You Mustve Got a Phone
Call
By heavy
Fact is, some of us hear
that line all the time. Its part of a
conversation that goes something like this:
Shooter: Hopping the nines for
five each.
Stick: Two way nines on the hop
- five each my first. Dice are out.
Dice
roll
Stick: Nine, winner. Front line winner.
Take the donts. Pay the
line. Nine came five-four.
Shooter: Eighty and down on the
hop bet.
Player next to shooter: Jeeze. You mustve got a phone call.
The fat boy got his phone
call long distance - I came a long way figuring this one out. It started back in the late eighties when I
noticed an interesting trend. More and more
players were setting the dice to the hard six - in what we now know as the flying
V set. And many of these players were
having incredible rolls. I was still puzzling
over the permutations of this when Frank Scobletes Beat the Craps Out of the Casinos
came out in 1991. Scoblete, too, was using
the flying V set, reportedly with good success.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, I had to give it a try on my own.
And try I did. With mixed results.
The set did seem to generate longer rolls for me. I noticed an increase in the number of sixes and
eights I threw, but the fives and nines seldom appeared.
The four and ten - numbers Scoblete advocates buying at the $30 - $39 level
when you can do it for a $1 vig - seemed to roll more than one would expect. Unfortunately, for me, the one number that seemed
to come up most often was the three-craps. A
typical series might consist of two or three ace-deuces on the come out, followed by an
eight, a four, a three, another three, an eleven, a ten, a three, the six, then the seven. Sure, I rolled a lot of numbers, but since I was
still primarily a pass line/come bettor I was still losing.
A lot. It simply never dawned
on me to bet the ace-deuce straight up, as I had been conditioned by every craps book
Id ever read to stay away from the high-vig call bets.
I was on a cruise ship
heading toward Paradise Island when it finally started to come together for me. I threw six ace-deuces back-to-back. I recall one of the dealers, in a very proper
British accent, say something to the effect of, If you arent betting the
three-craps you arent winning. Duh. What would a $1 ace-deuce bet parlay pay over six
hits? Well, you couldnt get there
because the max call bet was $500 in this game. On
the third hit youd collect $3375. If
they allowed you to parlay that the fourth hit would pay $50,625. The fifth - $759,375. Need I go on?
Try $11 million and down
oh, and heres a $390,625 hard eight
for the boys.
Along about this same
time I was delving into the game of roulette. The
more I studied the game the more I became convinced that certain roulette dealers had
definite signatures. By that I mean that -
consciously or unconsciously, many dealers
were able to exercise some control over where that little round ball landed. It was the dealer who kicked up the rotor speed. It was the dealer who released the ball into the
track. And if the dealer paid attention to
the wheel it was quite simple to release the ball at the same point and speed every time. Golfers call it muscle memory. I called it cheating. Because a dealer who knew the layout well could
glance at the areas with the most bets, then send the ball to a sector with less action. Likewise, a dealer who - for whatever reason -
liked a particular player could send the ball to the sector of the wheel that player was
playing. I saw this first hand one session in
Bossier City. There were only three players
at the table, myself and an Asian couple. For
some reason the dealer took an immediate dislike to the Asians, and set about demolishing
them. Meanwhile, I started racking up small
wins on one and two dollar straight-up bets, and toked the dealer with every win. Finally, cashing out several hundred ahead, I put
a $5 chip on the table and told the dealer he could either drop it in the box or bet it. I can hit a 17, he said. I bet if for him and he did.
It was after a losing
craps session at the Horseshoe in Bossier City that the concept of Signature Numbers for
crap shooters came to mind. On those long
drives back to Dallas I would replay every game in my mind, throwing in a
what-if scenario at every turn. Suddenly
it dawned on me. If I could successfully play
the dealers signature numbers in roulette - a game thats even tougher to beat
than craps - then I should be able to win by betting my own signature numbers - or those
of another player - at the craps table.
First, I had to unlearn
my prejudice against place betting. Place
bettors have control over their bets that come bettors don't have. They get to pick and choose their numbers, vary
the size of their bets and take them down at will. They
only have to score one hit on a number to lock up a win. Then I learned the power of the regression move -
locking up a win early and making each bet pay its freight before pressing.
I bet what I perceived to
be my signature numbers. We all have
favorites that we bet all of the time. And I
did notice an improvement in my results. Still,
I felt I was throwing too many trash numbers. I
wanted to change my signature numbers to increase the percentage point numbers. That way I would not have to keep throwing dollars
out for call bets. I could simply bet the
point numbers and collect my winnings. And
so, I began a serious study of the various dice sets.
I read everything I could find on the subject, talked with other players and
compared notes. I was starting down the path
to becoming a qualified shooter.
A favorite on the
come-out roll quickly became the hard-four set into the flying V. This set yielded a good mix of sevens and elevens
on the come out, and often established the point as a six or eight. I noticed other shooters setting the dice to the
same axis, only with the hard ten or the Yo facing up.
I bet accordingly. Then I
noticed a guy using a snake-eyes set - with the five-three facing down table and the
four-two facing the back wall. It was, in
fact, the crossed-sixes set we are all so familiar with, and the shooter was getting
fantastic results. Then there was the guy
with the five-four set with the crossed sixes facing down table. The three-two set which is the five-four standing
on its head. And all of these players were
winning. And thats when I took it home
and tried it out.
I tried it on the desk
top first, then on the carpet. Finally, I
invested in a craps layout, a sheet of plywood and a knock-down 1X12 backboard. I experimented with different sets, eventually
settling on the crossed sixes with the five-four up, and practiced throwing from different
vantage points. I found the optimum distance,
loft, and strike-zone for this particular set. I
recorded every roll. Then I took it to the
casino.
Hopping
the nines for five each.
But weve been down
that road before.
So what does it all mean? Well, I dont track every roll in the casino
- though I do try to maintain a healthy sense of what numbers Im throwing. But years after the fact, thousands of recorded
rolls on the home layout have gotten me to the following point. Based on expected outcome versus actual outcome I
step up to the game with a 13% advantage over the house on the eight, 14% on both the four
and ten, 15% on the twelve, 22% on the nine, and a whopping 23% edge on the eleven. I also generate a high percentage of hardway hits
on the eight and ten, providing some huge parlay opportunities. The remaining numbers come in pretty much where
youd expect them to.
The cost of the one-roll
bets - the eleven and twelve in this case - still intimidates me. As a result, I only bet those numbers in specific
situations. On the come out roll or - hoping
for a repeater - after one of them rolls. But
I always press hits on these numbers one unit and go for the bigger score. Results have been very gratifying.
As for the place bets -
come betting has become a thing of the past for me - I find myself betting more
aggressively when Im the shooter. I no
longer dread touching the dice. I look
forward to it. The four, eight, nine and ten
are mine. My name is written all over them.
I got a phone call
-heavy
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