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Raising Your
Consciousness and Fattening Your Wallet It
was difficult to write because it meant casting abstract ideas down onto paper. That is a task that is not only easier said than
done; but it is a task best left to professional writers, as opposed to professional craps
players. Just
because someone is good at what they do, does NOT mean that they would be good at teaching
it or even explaining it to someone else. It
is with that caveat and disclaimer that I invite you into the professional craps players
mind. Thankfully, I was able to tap into
someone elses brain to help me on this project.
Otherwise, I would be in a solo battle of wits against an unarmed man! In
the Part I
of this article, we discussed a couple of important points:
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Most
people have a hard time being patient, especially true of Precision-Shooters, because they
can hardly wait until the dice come to them for their next shooting opportunity.
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You
should be noticing what trends are developing as each shooter gets the dice.
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When
the dice turn cold, they usually stay cold for quite a while. When the dice are hot, the trend never
seems to last anywhere near long enough.
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It
is the ability to recognize when you are in the beginning, middle, or end of one of these
trends that will make you all kinds of money, regardless of your own dice-shooting
ability.
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However,
the trend is usually choppy. This
is when neither the Do or the Dont players are making much
headway with or against the trend. That is
probably the riskiest time to jump into the betting pool, because both sides seem to get
chopped up equally well by the casino.
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If
the chop is hammering just about everyone, then stick to the sidelines.
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There
is long-term benefit in raising your consciousness. Simply,
it is the meticulousness, carefulness and preciseness in which you observe and understand
the game, and then it is how you integrate that into your own mental-processing of what is
happening at the table, and exactly what you should do about it. We
define raising our consciousness to mean the gaining of a greater
understanding about the ebb and flow of the game to such a high level, that the whole
process and the whole game actually becomes a part of you.
There is essentially no separation between you, your mind, your body, your
soul and the game as it unfolds in the casino. Let
me also state right here and now that we are not talking about your mental shooting
zone. Thats a completely
separate subject. This is more about
understanding the flow of the game on an almost sub-conscious level. So
how do we go about raising our consciousness and fattening our wallet when we are at the
craps table? This
brings us back to my friend, Al. Hes
an excellent Precision-Shooter who considers himself to be a purist of the
game. By that, he means that:
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He
doesnt get caught up in any complicated betting methods. He doesnt hedge his bets; he mostly stays
away from the center-of-the-table Proposition box; and he always takes full Odds during
his own rolls.
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He
principally bets on himself or other qualified Precision-Shooters.
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He
very sparingly bets on or against random-rollers.
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He
has been utilizing this approach for the past two years that he has been using craps as
his sole source of income.
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He
will select one to three random-rollers (rarely more) each two-hour session, where he will
either bet with or against them using his trend & clump betting method.
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He
has the patience of Jobe when it comes to waiting for the dice to return to his shooting
position. So
I asked him how he came about his whole craps strategy.
He answered that it wasnt so much a strategy as it was a
craps philosophy. He
explained that he had been playing craps sporadically for about five years. He was down-sized in a corporate
shake-up, and he took a very lucrative early retirement buy-out. His house and car had been paid for, his
kids college funds were secure, and his wife of 22 years, was heavily involved with
a local hospitals volunteer program. It
was then that he started visiting the local casinos more often. At first, he just watched a lot of the action,
trying to decipher what the trends of the tables were.
After a while of doing this day in, and day out, he discovered that he could
chart the expected ebb and flow of the game in his head. He discarded his number-charting notepad, and
proceeded to look for clumps of number-types. Yeah,
I know, it may sound a little weird to you, but his explanation brought further
clarification. He said that the whole
trending thing, was a lot more than knowing if the dice were currently
trending either hot or cold. The whole
lot more meant that he could actually visualize a bar-graph in his head, of where
the trend had been, where the trend was now, and where the trend was likely to go in the
near term. He
explained that just because the trend is warm, does not mean that any number that you bet
is more likely to hit. A table can be
flame-hot without the shooter repeating his Pass Line number. There are a lot of trends that are found
within some hands that cannot be ignored, he explained. Trend
betting is one way to get a little action going at the table, but to Al,
betting the trends does not necessarily mean betting on the Pass or Dont
Pass line. Instead, if the trend is
positive, hell bet on the most likely numbers that are appearing and may
continue to appear occur before a 7-Out. Likewise,
if the trend is negative, hell bet on the numbers that are least likely
to show up before a 7-Out winner. I
responded to everything that he was saying, by asking, Can you tell what numbers are
likely to roll? No, was his
quick response. The actual numbers have
to be seen in groupings or clusters or clumps, and not as
individual numbers with the exception of the 7 of course. If
the Outside numbers of 4 and/or 10 are appearing more frequently than expected, hell
make a table-minimum Place bet on both. At
that Point, he may leave them up for two or three more rolls to see if the trend is
continuing. If there are no further bites, he
calls them off. Keep
in mind that this type of betting is NOT a huge money maker. However, it keeps your head in the game, while it
sharpens your acuity of what the random-numbers are indicating by their trends. Are
you with me so far? If not, hang in there
because it should all become clear very shortly. Okay,
there are principally three groupings of numbers and a fourth solo
number which is the 7. The main
group is the Inside Numbers of 5, 6, 8, & 9. The
second group is the Outside Numbers of 4 & 10. Finally,
there are the C & E Numbers of 2, 3, 11, & 12.
Of course the 7 has its own special place right at the top
of the clump-heap. So
far, this is pretty straight-forward stuff. Now
we have to look at how all those numbers ebb and flow during the game. This is the spot where we pretty much have to
leave planet Earth, and rendezvous with the cosmic dust that constitutes the
rest of our universe. Feel free to dose off
for Als natural cure to insomnia. These
three groupings or clumps, present betting opportunities, which MAY be
profitable. They wont always be
profitable, because we are doing all of this in a casino after all. We know that our own Precision-Shooting will not
always generate a profit every time that we pick up the dice, so we can pretty much expect
even less when others do so. Our
objective with Precision-Shooting is to engineer the house-edge into a
player-edge. That edge will vary
from player to player and from hand to hand. When
it comes to betting on random-rollers, the exercise becomes riskier and much more
speculative. When
we have raised our consciousness to the level where we gain a whole new perspective on the
game, it does not mean that we will choose right or bet correctly every
time. It simply means that several
positive-indicators are pointing us in a certain direction.
It is at that point where we may choose to book a small wager. A
win or loss at this point does not either make or break our bankroll. Instead, we use these small bets to sharpen our
knowledge of the flow of the game. The
noted author Lyle Stuart often talks about an almost Zen-like state of mind where you can
see the natural progression of the numbers as they are rolled. He attributed this to spending so many years
leaning on the rails of a craps table, while other people tried to tied his knowledge to
some kind of paranormal brain activity. In
reality, its just a matter of opening your mind to what is happening, and not
getting bogged down in what everyone else is doing at the table. I suppose its sort of a
mind-game where you are trying to guess what types of
number will roll next. Instead of thinking,
A 6 is gonna roll, you start thinking in bet types such as Outside
numbers, Inside numbers, C & E numbers and so on. When
you switch your thinking over to the trending-clumps, you are better
positioned to take advantage of them when all the indicators are present. It also trains you to stay out of the betting-pool
until everything is trending in your favor. Getting
burned by betting too early is an educational wake-up call that the hardest-headed of us
are reluctant to learn. Hey, its your
money. Why insist on making it the casinos
money so quickly? Okay,
lets cut to the chase, and talk about how all of this is supposed to work. Let
me begin by asking you this. How many times
have you sensed a 7-Out coming on? Many
times, right! Now,
let me ask you what you did about it. If you
called all of your bets off, that would be a good start. If you threw out a bet on Big Red or
a Hopping 3-way Seven, that MIGHT be a good answer, only if it (the 7-Out) hit. If you laid $41 (or $21) against the 4 or 10;
then thats an even better answer. In
any of those cases, a subsequent 7-Out would either save you money, or make you some. The no-cost answer is to turn your bets
off. The high cost answer would
be the high-vig Big Red bet. Al
uses similar methods, but he uses event horizons to determine how he
will bet on a random-roller, and for how long he will leave any bet exposed. Heres
his reasoning. The
more frequently a number should statistically appear; the longer he can afford
to leave it on the table. The reverse is also
true of harder to hit numbers. Ill
give you a couple of quick examples that Im sure you can relate to. If
someone throws three craps numbers (2, 3 or 12) in a row; Al might decide to make one, and
only one, Any Craps bet for the lowest amount of money possible, which is
usually $1. While its true that
gamblers would probably bet sooner and with more money, Als thinking is
that it might be worth a tiny wager, but not much more.
If it hits, hell make a single unit press on that bet. No, he wont parlay it, because that would
mean that he bypassed a profit opportunity for a gambling
opportunity. His approach may take some of
the fun out of the game, but it also puts a lot more profit back
into the game. If
you are in the casino for entertainment, feel free to ignore this method. If you are there for profit, you might want to
consider it for future use. With
Als approach, if a player is throwing a rash of two or three 9s, Al would
ensure that he had a bet on the 9 and its sister number of 5. If the 9 or 5 decide to go on an extended holiday
for two or three rolls; then Al simply turns the bets off, and they stay off until they
start showing up again or a 7-Out clears everyone elses bets from the table. Al
favors the Inside number bets, but for limited time-exposure and limited hit-potential. Hell leave his $22 Inside bet up for one or
possibly two hits, then hell call the bets off. Similarly, if his $22 Inside bet hasnt
gotten a bite after two or three rolls; hell call the bets off. Als
approach may sound similar to other ultra-conservative betting methods, and they are. The big difference with Als approach is that
over a two-hour session, hell only bet on one to three random-rollers. If someone does get on a hot roll, hell also
be there, but he builds his bets using the profits generated by his initial small wins. He guards his bankroll as if he was in a dark
crack-smokers alley on the bad side of town. That
means that over a two-hour session, there may be about twenty random-rollers who get their
hands on the dice
and Al will only bet on one, or two or possibly three of them. The
reasoning is clear. Random-rollers represent
more bankroll-risk than bankroll-opportunities. When the risk outweighs the return, it puts a
whole new face on the definition of gambling, and it forces you to answer the question of
what you are really doing in a casino in the first place. For
him, if the trend is not going one particular way, or the clumps of numbers are not
showing anything discernable; then Al sticks to the sidelines while the dice rotate around
the table. Without
a bet on either the Pass Line or Dont Pass line, Al has the betting-strategy
flexibility to wager on what the numbers are indicating, rather than hoping for a flukey
Pass Line repeater. It also reduces the
amount of bankroll exposure to Place or Lay numbers and bets that he can control. Its
important to remember that Al is not betting on a whim or a feeling that a
certain clump of numbers is predominating. No,
he is simply looking at the trend of the table in general, and the trend of certain
number-groups in particular. When the time is
right, he jumps in for a low-cost, low time-exposure, low-risk wager. I
asked him, Since you only bet on a couple of shooters each session, dont you
miss out on a lot of opportunities while you are waiting for all these planets and stars
and numbers to line up? His
answer was simple and direct. Sure
I sometimes miss the boat on a few shooters, but I save a pile of money all the other
times. Lets face it. I am there to shoot the dice. Any money that I make from random-rollers is just
icing on the cake, but lets agree here and now, that you cannot rely on
random-rollers to pay the freight of playing craps full-time. To make a living from this game, you have to have
your Precision-Shooting dialed in, and you have to generate sufficient income to afford
you the luxury of being able to spend so much time at the tables. I
couldnt disagree with anything that he said. Al
and I sat down and compared our random-roller notes. I
wanted to determine just how much he earns off of random-rollers. Als 3.8% figure ($3,619) of his total income
was pretty close to my own 4.4% ($17,150) mark. Neither
of those figures is anything to write home about. You
certainly couldnt live off of either amount, and it shows again that almost ALL that
time spent at the tables with random-rollers is not likely to be a very productive or
profitably-consistent period. It
also points up the fact that to make consistent money from this game, Precision-Shooting
is the ONLY way to go. However, at a busy
table, determining trends and number-clumps does kill time without unduly jeopardizing
your bankroll. You
and I have not even come close to finishing this whole raising your
consciousness topic yet. It may not be
the sexiest of subjects, but if you want to get into the head of a few professional craps
players, then this is the place, and this is the series of articles. In
Part III well look at:
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How
to better use the down time between your own shooting opportunities.
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Why
a random-rollers throw can help you determine how the dice and the table should react to
your own particular Precision-Shooting style.
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How
to prepare for and visualize your throw well before it is your turn.
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Choosing
alternative dice-target areas based on others players expected bet-positions.
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Zoning-out
negativity and game delays through the use of lyric-less music.
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Breathing
in tempo with your game plan and shooting-style.
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And
as they say
much, much more! Good
Luck & Good Skill at the Tables
and in Life. Sincerely, The
Mad Professor
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