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How To Get It, and How To Keep It Means,
Motive, Opportunity
Action We've all seen
television police dramas where the detectives nab the guilty criminal by determining who
had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. We
can view our own comparative Precision-Shooting chances of having a successful session
with the same means, motive, and
opportunity test.
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Do
you have the means to make a consistent profit? Is
your bankroll of an adequate size to make the kind of bets, and in a suitable amount, to
give you a genuine fighting chance to succeed?
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Do
your Precision-Shooting skills give you enough of a measurable edge over the game, and is
your motive to make money stronger than your need to gamble?
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Do
you accord yourself an adequate number of opportunities to do so? Are you able to practice enough and then get
to the casinos often enough to validate and capitalize on your advantage?
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When
faced with a profit-opportunity, do you have the willpower to pull the trigger;
or are you gun-shy at the wrong time and freeze-up at the critical moment of carrying out
the deed? If
any one of those elements are missing from your current game; then your chances of getting
to anywhere that even remotely resembles a consistent casino-craps profit is quite
unlikely. You
need the bankroll, you need the discipline, you need the skills, and you need sufficient
opportunities to do it, BEFORE you can expect any kind of reliable casino revenue
to flow your way. Remember, this
series looks at the ways to GET the casinos money, and the means to KEEP it.
How
Self-Esteem Figures into Your Success While most casino
players would rather be lucky than good, the smart ones allow that in life, as in the
casino; luck can only take you so far. Beyond luck, it takes
sweat, commitment, fortitude, dedication and yes, a belief in your own abilities; which
enable you to consistently profit from this game. While random-rollers are relying
on luck
how far do you think its going to take them? And how consistently
do you think luck is going to get them there? If you don't have a healthy belief in
yourself and a confidence in your proven ability; then your accomplishments (and
especially your failures) will reflect that lack of faith. Take the luck,
but rely on your skill. Lack of self-esteem is
one of the biggest limiting factors that people suffer from.
We're not talking about having a big ego...we're talking about a confidence in our
abilities to do the things we set out to accomplish, and a self-assured knowledge that we
will succeed. No bluster...just fact. Of course, you and I
will both take any good-luck wherever and whenever it comes along, but we also know that
hard-work and dedication has a way of bringing its own special brand of steadier occurring
luck and good fortune to the table. The success that
dice-shooting pros garner with their Precision-Shooting can be sourced back to the
constant adjustments, improvements and refinements that they have made to their game along
the way. Random-luck has little
to do with consistent success. Your at-home Practice
Sessions pay dividends when you take those hard-earned skills to the casino. The
harder you work at them, and the smarter you work at refining and honing each element of
your game; youll be surprised at how often what others view as luck,
turns out to be nothing more than the worthy product of all your strenuous efforts. When I work
fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky. The harder I work, the luckier
I get. --Dr. Armand Hammer Without
Bet-Regressions You Need SUPERIOR Shooting Even
with all the luck in the world, there is still a risk every time that you pick up the
dice. Many
people have asked WHY I advocate the use of Steep Bet-Regressions even with my own
dicesetting, despite an obvious Precision-Shooting ability and a discernable edge over the
house. Its
a good question. The
answer is that I would rather rack up a VERY EARLY small profit on nearly EVERY hand, and
then build on my success from there. A Steep Regression allows me to do that. If
you have a lot of money on the table to begin with, and you don't initially regress your
Place-bets after a win; then your shooting actually has to be even better than someone
with the same abilities, but who uses an initial regression. That
is, youll need more rolls than the other guy to reach the same break-even mark,
because most non-regression Place-bet methods require several more additional Place-bet
hits (wins) in order to cover the cost of the wagers that are out on the layout. Only after all of those bets are totally paid for,
can you start collecting profit. If you need
four or five MORE paying-hits on the same Place-bets as the regressionist
does, and he only requires one paying hit until he is in the profit zone; then whom do you
think will be able to show a net-profit more often? And
whom do you think will be able to get to higher levels of profit more frequently? The
answer is, the guy who uses a Steep Initial Regression, and then steadily ramps-up them up
from there
THATS WHO! So
instead of needing only one paying-hit before you enter the profit-zone, the
NON-regression player will often require three or four or even five paying-hits to get to
the same point. Now on a mid-to-long roll
hand, thats okay, but on the short ones, well I gotta tell you that needing more
rolls just to break-even AINT that good of a plan.
A
Steep Regression lets you get to the break-even point that much sooner. From there, you are into the profit-zone, which
means you are able to rake in real earnings much faster. Money
that youve won only becomes a profit when all your bets are paid for, and it
only becomes net-profit AFTER you take those winnings off of the table
and set them in your rack. If all your
winnings are still out there on the table; then they are just re-invested wins. They only become tangible profit when you take
them out of play and put them into your locked-up bankroll. If
you dont use an initially Steep Regression on your most dominant Signature-Number
Place-bets; then your dice-shooting has to be at least three or four or five rolls
PER HAND BETTER than someone who uses a regression. Thats something to think about the next time
you are on your way to the casino-cashiers cage with your net-winnings or the skeletal
remains of your session-bankroll. They
Make MORE Money Off of MY Rolls Than I Do Several
skilled Precision-Shooters have complained to me about other people at the table making
tons of money off the good rolls that they themselves (the Precision-Shooter) are
throwing, while they collect a mere pittance in comparison to the other players. Some accomplished rollers actually resent the fact
that other players are betting it up, while the shooter himself is barely causing a ripple
in the profit-pond. To
a large extant, that's just the nature of the game, but its also indicative that
other players may be jumping on your own good shooting before you do. They may have come to realize that your shooting
is head and shoulders above the random-rolling crowd, and therefore, they are more likely
to start betting it up even before you do.
In the alternative, they may be recognizing an opportunity, and so
they seize it by the throat and squeeze out the profit until it squeals like a pig. In either case, they jump in when the going gets
good, regardless of whether or not you, as the shooter, has the faith or the bankroll to
do it yourself. Oft
time, so many skilled dicesetters have been burned by their own previous pre-mature or
aggressive (non locked-in profit) wagering methods; that when their good rolls do come
along, they lag way behind the betting-curve because they are gun-shy and dont want
to get burned like they did in previous forays. Unfortunately,
the reluctance of some very accomplished shooters in holding off their aggressive pressing
until its too late; often leads to even more frustration and anxiety when their good
rolls show up the next time. If theyve
waited too long and frustrated themselves to the point of distraction, especially in light
of everyone else but themselves making money off of the roll so far; then when they do
finally bet it up; they often get a distracted, unfocused,
anxiety-riddled 7-Out result. Subsequently,
the very next time the same thing happens, they are even MORE gun-shy than the last
time, and the vicious reluctance/frustration circle gets bigger and bigger. When that occurs, the SHOOTING-skills of
the player may have demonstrated themselves as being truly outstanding, yet his BETTING-skills
are shown to be quite poor by comparison. As
players we have to get our mental game in order before were able to take full
advantage of our physical skills. We
keep returning to this match-your-bets-to-reflect-your-current-skills
theme, yet it seems to be one of the most difficult to apply. How
I Deal With That Problem The
simple truth is that there are several times per day when other players make quite a bit
more money off of my rolls than I do. Though
I have narrowed down that have and have-not gap quite a bit over
the past eighteen months, my own envy has also been reduced almost as much. In
learning to be a lot more aggressive once I get past the 50% profit-point (based on the
total amount of money that I have on the layout versus how much I have locked-in on the
rail), I give myself permission to make more money, faster. Obviously this reduces the stress and frustration
of seeing other people making more money off of my rolls than I am. Giving
myself permission really entails the fact that I use bets that are as closely
matched to my current skill-level as much as possible.
By doing so, I let the relative advantage that I have over the casino, play
itself out. I make the bets, and if my
shooting is equal to my normal proficiency, then I will make a profit. If its below that normal mark,
then I might still make a bit of money, but more likely Ill just break-even or
perhaps even lose some money on that given hand. If
my shooting performs above-normal, then obviously I should and will make more profit than
I usually expect from my standard roll. The
first thing that should stand out in this betting-approach, is that it is geared to my
normal-length hand. In
fact, it is geared a little below my true average, just so I can lock up a
profit a bit sooner (with a slightly bigger safety margin).
By
recognizing that not every hand will be a blow-the-doors-off-the-casino mega-hand,
I acknowledge that very few hands will be THAT good, so my betting should honestly
reflect that fact. My ego can handle that
honesty. To do otherwise would be to
short-change myself in the long-run (as well as potentially eroding my bankroll in the
long, medium and short-term). If
you bet like every hand will be a mega-hand, and you in fact rarely throw one; then your
overall results will reflect that poor betting choice.
Equally, if your bets reflect a fear that each and every roll is likely to
cause a 7-Out, and you are still betting WITH the dice, then youll rarely
give yourself a sufficient opportunity to make any substantial profit at all. Obviously
its a fine balance that you have to strike in order to squeeze maximum profit from
your skills, without exposing your bankroll to undue risk. Therefore,
the idea is to tailor a betting-plan that reflects your continually improving skill-set. If you know where you are in the learning-curve,
and you know where the validated advantage is; then you are compelled to make bets that
reflect that fact. A by-product of all that
knowledge is that youll start to eliminate the majority of bets that arent
contributing anything to the bottom-line. Less
waste equals more net-profit. The
Frustration of Becoming a Precision-Shooter Ill
be the first to tell anyone who takes the time to ask, that not everyone can become a
master Precision-Shooter. That
thought hurts most accomplished dicesetters in so many places, that they dont even
want to talk about it. Instead, they start
doing what every other random-roller does
and that is that they end up making bets in
situations where they have no advantage over the house, and they hope against hope, just
like every other gambler, that they will catch a good streak. Sometimes they do, and most times they dont. All the effort that theyve put into
Precision-Shooting advantage-play gets tossed aside simply because they cant handle
the frustration that comes with this game. The
best way to deal with this, is to look at your throwing in total isolation from what
happens during everyone elses roll at the table.
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Are
your throws generating a net-profit, a net-loss, or are you breaking-even solely on your
own shooting?
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Are
your wagers on all the other random-rollers producing a net-profit or a net-loss? Im not talking about the one time back in
1962 when you hit a quintuple parlay on the Horn-Hi Aces.
Im talking day-in, day-out, session after session NET-profit. Is the sum of all your random-roller bets
producing net-wins or net-losses? And if so,
how much?
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When
you compare those random-roller bet-results to your own dice-throwing income, how much
better is YOUR shooting compared to the money you make or lose on THEIR
shooting?
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If
your shooting produces a net-profit and your random-roller wagering produces a
net-loss; then you have to be brutally honest with yourself in terms of where your true
opportunities lay, and where the black-hole of incalculable risk is at. To
take your game to the next level of profitability, you have to continually evaluate where
your wagering-losses are going to, and where any of your net gaming-profits are
coming from. At that point, you can re-adjust
the distribution of your bets to more realistically reflect the need for profit versus
your desire to gamble. That
is just one more critical step in how you GET IT, and how to KEEP IT. Isolating
Your Advantage Precision-Shooting
does not work in total isolation to all the other things that factor into the game at a
craps table, but
you have to VIEW your own Precision-Shooting in the
isolation that we just talked about. You have
to keep it separate from most of those other non Precision-Shooting factors, and you have
to make your wagering decisions with the same isolationist view. Heres
why: As
a Precision-Shooter, you pretty much control a higher-percentage of your craps destiny
than a random-roller does. When you have
validated your skill, you use it to make a profit. While
random-rollers are HOPING for profit, you are, in a sense, BANKING on profit
based on your skill-set. Of course your bets
have to mirror your skills, otherwise by trying to combine Precision-Shooting with what is
in fact RANDOM-betting, youll often get wildly fluctuating results from session to
session. In
that case, its not your shooting that is at fault; it is your betting that is the
culprit. If
you generally make money off of your skills, but give back some of it while betting on
random-rollers; then you are re-activating and increasing the house-edge against yourself. That is the same house-edge that youve
worked so hard and spent so much time trying to overcome. Giving
back the edge that you have gained, makes little sense if you want to KEEP any of the
earnings that you have worked so hard to GET. YOUR
Hot-shooting DOES NOT Mean The TABLE is Hot Its
important to understand that if YOU throw a hot hand, it does NOT mean that the
table will remain hot when the next random-rolling player picks up the dice. Yes,
you can look at trends, and they can certainly factor into your game-plan, however you
have to remember that dicesetting is an anomaly with the stream of random
dice-results, and therefore can usually be disregarded, or at least discounted when you
look at the impact of your good hand on the prevailing trend at the table. That is, if the random-trend has been choppy, and
you happen to throw a scorching-hot hand, there is little likelihood that it will continue
to be just as hot as soon as the next random-roller picks up the dice; so your bets
probably shouldnt reflect the fact that you HOPE the hot-streak will continue. Again
your own hands (rolls) have to be viewed in relative isolation when you look at the
overall random-trend at the table. While it
may not always hold true, random-occurrence versus your de-randomized results tells us
that it likely should. Therefore, any
trend-indicators should probably EXCLUDE any contributions that your dicesetting
skill have made to the random-trend. Again,
your good hands (long rolls) are best secluded from your table-trending, random-outcome
bet decisions. Unless there are other skilled
dicesetters at your table who are throwing equal or better hands than youve been
throwing; then the random-roller trend (how you view it and especially how you bet it),
has to be handled with healthy skepticism and caution.
Otherwise, you are just as much of a gambler as every other bettor at the
table. Precision-Shooting
seeks to REDUCE the gamble in this game, and replaces it with a
skill-based advantage. If you bet with the
trend-of-one (starting with the one good hand that youve just thrown) youll
often find that the subsequent hoped-for random-roller win-trend is VERY
short-lived. A
Not-So-Profound Thought
As
we cover the various ways to GET the profit and then manage to KEEP IT; I am
struck by the fact that common sense in gambling has just as much merit as using common
sense in everyday life. While
none of the how-to-get-it-and-how-to-keep-it elements that weve covered so
far could be considered earth-shattering in their concept, I think the overall thrust of
maintaining a level head and using common sense while youre at the table, takes on
greater value with each passing day. And
with that additional not-so-profound thought, let me wish you continued
Good
Luck & Good Skill at the tables
and in Life. The Mad Professor
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