In Part I of this series we looked at ten ways to decrease the pain, and increase the pleasure of our Practice Sessions.

How These Tips Work

The objective of course, is to make the home-to-casino transition easier, and to make your actual in-casino sessions yield more profit.

Amongst other things, we can use our practice-sessions to:

Ø       Fine-tune our grip

Ø       Re-target our aim

Ø       Rework our release point

Ø       Modify our throwing force

Ø       Adjust our backspin 

Ø       Alter our trajectory

Ø       Build a consistent toss

Ø       Develop muscle-memory

The more that we refine our talents in practice-sessions; the more our skills are likely to shine through once we get into the casino.

I want to tell you about THE MOST OVERLOOKED ASPECT of Precision-Shooting:

Tip #11 – Dominant Eye

Here is a useful tip if your current dice-targeting skills are less than perfect.  This is one of several practice-tips that I have never seen mentioned anywhere else.

Ø       Choose any spot on a wall that is about eight-feet away from you.  

Ø       Extend your arm fully and hold up your thumb so that it covers the chosen spot. 

Ø       Now close your right-eye.  Did the target seem to shift?

Ø       Open your right eye, and now close your left-eye.  Did the target seem to shift this time?

Ø       While your arm remains aimed at the target, does one eye seem to “move” your thumb off-target? 

Ø       Conversely, does only one eye keep the thumb on the same spot as when both of your eyes are fully open?  If so, then one of your eyes is more “dominant” than the other. 

Ø       If you try the “close-one-eye-and-open-the-other” exercise, and the target moves the same distance (or remained static) to the left and to the right as you alternated between closed eyes; then you are “neutrally-sighted” and neither eye is more dominant than the other.  That is a good thing, and you can skip over to the next tip.

If one of your eyes is dominant, it may lead to targeting errors. In normal day-to-day activities, this disparity between your eyes doesn’t make any difference. 

However, where fine-motor control, distance-reckoning, depth-perception and hand-eye coordination is required, it definitely becomes a factor.  When “targeting” of an object comes into play, then it becomes critical.

Let me make matters a little worse for you before I make them better. 

Your dominant-eye becomes MORE DOMINANT as your stress level rises.  In our basest fight-or-flight instincts for survival, this can be a good thing if you are battling a woolly mammoth to the death. 

However, in the even wilder casino-world where our bankrolls survival is on the line, and where fine-motor control is required, the stress level of increased endorphins sometimes causes our targeting accuracy to be LESS ACCURATE.

Some people find that as the amount of money on the layout increases, so does their stress-level.  What happens is that as your stress level rises, your dominant eye becomes more dominant.  Under those circumstances, if you “sighted” your target with both eyes, then there is a good chance that your accuracy and precision will not be on-the-mark.

Depending on where you are standing at the table in relation to the distance and angle of the target, your dominant eye can either assist your accuracy or hinder your aim.

To overcome this obstacle, we first determine if one of your eyes is dominant; then when you are at your Practice Rig:

Ø       Look at your chosen touchdown-target with both eyes.

Ø       Set and grip the dice as you normally would.

Ø       Quickly look at the target again.

Ø       Briefly close your subordinate eye, and keep your dominant eye on the target.

Ø       Use your dominant eye the same way you would if you were using a scope on a hunting-rifle.

Ø       Now, with both eyes open, throw the dice.

Ø       Determine how closely you came the target.

Ø       Use Tip #9 - Target-Practice from Part I to orient your hand-eye coordination from ever-increasing distances.   This guarantees near-100% accuracy despite your current vision limitations.

Ø       Continue repeating this process until your aiming-skills improve to the point of high-reliability.

By understanding which eye is dominant, you should be able to work around it and improve your targeting skill-set.  With that in mind, we’ll be looking at this Dominant Eye subject in much greater detail in a dedicated article in the future.

Tip #12 – Shooting to a Target - Part Deux

This is a great supplementary idea that coincides with the tip of the same name in Part I.  I’ll give Heavy credit for this one. 

While it might first appear to be off-the-wall, it’s actually a good piece of advice that has a couple of practical purposes. 

Ø       Practice throwing the dice into a shallow pan of flour to see if the dice are landing flat.  It’s a bit like checking the sand in the long-jump pit to determine where you first landed, how deep you sunk, whether there was more weight on one foot over the other, and where your body tumbled after its initial touchdown.  When you see how the dice initially land, and what they do after they first hit; then you can make quick corrections to your toss-mechanics.

Ø       Moreover, you can also mark a small spot in the pan of flour, and from your normal throwing distance, see how close and how often you can hit the chosen spot.  This exercise can tell you a lot about your current skills or lack thereof.

Ø       If flour seems a little messy, you could use fine-grain kitty litter or any other non-dusty material.  However, it’s best to use FRESH kitty litter, otherwise the dice may hit some unseen obstacles that are buried under the surface.

Tip #14 - Quality vs Quantity

The quantity of practice throws that we make in each session strongly comes into play; when we are focusing on developing a reliable and consistent throw; when we are determining our Signature Numbers; and when we are trying to build muscle-memory. 

The quality of our practice throws comes into play during ALL OF THOSE ACTIVITIES.

Throwing the cubes without resolved focus and concentration just to increase the number of tosses is pretty pointless. 

Don’t waste your time if you aren’t going to throw with the same level of concentration, dedication and focus that you use in the casino.  If your at-home throw is haphazard for whatever reasons (no stress, no money on the line, not in the mood, etc.) then you might as well not practice at all. 

If you want repeatably profitable performance in the casino, then your Practice Toss has to closely match the QUALITY of your in-casino toss.   

Tip #15 - Tracking Your Success

I’ve written about a couple of Craps Roll-Calculation software programs that are specifically designed for Precision-Shooters. 

Ø       Pablo’s Toss Tracker  ( click here )

Ø       Porkchop’s Craps Tracker C-RAT ( click here for more info )

Both of these programs are very effective in helping a Precision-Shooter do some quick and easy reckoning of how their own throwing is doing.  Toss Tracker has an on-line demo and pre-loaded roll statistics, and  Craps Tracker C-RAT lets you specify different dice sets and tracks individual dice-outcomes.  You can also hook it up to voice-recognition software.

Why use a Roll-Calculation Program?

~They make easy work of figuring out EXACTLY where your strengths lay as far as your current Signature Numbers are concerned. 

~They calculate your SRR and on-axis throwing percentages on a forward-rolling basis. 

~They help you tailor betting strategies that focus on your current Precision-Shooting strengths, and help you to avoid unprofitable betting approaches. 

Tip #16 – Practice-to-Play Ratio

This is one of the most under-rated ideas that I know of, yet it provides the most bang-for-the-buck.  If you are willing to invest your time, this tip will pay steady dividends.  I can’t over-emphasize the importance of being willing to put in the time on the practice layout.

The best athletes do it in their chosen games, and if you want your game to be on par with the pros, then you have to put in the time and effort to achieve it.   I strongly recommend 10-hours of practice for every 1-hour of actual casino play.

How long should you maintain the 10-to-1 practice-to-play ratio?

I would recommend that you maintain that regimen to the point where your in-casino sessions are CONSISTENTLY PROFITABLE.  Once you reach that level, you may choose to slightly scale it back.  Thereafter, if your casino-performance continues to improve, and your profitability continues to increase; then you may choose to carefully decrease your practice hours.

While a 10-to-1 ratio of practice hours to in-casino hours may seem excessive, it makes excellent economic sense.  The better you get in your at-home sessions, the easier the transition to profitable in-casino play will be. 

The more money that you save by improving your game at home, the better positioned you will be to take advantage of it once you go to the casino.  When your money is in action on the real tables; that is when all of the hours that you invested on the Practice Rig will begin to pay dividends.  

Put another way:  “If you want the rainbow…you have to put up with the rain.”

Tip #17 – New Dice
(see related article on this subject in the April 2002 newsletter.  If you're not a subscriber, it's free, click here to subscribe)