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Dice Setter Precision Shooter's Newsletter
Wow! Where has the summer gone? I must apologize. I've been quite remiss in getting the newsletter out. Between work, vacations with the family and other summertime activities, I've had very little "free" time. A lot has happened in recent weeks, especially on the message board. Several members have done some amazing dice set and betting analysis which I believe is the most important information to come along since Zeke and Yuri brought us the basic theory. This analysis will both shake up the dice influencing community, and have a huge impact on our profitability. In addition, these shooters have mathematically, and conclusively debunked the hardways set as a sevens avoidance once and for all. If you haven't stopped by the message board lately, I highly recommend that you do so. Let's get on with the newsletter..... If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at ed@dicesetter.com Thanks for your continued support of Dice Setter!
Las Vegas Crapsfest
2004! - October 15 - 17, 2004 Shooting From The Donts A Journey of Opportunity - Part I by the Mad Professor I
didnt want to use too many superlatives in the title of this article, but
frankly it should have been called: Shooting
From The Donts
an Extraordinary Journey of Remarkable Opportunities and Amazing
Discoveries
with a Couple of Setbacks and Notable Kicks in the Ass Along the Way. Okay,
its a few too many words to fit onto the masthead of even MY ego, but it
pretty much sums up what I encountered when I set out to determine whether a skilled
craps-player could make enough money STRICTLY as a Darkside-SHOOTER
to make it worth his while. What
I discovered will open the minds of some, and cast even more deserved credit to those who
have been doing the very same thing for a long time now. To
both of those groups, I offer a clean windshield co-driver seat as I narrate this journey
of dicesettings darkside-potential. The
Perspective
Sooner
or later, nearly every skilled Precision-Shooter considers the opportunities offered by
shooting the dice from the DARKSIDE. While
some players have a hard time picturing themselves doing this at a crowded table, many
others have no qualms about it at all. Certainly
the profit-potential offered by a quick 7-Out are quite attractive, especially when
employed at an empty table where you can get the dice returned to you over and over again
without interruption, or when used on a quick HitnRun get-in
get-out
casino raid. Now
Ill be the first to admit that the whole idea of shooting from the Darkside
doesnt appeal to many players because it not only goes against their sensibility of
fair-play and camaraderie; and but they believe that it upsets the metaphysical energy and
life-force around them, as well. Many
dicesetters simply dont like the dirty looks from right-side players or for the
daggers to be out when it comes to their turn to shoot. They rightly want to maintain the good positive
vibes, which they reason is only obtainable when shooting from the right-side (unless of
course you have a table full of Darksiders). However,
the fact is that some players either cant develop their Precision-Shooting
skills to a high enough edge over the casino to make sustainable profit while shooting
from the right-side; or they simply like shooting from the Donts BECAUSE
it suits their personality. In
either case, the pre-disposition of the 7 to show up when using certain
dice-sets, makes it quite a bit easier to accomplish Precision-Shooting success when
shooting from the Darkside than it does when shooting from the Do. Let
me repeat that: Precision-Shooting
success is easier to accomplish when shooting from the Darkside than it is when shooting
from the Do. That
in and of itself is a pretty compelling reason to at least consider the entire
idea. How
about I put it another way? If
you have the 7 working IN your favor during the Point-cycle, as opposed
to working AGAINST you; then you are in a much better position to take profitable
advantage of it. If
your shooting-skills dont have to be nearly as good before you get to make some
reliable profit; then in my books, this concept holds even more merit for those who have
had difficulty in converting their SKILL into sustainable PROFIT. Welcome
to the Credit Where Credit is Due Department
Lets
be frank. There are a number of very
accomplished dicesetters who have already embarked on the same darkside-shooting journey,
and theyve succeeded at it like its nobodys business. There
are even a handful of players who frequent the Message Boards, but arent necessarily
the most prolific message-posters on the net; so their message has been largely ignored. In fact, thats part of the appeal of
WrongWay-shooting
it flies under almost EVERYONES radar
including OURS. They
have profitably succeeded at shooting from the Donts, and have done it SO
successfully that they have continued to cruise under OUR radar. When you put that into a real-world casino
context; where even an airborne E-3 Sentry AWACS couldnt pick them out against the
ground-clutter of random-rollers
that tells you how far under the detection-net they
are
and they remain so to this very day. In
this series I will be discussing some of their camouflage and masking
methods, along with a few of their best Romulan-cloaking techniques. Frankly some of it is so good, even I never
would have thought of it on my own. On the
other hand, most of it is SO simple, it fits right into the
easiest-to-understand hiding in plain sight concept. That
Brings Us to The Present
Obviously
I had figured out this whole easier-to-succeed-from-the-DP thing a long
time ago, but I had mostly chosen the right-side strategy of achieving as many multiple
PL-Point and Box-number laden rolls as possible. After
all, if the tables are crowded and your casino selection is limited, most players want to
make the most of their talents and limited shooting opportunities; which in most cases
means going for the multi-Point, plentiful box-number mega-hand approach. Im
still a strong believer in that concept, and I continue to make piles of money as a
right-side shooter, however I wanted to expand my horizons a little further, by seeing
just how far Darkside shooting could carry me. Although
I had done it before, usually on an Ill throw from the DP in order to get
out of this shooting-slump basis, I wanted to try it out on a multi-table,
multi-casino, multi-city, multi-province, multi-state and multi-PROFIT trial. It
was at that point that I decided to set out on this six-province, four-state expedition
into the deep, murky and mostly uncharted waters of steadily profitable Darkside-shooting. This
is a journal of my voyage. Craps
Maritime
Style
Casino
Nova Scotia is located in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Canadas east coast. It is owned by the Caesars Entertainment empire,
so that means they know how to run a casino, and they know how to treat a guest. Pulling
into Valet Parking set the tone for the rest of my stay there. New and returning guests are treated with a
welcome that Tourism and Convention Bureaus across the world would have wet-dreams over. Short of slaughtering a fattened calf for the
return of the Prodigal Son, they make you feel like a long lost family member being
welcomed home after many years of being lost at sea. Ive
played craps in every single corner of this planet.
From the dusty Australian Outback
to the teeming streets of downtown
Seoul
from a converted Army barracks casino in Davao City (Philippines)
to the
Gallipoli Peninsula of Turkey
Ive tossed the dice on nearly every legal casino
craps table from South America to North Africa
and to my mind, the absolute
friendliest people in the craps-playing universe are found in Nova Scotia. Okay..tourism
commercial ends
let the craps play begin
The
Preparation
I
had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to approach the entire setting and betting angle as
a Dont Pass shooter, but I also knew enough to be open-minded to modifying that plan
if anything needed to be changed. As
soon as I got to my suite, I took a long shower that was as much therapeutic as it
was for just washing off the road dust. I
got out a pair of dice to do a couple of perfunctory tosses across the king-size duvet
that covered the bed. This was simply to see
how the dice were leaving my hand and flying through the air. I wasnt too worried about the landing or the
outcome. I was more interested to see how
much the highway miles had affected my ability to release them smoothly and fly
mirror-like through the air. It only took a
half dozen or so tosses to confirm that I hadnt sustained any temporary nerve damage
by gripping the hand-stitched steering wheel too firmly over almost 1200 miles. Normally,
I recommend that a player take sufficient time to rest up and regroup before hitting the
tables. The advice that Heavy
and others have given on this topic should generally be heeded, especially if its
been some time since your last major casino session.
Some people require a good night of sleep and a fresh start in the morning. For me, a long shower is generally enough time to
calm any anxiety or over-anxiousness that might be hiding just below the surface of my
apparent calmness. Admittedly,
I was anxious to get to the tables to try this new, dedicated Darkside-shooting
out. To be fair, I had run many simulated
sessions on my at-home craps table, but this was clearly something completely different. If
I knew then, just HOW different it was from what I was expecting, I would have done
much more mental preparation. Though I had
the physical side of the Darkside game down pat; I was soon to find out in the days and
weeks to come, that I needed much more girding of my mental-loins in intellectual
preparation. Casino
Nova Scotias Tables
Ah,
make that The TABLE---singular. They
only had one table open while I was there, but thankfully it was never packed, even on the
weekend. While it did get busiest at night, I
was usually one of only eight to ten players even at the most heavily occupied of times. At other hours, I was normally sharing the table
with only three or four players. I was
pleasantly surprised that the conditions stayed just as good over the next couple of days. Like
I said earlier, the profit-potential offered by a quick 7-Out is quite attractive,
especially when employed at an empty table or used on a quick HitnRun raid. As I was to find out again and again, both Empty
Table solo-shooting and busy table HitnRun opportunities would
present themselves over and over again, literally hundreds of times during this
cross-continent adventure. The
CNS table rolled quite neutral from nearly every player position, and I did in fact end up
trying nearly every one of them except the outer hook position at each end. The dice landed on the unpadded felt with a
satisfying heavy click, and the backwall wasnt at all lively; meaning the rollbacks
were extremely limited. The
actual felt appeared to be several months old, but there werent the usual wear-marks
in the high-traffic areas that youd normally expect.
I also noticed that they vacuum the entire layout every morning around 6:00
a.m. The
one tiny flaw I did detect was that if you rolled the dice into the bottom margin of the
non-alligatored part of the backwall where it starts to curve towards the outer
(player-side) hook; one die (the left-hand cube) would roll back INTO the other (the
right-hand cube), thereby giving a maddeningly consistent one-face off-axis flop. The cure was simple enough
just dont
throw into the outside corner, BUT there was an oh-so-perfect sweet-spot that was
right near (about 1½ Over
the next couple of days, I think that danger-zone/money-zone awareness actually increased
my focus quite a bit. The
Play
My
intention was to start out betting and shooting on a fairly simple and straight-forward
basis. The
plan was to set up a bet on the Dont Pass Line and then once the Point was
established, try to roll the 7-Out as quickly and painlessly as possible. It
was my intention to wait for one roll after establishing the Point, and then to start
adding Lay-Odds in single-unit presses every other roll, until I reached max-Odds. This
simple approach was intentional. I
wanted to re-validate my in-casino DP-shooting before I started to get fancy or riskier
with my bets. I certainly didnt plan on
unleashing them all at once. Ø Yes,
I had a number of wrong-way betting-methods that I used during this trip. Ø Yes,
I will explain each and every one of them in painful detail. Ø Yes,
I will discuss the merits of various dice-sets for the Come-Out and Point-cycle throws. Ø Yes,
I will give you all the details of how to tie your current DP-shooting skills into
wagering-approaches that are best suited to your CURRENT abilities. Ø Yes,
I will look at nearly every aspect of WrongWay shooting that you can think of
and
perhaps a few that you havent thought of. Ø No,
I cannot stuff all of that information into one article; so youll have to be patient
as each new piece in this series is released. Whenever
I make a major change to one of the fundamental aspects of my game (and switching over to
Darkside-shooting as an entire game-plan definitely constitutes a major change), its
important to ensure that all the other fundamental elements of Precision-Shooting and
Precision-Betting are still in good working order before you start laying out major
coinage on those ideas. That way, you can get
comfortable with the new approach, and reduce your risk to its lowest denominator
until you have verified that what works on the practice rig is just as profitably
transferable to the real-world tables. Crawl
before you walk
and learn to drive properly before you strap your ass behind a
650 horsepower engine. That advice has held
me in pretty good stead over the years, and the same holds true for wagering on any
yet-to-be-proven lets change our fundamental approach to the game
ideas. click here for the rest of the article! Maddog's Journeyby Maddog Part 4: The Puppys First Hunt (part 1 was in the Feb/March Newsletter, part 2 was in the April Newsletter and part 3 was in the May/June Newsletter) Have
you ever seen that show COPS. You
know how it starts out with This program contains graphic contents. Viewer discretion advised. Then it goes into that well known theme song;
Bad boys, Bad boys, whatcha gonna do
Well,
thats your warning for this issue of the Maddogs Journey. The contents are not pretty, so viewer discretion
is advised. If you have a weak stomach you
may wish to skip this report and go onto the next article.
On the other hand, if you are one of those folks who cant seem to look
away from a train wreak
well, read on. Here
I was with my nice cardboard box practice rig. Id
gotten the felt wrapped board into the bottom to keep the used casino dice from tearing up
the box bottom. I was practicing when I
could. Id guess I was practicing one or
twice a week. Id practice whenever I
didnt have anything else going on. Id
say I was into the practicing for about 2 months then and I was recording enough
difference in the occurrence of the 7 that I felt comfortable with continuing. Enough difference to say Hey, maybe this can
work. (I wasnt practicing enough, but well come to that.) It
seemed like I was tossing consistently. The
four fingered top grip (BTW, why isnt this just called the 3 fingered grip and
assume the thumb?) felt pretty comfortable and it seemed like I was getting pretty good at
gripping the dice consistently each time. (I really wasnt, but well come to
that.) Oh,
sure, the toss results were still a bit sporadic. I
still had dice dancing all around my practice box. Sometimes
the dice would hit the back of the box hard enough to roll back out the front. There were quite a few occurrences of the dice
kicking left or right and hitting against the side walls of the box. Sometimes the dice would get stuck in one of the
box corners. I guess thats one of the
idiosyncrasies of a square cornered practice box. But,
still, I was getting used to tossing into the box and building up some muscle
memory. From the simple check-mark
tracking I was doing I was gaining confidence. The results were showing that I was getting
a slightly different result from the expectations tables. I felt like it was all good.
Yeah, making progress. (I actually had a long way to go, but well come to that.) The
things that I was reading on dicesetter.com
were making sense to me. Based on the many
posts and articles it looked like I was heading in the right direction with my practice
and results. Id read somewhere that I
needed to read the material till I puked and then read it some more. (Famous
words from Grits or Golfer?) Id read several articles and I guess I felt like
puking. Least wise everything was starting to sound the same so I figured Id gotten
the gist of what there was to read. (I might have gotten the general picture, but I
hadnt really pulled out the gold nuggets of info yet
oh yea, but well
come to that.) I
had moved from the hardways set that I had been practicing with based on
SSs book, and had switched to using the 3V (Hard-six Flying V) pre-set. When you study the available craps bets,
youll find that the 6 and 8 offer low vig, very similar to a straight Pass Line bet. And when bet as a pair, they offer 10 ways of
hitting (5 ways each for the 6 & 8) vs the 6 ways of hitting the 7, so that seems like
a smart bet. The 3V is supposed to be the
best pre-set for hitting sixes and eights and so everything seemed to come together as a
sweet little strategy. The next chance I had
to head to the casino; I had a Plan. That
plan was to use the 3V and to bet $12 each on six and eight, take one hit and regress,
then press every other hit from there. One
hit would pay $14, Id regress to $6 each on the six and eight for $12 on the table. One hit and an automatic $2 win, with more to
come. The plan was so perfect in its simplicity. How
could I lose? (There are a lot of assumptions
in that paragraph! Right, well come to that in a few seconds.) Well
I finally got a opportunity for a day trip to the casino.
An chance to give this whole Dice Influencing thing a try. This puppy was pretty excited about the
hunt and to be honest I was also a bit nervous. But all in all I was looking forward to a chance to
give it a shot. Took
a bankroll of about 600 bucks and figured Id split it into two sessions. Well,
I said this was going to be an ugly story, but now that Im here, I dont really
want to relive the horrid details of that outing. Instead
of a blow-by-blow account, how about if I give ya just a couple of highlights (err,
lowlights). See if youve experienced
any of these
~
Get to the table and hands a bit shaky. Cant
seem to get the dice into the sets as fast as I thought I could. Seems to take forever to fumble the dice into
position and it feels like youre on trial for some crime with the judge and jury
staring at your every move. A couple of times
it seemed like the dice had some pips missing, cuz I couldnt ever find the numbers I
was after. A few times Id get so
frustrated trying to find the set that Id just picked em up and huck em, too nervous
to even toss them correctly. Every toss was
rushed and either tossed so hard the dice come banging off the back wall or over
compensating and tossing so soft as to not get the dice to roll out past the pass line. ~
How can you lose with the simple 6&8 strategy? Easy,
never hit the six or the eight. Roll a 5 and
a 4 and a 5 and a 3 and a 9 and a 7-out. ~
Damn, cant hit the six or eight; lets go back to the old betting strategy of
$20 outside. Oh nice, now I need 2 or 3 hits
to get covered. Pressing? Ok, now you need 5 or 6 hits to get paid. Oh look, here comes the sixes and eights. ~
Damn, getting low on ammo. Lets re-buy
for a couple o Benjamins. ~
Point seven. Point seven. Come on, we can do this! Point seven.
(seems the records stuck). Ok, Im broke, lets take a break. ~
Ready to go for the second session. Cant
buy in on a hundred, where is that ATM machine? ~
More of the same until, Where did all my money go? Gotta give this one more shot and really focus
this time, but first, where is that ATM machine? Melt-down. Blow-out. Wipe-out.
Bankrupt. Idiot. Call it what you like, all the terms fit, and I
deserved to hear them all. I
had practiced a bit and I thought I had the thing figured out. But that first session was a disaster. The nerves hit, the conditions werent the
same as Id expected, and certainly the results didnt turn out as planned. I wasnt prepared to fall short of my
daydream and wasnt mature enough to realize it wasnt working and to stop the
train. I kept thinking I would turn it around
on the next hand. The result was Bankroll
blow-out. Never posted that trip report. It was far too embarrassing to write up. Now that Ive put some distance between that
experience and today, Im a bit more comfortable about letting it out. SIDEBAR Heres an idea. Approach your next outing with the intention to write a trip report. It is interesting how feeling responsible to report back, even to a group of complete strangers, enhances your awareness and focus on the game. Even if you dont actually write a trip report when you get back (but, please do cause I love reading them) you will find a heightened attentiveness of your tossing and somewhat increased concentration on your game. After
that session fiasco, I was at the proverbial Fork in the road. I had to decide that either This
doesnt work or I gotta try harder.
I dont accept failure very easily, so I decided to take the road of trying
harder. I wanted to really give this a shot,
and I was going to really give it a shot. I was going to work harder, study harder and learn
more, and practice harder with the intention of becoming a perfect tosser. I
said we'd get back to some of those assumptions I was making. Lets take a look at a few of them.
~
Assuming once or twice a week is enough practice. It
might be enough if Id been doing this for several years, but I was just starting
out. It just wasnt enough to really
develop the skills needed to be consistent.
~
Assuming that better then Chicken Feeder consistency was precision shooter
consistency. Seeing an improvement in SRR is
a good sign, but alone, it falls short of indicating how you can perform at the table. I wasnt really tracking my results to know
what numbers I should be throwing and betting. Even
with an SRR of 8,9, or 15, a Dice Influencer can still walk away from the table a loser if
s/he doesnt correctly bet the action.
~
Assuming its natural for the dice to jump about a bit. Dice popping left or right. Dice crossing each other. Dice bouncing out of the box. All these are RED flags. When I first looked at Yuris book and saw
the picture with the pile of dice in a tight group, I figured he must have just put them
there for the picture. No way could he toss
them all into a tight pile like that. Ive
learned I was WRONG. With proper practice and training; we can get tight dice landings and
groupings. In fact, we need to be able to
land the dice, keep them together and have them end up within an inch or so of each other.
~
Assuming most articles, books, and posts contain the same information. Im going to follow up on this topic a bunch
in an upcoming article. There is so much
material provided for us that it can become overwhelming.
Sometimes we might read an article with some really good information. We think yeah that is correct and makes a bunch of
sense. Then, in the heat of battle, forget
all about the good instruction and advice, falling back to old habits. Go back and re-read the article again and realize
oh, yes. That is exactly what happened. Suddenly
the information takes on new life and meaning. As
experience is gained over time, the articles begin to make more and more sense and provide
fresh enlightenment. The information is meant
to be read and re-read, over and over. It is
certainly one thing to read the information and something else altogether to
learn and incorporate the information.
~
Assuming any bet is a sure thing. How many of
you read betting strategies that say after the first hit
on the next hit press
the
the next hit
and subconsciously are reading after the next
TOSS
on the next TOSS
the next TOSS
Oh, sure, intellectually we all know and understand the difference between a
HIT and a TOSS. But I
gotta say it came as something of a shock that I could throw so many tosses with out a
hit. I dont know why I was surprised. Before I began attempting to influence the dice,
Id seen many a bet lose without hitting. I
guess for some reason I thought precision shooting was automatic and I would surely get at
least one hit before a seven. Since
that time Ive matured my perspective and realize that Dice Influencing is just that
Influencing and not Controlling.
Ya still gotta watch out and be prepared for Mr. Pitchfork. Well,
like a young pup out on its first hunt, the Maddog needed to get his nose thumped a few
times to settle him down and get him focused on business.
Even though that first foray occurred nearly a year ago, I still remember it
like a zap with a cattle prod. I like to
think Ive learned a few things since then and have worked hard to improve. Once I decided that I wanted to really do this,
not just play at doing it, I made some changes to both my approach to Dice Influencing and
to how I approach the good ole game of craps. Well
talk about some of those things in part five of the Maddogs journey. Until
next time, keep your sixes crossed and your rack full. (Part
V will appear in the next Precision Shooter Newsletter) If you have any comments or ideas for future issues, feel free to email me at ed@dicesetter.com And as always, we are looking for contributors with a fresh perspective.
Know someone who
would be interested in receiving future editions of
Dice
Setter
Precision Shooter's Newsletter, Good Luck!
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