ‘60’s they were still mostly using the old-style one-dealer/eight-player tables.”

As we headed into the driveway that led to the parking structure, Mel (the Vegas Ghost) was opining about the various craps-table sizes all over Vegasville.

He elaborated a little further on the subject. 

“Well, from 1931 to the mid-‘60’s, craps was the most popular casino game not including poker.  Yep, it was even more popular than blackjack up until about 1964 or ‘65.  You take some of the downtown joints like Golden Gate (the former Sal Sagev), or the Horseshoe (the original Boulder Club), or the Pioneer Club (the original Apache Hotel), well each one of them had anywhere from six to twenty craps tables.  Keep in mind that those were, and still are, tiny little casinos.”  

“Yeah, that’s right, even a small joint like the Golden Gate had almost a dozen craps tables at one time.   They had maybe a couple of dozen slot machines in there when I first got to town, and the rest of the place was filled with table games.  Now they’ve got more than 200 machines in place of all of those craps-layouts, and just two 24-player monster tables.” 

“Back in the ‘60’s all of the small sawdust operations still had a thriving craps operation, but the joints on the Strip were the first ones that started to increase the number of slot machines, and decrease the number of table games”. 

“All of the casinos started using the more expensive three dealers and box-man set-up in the early ’60’s. Before that, most tables were either one-man or two-man operations.  They started making the tables bigger and bigger, but they installed less and less of them.  That’s when the trend towards installing more and more machines started.  Pretty soon, most of the big casinos on the Strip will have a 90:10 ratio in place of the current 80:20 machines-to-tables ratio.  That’s completely opposite to the ratio that was in place when I first got to Vegas.”

Here’s a picture of a typical old-style one-man, eight-player table (courtesy of the UNLV Archive).  Since we are on a mini-table tour of Vegas, it shows that craps tables haven’t evolved that much since “the old days”.

- mini table tour continued here

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A key element to success in dice control is meticulous statistical record-keeping.  RollTracker was designed to make this task easy and fun, with your rolls displayed in graphic clarity! Red Setter has written a very robust piece of software for you to track and analyze your throws.  Determine your signature numbers, your SRR and your on/off axis percentages.  All this and more in one easy to use piece of software!  Go to RollTracker.com for screenshots, pricing information and download information.  If Roll Tracker is not your cup of tea, don't forget, Pablo and Porkchop also have products that can assist you with analyzing your throwing data.