|
D'ya Wanna Win, or
D'ya Wanna Gamble? The
most complex things are the simplest. -Agni
Celeste Rewind
to Remind
I
want to briefly go back to how we first introduced this series way back when: I
was shooting dice at the Stardust Hotel-Casino a short while ago, and there were just
three other players at the same table. A
tourist walked up, and asked no one in particular, How do you play this game? A
Pit Boss was standing nearby. He walked a
bit closer and said, Dya wanna win, or dya wanna gamble? The new guys eyes and mouth opened wide, as he was
caught off-guard by the question. Despite his
mouth being open, no words came out. After
a second or two of silence, the Pit Boss pointed in my direction, and said, If
you wanna win, bet the WAY he does, WHEN he does. If
you just wanna just gamble, (as he nodded his head in a sweeping motion to the other
players) just do what everyone else here is doing. The
idea of winning
and making a profit is so central to everything that I do while
Im standing at a craps table, that the thought of simply gambling without a clear
cut and distinct advantage
loses more and more of my interest on a daily basis. Dont
get the wrong impression
Im NOT getting tired of anything to do with
Precision-Shooting
that couldnt be further from the truth. Rather, my quest to eliminate as much
risk-taking gambling out of the craps experience and replace it with
skill-based advantage-play takes on ever-greater importance and significance every
time that I step up to the tables. The
Route To Success For
me, each day brings better and more clearly defined rewards for taking the advantage-play
dicesetting route instead of sticking to the far-too-easy-to-lose path of random luck and
indiscriminate chance.
Ø
If
you use this game strictly for entertainment, then obviously the cost of your amusement is
going to be high.
Ø
If
you use this game as a potential income-source, then you still have to do the things
and make the decisions that will turn this game a bankroll-contributor
instead of being a bankroll-squanderer. The
way to accomplish that is through skillful dice-influencing, geared-to-abilities
betting-methods, enlightened bankroll-management, and of course, ironclad discipline. Your
Task as a Serious Recreational Dicesetter Every
time you walk into a casino, your task is to walk out of there with more money than you
went in with. Sometimes
it can be as little as a buck ($1), but most times it can be twenty, a few hundred or even
a couple of thousand times higher. At first
its not the AMOUNT of profit that you leave with
its the
fact that you leave with even ONE DOLLAR of profit at all. Most
people go to a casino with the expectation that they will probably lose
the
talented Precision-Shooter goes with the anticipation that they will probably win. How
good you get at winning money, and how good you get at KEEPING the money, is almost
entirely up to you. A serious recreational
dicesetter has each of those elements within his control
but its what he does
with them and how he structures his decisions surrounding them that determines whether he
leaves with their money or whether they get to keep his. Like
I said
your task is to walk out of the casino with more money than you went in with. Thats what this whole Precision-Shooting
venture is all about. Your
Money
Who Gets To Keep It
You or Them?
Its
ironically cruel to note this, but I find it funny that most skilled players arent
satisfied with a twenty or thirty dollar win, yet theyre happy when their
loss-limits keep them under the $200 deficit mark. If
were satisfied with a $200 LOSS, but not a $20 WIN; then doesnt
that say something immoral and slightly depraved about the way we look at money? Let
me put it this way
if we think that its okay to lose $200, but not satisfactory
to keep a $20 win; then theres very little likelihood that any retainable
profit will stay within our grasp for very long. Your
attitude towards money determines how you treat it in the casino.
Ø
If
you respect yourself and the effort that went into making or earning your bankroll in the
first place; then you are more likely to treat it as something you are willing to
responsibly invest in order to make more of it.
Ø
If
you dont respect it (or you dont respect yourself or the way you made it);
then it wont likely stay yours for very long. The
casinos are the perfect bankroll killing-machine. They
are purpose-built for one thing
to separate you from your money. You
can call it entertainment
they call it business. Your
task as a Precision-Shooter is to retain what is yours
and
also take a little bit of what is theirs. Keep
In Mind
Ø
Precision-Shooting
is only one part of the advantage-play equation.
Ø
Your
betting often keeps your skillful shooting from ever showing a consistent profit.
Ø
Lack
of discipline will prevent your shooting and your betting from ever working together in
harmony.
Ø
Good
shooting and ill-matched betting rarely result in net-profit. Poor discipline rarely lets you keep that profit.
Ø
Though
Precision-Shooting may GIVE you an advantage; improper betting and lack of
discipline will TAKE it right back. Actionable
Ways To Get Discipline Working For You The
bankroll that you bring to the table
Ø
Should
be large enough to fund at LEAST ten-times the spread of your betting action.
Ø
If
you normally spread $44-Inside
along with $5 on the Passline with full Odds (that
average $15)
plus some Hardway and Prop-action in the $10 range
in addition to
your normal Come-Out Horn or World bets; then that equates to a spread of
around $80. Under those circumstances, if
you arent armed with a session bankroll of at least $800, then chances are
youll be hitting your Loss-Limit way more often, and way more times than you
ever hit your win-goal.
Ø
Though
there are many formulas you can use to decide what is big enough for
you, the simple truth is that if you dont have enough bullets, you simply wont
have the firepower to get the job done (or youll be too reluctant to pull the
trigger even when the time is right).
Ø
Bankroll-conservatism
is acceptable, but it doesnt mean that you always have to be in a defensive,
fetal-position posture. Instead, you
sometimes have to take the offensive (though not in a spray-the-sky-with-bullets-and-hope-that-a-bird-flies-by
sort of way). When your dice-shooting is
zoned in, and the numbers are flying; then a betting-opportunity is in clear and present
sight
you have to have the bullets in order to effectively pull the trigger and hit
the target. You have to make the wagers that
will bring in the dough, and you have to studiously avoid the ones that wont. The
Loss-Limit that you bring to the table
Ø
Your
Loss-Limit determines how deep of a hole youll allow yourself to dig before giving
up on a session.
Ø
Your
L-L is truly the determining factor when it comes to your overall
profitability. If you have an occasional
stellar hand that generates thousands of dollars, yet your average losing sessions are
more numerous and frequent; then any of those infrequent huge wins go towards offsetting
losses instead of contributing to overall net-revenue.
Ø
Infrequent
ego-satisfying wins often fool you into thinking that you are making the most of your
skills. Instead, high or loosely-structured
Loss-Limits REQUIRE you to be a better shooter than you actually need to be to
generate a sustainable income.
Ø
Your
Loss-Limits (and NOT your occasional wins) determine overall profitability. Tightening your Loss-Limits often spells the
difference between a net-profit and a net-loss.
Ø
If
youve ever read my four-part Cant Win For Losing series, then you know
that your Win:Loss ratio and your Loss-Limit-to-Win-Average ratio
determines your profitability and NOT those once-in-a-decade wins.
Ø
If
youve ever wondered why exceptionally skilled shooters who win more than 80% of
their sessions STILL end up as net-losers; then that series and those
ratios will tell you exactly why that is, and precisely how those ratios affect
your overall profit so much.
The
win-goals that you bring to the table
Ø
A
win-goal is NOT a win-limit.
Ø
Rather
a W-G is what we set our sights on as far as session-profit is concerned. Once we reach that, we simply refuse to lose back
one-dollar below that mark.
Ø
Its
easy to figure out a win-goal that is achievable on a steady basis. If you know that you often get to a reasonable
high-water mark at some point during your session (and usually play all of it back into a
loss); then you simply set your W-G at about 50% (or more) of that high water mark, and
refuse to lose back anything under it once you get there.
Ø From that point you can take some of the excess (a la John Patrick) and see if you can spin it into more gold. If you do great. If not youve locked up a profit that may not seem so big now, but tomorrow it will look satisfyingly large simply because you have the fulfillment of still having it rather than having had it and then losing it back.
Ø
Its
that kind of maturity that you need to deal with this game if you want to keep the money
that you earn. Yeah, its THAT simple
and
its THAT hard! The
game-plan that you bring to the table
Ø
How
many times have you said to yourself, Okay, next time when I get to the
tables
Ill do the things I know I need to do, and Ill specifically avoid
the stuff that I know is bad?
Ø
How
many times did you completely forget about that plan as soon as you handed your money in
at the table?
Ø
How
many times have you abandoned your plan as soon as you lost your first bet?
Ø
How
many times have you felt the pang of wanting to stick to your plan but the prospect of a
different (and subsequently non-winning) betting opportunity was too strong to resist?
Ø
How
often have you given in to early temptation and then completely forgotten about your
intended game-plan until after you left the casino?
Ø
Armed
with those answers, how often have you congratulated yourself for abandoning your
game-plan versus the times you have kicked yourself in the ass for ditching it?
Ø
If
youve kicked yourself way more times than youve congratulated yourself; then
you have to take a serious look at the triggers that are causing you to abandon your
game-plan, and determine whether deviating from the path of what you know is right and
taking a greedier route is (more often than not) worth the cost of the trip.
Ø Obviously if you end up kicking yourself for mistakes that any novice would make, you have to look at what led up to why you made those altered choices.
Ø
Were
the tables not going the way you expected?
Ø
Were
there some early losses that caused you to abandon your plan?
Ø
Was
someone throwing a hand that looked so appetizing from a betting standpoint that you dove
in head-first just as the pool was draining?
Ø
Was
the table
or the trend
or your bets zigging when you should have been zagging?
Ø
When
you settle upon WHY you left your game-plan behind, you have to ask yourself if it
was worth it.
Ø
Now
you cant cheat on this one and say, Well it didnt work this time or
the time before that or even the time before that
but back in February of
1987
IT WORKED PERFECTLY!
Ø
Sometimes
an abandoned game-plan works out to your benefit. Unfortunately
our selective memory can instantly recall those glorious moments, yet completely forget
about all the other times when it ended in disaster.
Ø
An
abandoned game-plan that results in a profit actually leads to even more
undisciplined play, and often results in even bigger disasters while you wait for
lightning to hopefully strike again.
Ø
Yes,
lightning can strike twice, just as surely as someone who has been in this country for
less than 17 minutes often wins the tri-state Powerball Lottery, but you have to look at
the overall effect and profitability of what happens when you abandon your game-plan.
Ø
As
Precision-Shooters, we are looking for consistent profit. That means sustainable revenue that we can rely
upon week after week (if not session after session).
Ø
Though
we know that we wont always win every session, we also know that if we stick
to a properly-structured game-plan, well win most of our sessions (even if it means
walking away with a paltry $20 win instead of a more frequent $200 loss).
Ø
We
set rules and boundaries for our activities in the casino because we know the risks
that are associated with gambling. At the end
of the day, you can be the only one who answers whether its to your benefit or to
your detriment to abandon a well-disciplined and well thought out game-plan.
Ø
In
the end, its your money
and its your choice of whether you
keep it
grow it
or lose it. The
biggest fault that you bring to the table
Ø
As
a casino player, what is the biggest fault that plagues YOU at the tables?
Ø
Dont
think in terms of what everyone elses problem is
think strictly about yourself
on this one.
Ø
Is
it a lack of concentration and being able to properly chart the tables or shooters?
Ø
Is
it nervousness and the anxiety of possibly missing out on what could be the roll of the
day? Does that make you jump too early or
pull your parachute chord too late?
Ø
Is
it your impatience as far as waiting for the right time to press up your bets or is it
just the opposite of that?
Ø
Do
you feel any uneasiness because youd like to have money in action on nearly every
shooter, but you feel anxious about pulling the trigger because your conscience makes you
feel guilty since you know all too well the risk associated with betting on
random-rollers?
Ø
Are
you reluctant to switch over to the Darkside despite the fact that the trend is cold
enough to sink the Titanic, because you dont want the bad vibes, bad looks or
negative feelings from other players to interfere with the cosmic balance of the universe
when you finally get the dice?
Ø Whatever your biggest fault is, whether it be drinking, carousing or just plain bad money-management; you can take that one weakness and use it to make quantum improvements in your overall game-plan. Ø Simply stated if you can make improvements to your weakest area-of-concern; then youll find it much easier to make improvements to (and capitalize on) the ones that arent quite as bad. Ø If you make incremental improvements to the way you play this game, youll be less likely to fall back into the same old same old when the going get rough.
Ø
A
much-needed radical change that you yourself havent quite bought into means that
youll likely abandon it at the first sign of trouble.
Ø
Changes
where you can see and experience the tangible benefits of those sought-after
improvements are much more likely to become permanently engrained in your game-strategy.
Ø
If
you look at what triggers the breakdown of YOUR discipline, you know where the
source of most of your problems lay. If you
make improvements to your biggest weakness, then the other less-vulnerable elements in
your game usually enjoy an even larger advancement in the process. The
biggest skill that you bring to the table
Ø
Your
biggest skill is usually your biggest profit contributor
or at least it SHOULD be.
Ø
You
should look at your biggest asset and your strongest skills to determine whether they are
pulling all the weight that they can, or whether they are being bogged down by having to
support all the other weaker elements of your game.
Ø
In
most cases, your strongest skill can be fine-tuned, upgraded, and in some cases,
supercharged to provide even better revenue-performance.
If you play to your strengths, your weaknesses take on a less significant
role in affecting your profitability.
Ø
If
you know where your skills lay and where the bulk of your net-profits come from; then that
is one area where you can concentrate more time, more money and more effort into
generating even higher yields!
Ø
Acting
responsibly means acting maturely. You can
still have fun as an adult without resorting to childlike behavior.
Ø
If
you spend more time doing the things that MAKE you money, and doing less of the
things at the craps table that COST you money; then your profitability grows
while your offsetting losses concurrently shrink. Now all of that may sound like common sense to
you
and it is
because the whole idea behind casino advantage-play is to make more
sense and more profit from all of your gaming activities.
Ø
If
that means finding more solo-shooting or low-population shooting opportunities
then
do so. Youll find some traditional and
some not-so-conventional ways to get the dice in your hand more often in my two-part (soon
to be three-part) Creating More Shooting Opportunities series.
Ø
If
it means learning to read, decipher and exploit more of the streaks and trends that you
encounter; then my seven-part Streaks, Trends and Opportunities series
addresses more ways for you to profit from them and clue into them even sooner.
Ø
If
it means that you have to elevate your betting-level when the dice are in your hand (and
reduce it substantially when they arent); then my on-going How To Get
There From Here series addresses exactly what it takes to get your profit
from where it is right now to where you want it to be.
Ø
If
you recognize what you are good at, and you do the things that will get the most profit
out of your current skills; then any talent-improvement from that point forward simply
means that youll be putting more money in your pocket and leaving less of it
with the casino for safekeeping. To
Make This All Work For You
You
have to be brutally honest with yourself as to where your profit is coming from and where
your money is going to while you are at the craps table. If
you increase and improve your profit-sources, and lessen or eliminate a few of the places
where your money is going to; youll just naturally end up with more money at the end
of each session. In
the end, you have to look at why you are in the casino, and why you took up dicesetting in
the first place. If
you want to keep getting the same results
just keep on doing the things you are doing
right now. If
you want to win more and lose less; then make the necessary changes that are entirely
within your control. Profitable
consistency from Precision-Shooting comes from not only controlling the dice
it comes
from controlling yourself. Its
not easy
but its worth it. For
an advantage-player, the whole casino experience comes down to one immutable
question
Dya wanna WIN, or dya just wanna GAMBLE? Good
Luck & Good Skill at the Tables
and in Life. Sincerely, The Mad Professor
|
|