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Current
Practice
Future Profitability
Theres
been a lot of recent discussion about the relative merits and benefits of practicing your
dice-influencing skills.
To
my mind, its fairly simple:
Ø
You
have to develop your skills somehow. If you
do it at the casino tables, then it can be fairly expensive. If you do it at home, then its not quite as
costly.
Ø
Once
you develop your dice-influencing skills, you have to keep them in shape. Though it might LOOK similar to riding a bike, as
far as picking it up again at will and immediately throwing like a wizard
even if youve been away from the game for a few months; its nowhere near that
easy. After
a fairly long layoff
Ø
You
may still be able to ride a bike even if you havent been on one since Jimmy Carter
was in office, but it doesnt mean that youll be able to ride it like Lance
Armstrong
especially if you couldnt ride it like him in the first place.
Ø
The
longer you are away from any pursuit, whether it be Precision-Shooting, lovemaking, or
bike-riding
the more out of practice you will be. For
consistently profitable dice-influencing
Ø
You
first have to develop a keenly honed edge over the game.
Ø
Skill-development
practice where you assemble and adjust all the different dice-influencing
elements will get you there.
Ø
Once
you get there, you have to keep your skill-set razor-sharp in order to stay
there.
Ø
Maintenance-practice
where you continually fine-tune the mechanics and minutely perfect your muscle-memory will
keep you there.
Ø
For
most players, even a few days away from the dice is enough to put a rusty haze on any of
those skills. So
is practicing important? Well,
its only important if you want to make consistent money off of this
game
otherwise, its not necessary at all. Where
Im Coming From
I
like to joke that I learned how to make steady money from this game at the most expensive
dice-shooting academy in the world
at the real tables
with real money
and
with equally real losses. The
fact that I can joke about it today doesnt hide the fact that it was probably the
most inefficient way to develop my self-taught skills.
It also doesnt hide the fact that it cost an incredible amount of
money that went directly from my rack into the various casino-corporation chip-bank
coffers. I
never used to practice at home at all. I
figured that Id never be able to replicate the real-world conditions at one table,
let alone the myriad layouts that I was actually playing on, so to my mind at the time, it
made no sense to even try. I
subsequently found out that I was not only WRONG in thinking that way, but I was still
missing out on the opportunity to fully develop a properly-structured on-axis,
primary-face dice-throw simply because I didnt want my in-casino experimentation to
be too radical and possibly end up costing me even more failed-trial money
than it already was. Little
did I know at the time, but some of my biggest throwing-dynamics improvements would come
from a few of the more radical experiments that I subsequently carried out outside
of the casino environment. The
main problem at the time was that I was still developing my basic grips, set-permutations,
and dice-tossing dynamics right at the real-money tables instead of on an at-home rig; so
obviously it was a very expensive and frustrating way to develop and fine-tune any of my
Precision-Shooting techniques. Still,
I stuck with on-going, but less drastic in-casino experimentation and continued to eschew
the thought of using at-home practice. Thankfully
in the interceding years, Ive matured a bit as a human-being and improved a bit as a
Precision-Shooter. Though
I made some fairly decent money during the first two years of pro-play, my success was
clouded by the continual frustration of knowing that I SHOULD be earning more from exactly
the same skill-set. I
KNEW I had the skill, but the money wasnt accumulating as quickly as it
should have been. In this case, knowing that
I had the skill, and being able to predictably turn it into cash, was two very separate
concepts. At the time, it seemed like those
two things would never be in total synch with each other. The
next five years saw dramatic improvements in my net-profitability, but STILL I knew
that there was way more earnings-potential in my still-improving abilities. Again, skill versus earnings-efficiency
dogged my mind, and provided more than its fair share of frustrating distraction. What
I thought I knew about the best way to make money from dice-influencing fourteen
years ago was surpassed by what I learned in the first two years after I turned
pro
and THAT knowledge was further outstripped by what I learned over the next
couple of years thereafter. Subsequently, my
evolving knowledge has continued to grow right up to this day. My
knowledge of what it takes to make consistent money from this game keeps on advancing and
expanding even as I dictate this article for you today. The
Dawn of Realization
In
my early years of pro-play there were some casinos where I was spending way too much time
trying to figure out how to beat their tables, instead of putting the time in on already-diagnosed
layouts where I knew exactly what it took to extract a steady stream of money. In
those cases, my ego was as deeply invested as my bankroll
and both of them would take
a beating when I tried to force my will and my skill upon every single craps table that I
came upon. I
was going into some real Las Vegas dumps like the old Continental, the Jolly Trolley, the
Marina, Little Caesars, the Landmark, the Paddlewheel and Vegas World
all in an
attempt to beat every single craps table in town. It
was a situation where I was winning tons of money at some casinos where I knew precisely
how to toss the perfect on-axis, primary-face outcome; but then giving much of it back at
other places where I was still auditioning for master-of-the-craps-universe on the
tough-to-beat ego-invested layouts where I was hell-bent on winning at all costs
and
losing miserably in the process. For
some people, it takes a lot of losing to learn how to win, and back then you could
certainly count me among those souls. Did
I mention that this whole I dont believe in practicing because no table can
replicate all the layouts that Im trying to conquer philosophy was costing
me a TON of money? Did
I also mention that I was spending considerable dollars just trying to get into a
warmed-up dice-shooting groove as each new casino-day dawned? At
the time, I knew without a doubt that my Precision-Shooting skills were giving me an
overall advantage over the house, but I hadnt yet figured out why those skills were
so wildly unpredictable. Although I knew that
I wasnt always able to bring that talent to the fore when and where they were
needed, I knew that I could usually win more sessions than I lost. Unfortunately
my first hand of the first session of each new day was always a volatile
hit-or-miss affair. Sometimes
Id fire up a great first hand right out of the gate, and other times Id
sputter and stumble with a couple of incredibly quick honeymoon-type This
wont take long...did it 7-Outs. Since
I didnt know whether a given days first hand would be a good one or a bad one,
Id bet the way I HOPED it would be. That is, Id bet as though my dice-tossing would
be dialed in from the get-go, even though I was wrong just often enough to make it a
VERY frustrating and costly ordeal. What
was even more exasperating, was that the times when I was right and my first hand of the
day was a stellar one; were also the times when Id hesitate to send in the big money
out of reluctance from the previous days first-hand loss.
Conversely, the times when Id had a good hand on my first try the
previous day, Id pump up the bet-volume on todays first hand
only to see
it get wiped out with a quick and deadly 7-Out. I
quickly found out that turning pro and acting like a professional are two
completely different things. Thats when
I realized I had to do something about the emotional struggle that I went through at the
start of each new day. A
stellar first hand on one day generated false hope and expectation the next day. It almost drove me crazy. A
first-session loss often set the tone for the rest of the day. If
I could start off each day with a better-than-even chance of winning, I knew that I
was more likely to end each day on a winning note too. Instead
of letting it drive me crazy, it drove me to practice. That
was when I decided that I NEEDED to at least warm-up at home or in my hotel suite
immediately before hitting the tables. I
figured a bit of warm-up to get my throwing-motion dialed-in would give my first hand of
the first session a much better chance of success. Needless
to say, I saw an immediate and dramatic improvement. Once
I started warming-up, I noticed a direct improvement in my first-session profitability, as
well as positioning me with a much better attitude for the rest of the day. By
the time practice-tossing had become an integral part of my pre-casino routine, I also
started using it if I got into a bit of a shooting rut during the day. Instead of heading off to a different casino if I
wasnt able to do anything with the dice at the gaming-house I was at; I would
retreat instead to my hotel to readjust my shooting. That
single decision saved me thousands upon thousands of dollars that previously would have
been flushed right down the casino drain. In
most of the cases where I beat a hasty retreat from a non-winning table, I would
immediately validate what I had just re-adjusted about my toss during my practice-to-conquer-a-specific-layout
session, by returning to the exact same table that had prompted the edge-honing
practice-session in the first place. That
way, I knew immediately whether my fine-tuning had worked or not. If it did work, I could add one more table to my
conquered list, and if it didnt, Id move on to one of my more
favorable layouts so that the tough-to-beat table didnt become a money-draining
distraction. In fact, Id intentionally
stay away from it until I was mentally prepared to take a clear-headed fresh attack on it
at a future date. In
the cases where my practice-tweaking worked on a particular trouble-table, Id
make clear, concise and easy-to-replicate shooting-notes about exactly what worked best on
that layout. That way, the next time I played
on it, even if it was days, weeks or months later; Id still be able to make the same
money-winning tosses again and again. When
I saw how dramatic the retreat-in-order-to-beat throw-honing practice was improving
my subsequent profitability
I just naturally started doing it more often. That
led to
you guessed it
even MORE practice. The
more I practiced
the more profit I gained. The
more profit I gained
the more that practice took on even greater significance in my
overall advantage-play approach to winning. Today,
I always practice before setting out to conquer the tables, and I also almost
always do some tossing after a casino-session in order to either correct what went
wrong or to lock-in what went right during my just-completed session. Yeah,
you could say that I believe in practicing now. Experimentation-and-Development
vs. War-Game Simulations Theres
a big difference between the practice sessions where you are experimenting with and
developing various sets, grips, stances, and throwing-motions versus the sessions where
you are more precisely grooving-in a tossing-method and simulating casino-conditions where
you already know what works, but are further establishing your muscle-memory while
concurrently fine-tuning your bet-sequencing and wagering-plateaus.
Ø
Still-improving
players need to use a good portion of their practice time to properly analyze their
toss-mechanics; recalibrate their grip-tightness and individual finger-placement; as well
as taking a critical look at their body-position, foot placement and mid-to-upper body
movement during the throw.
Ø
You
have to look at each individual component and determine if it is helping your
on-axis consistency, or whether it is the source of any off-axis yaw or skew.
Ø
You
also have to look at whether some components when used in combination with others are
conspiring together to affect your on-axis reliability. If
you find any off-axis defects, then a majority of your immediate practice time has to be
spent on resolving it. Cure it before moving
on to the next element. Roll-Tracking
and Note-Taking During Your Practice-Sessions
When
you are still developing your toss and experimenting with various grips and stances, as
well as constructing a consistent throwing-motion; then your toss-results will probably be
all over the map. What happened during last weeks practice will have little bearing on
what you are working on this week, and therefore any roll-tracking results will likely be
inconclusive and erratic. In
fact, it could be downright misleading.
Ø
When
you're doing all of those set, grip, stance, and throwing-motion alterations and
variations; the last thing you should be doing is recording your throws UNLESS you
use an approach that is similar to the late Micky_D's method which tracks HOW
each of those changes individually and collectively affect your current toss. See his Notes, Notes,
Notes article as well as his Chasing The
Perfect Throw, his Observations piece, as well as his Back To Basics
article for better insight into this step-by-careful-step process of on-axis improvement.
Ø
Keep
in mind that that type of note-taking, critical observation and performance-evaluation is
for tracking DEVELOPMENT of your toss-mechanics and NOT for figuring your
SRRs, Signature-Numbers or Box-Number ratios. You
definitely dont want your practice-toss results to be skewed with a bunch of throws
that were experimental in nature instead of being preparatory (like a
full-dress rehearsal) for actual in-casino play.
Ø
Most
times youll have to do a lot of experimenting, researching and testing before you
settle on a refined throwing technique that best suits your personal preferences and
physical abilities.
Ø
Many
players misunderstand the function of their Practice Sessions, or at least the function of
the Roll Recording part of it versus the experimentation-and-development segment. Therefore they AVOID further grip-pressure,
finger-placement, toss-mechanics, and throwing-motion experimentation and development out
of fear that it will screw up their Roll-Stats. Unfortunately,
doing that generally stalls out any significant Precision-Shooting progress, and they keep
getting the same old unprofitable results because they are locking unproductive
repetitiveness into their muscle-memory and letting the constraints of wanting to maintain
their SRR stand in the way of fruitful advancement. Again,
that is NOT how we develop better on-axis dice-throwing consistency. Dont
be afraid to find out what doesnt work for you. On the other hand, dont be too quick to
discard a throwing technique that shows promise but isnt as easy to use as some of
the more conventional methods. To
discover what works and what doesnt work, you have to do a lot of tinkering,
fiddling and general messing about in your on-axis explorations. As a young-ladies Mom will sometimes remind her
daughter, You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Those test-throws and experimental trials should
not figure into your overall Sevens-to-Rolls ratio-tracking simply because you have your
Im a mad scientist that is experimenting with different formulas in search
of the unknown hat on instead of the Im a serious shooter who is
simulating a casino-session fedora on your head.
Ø
One
of the keys to developing your Precision-Shooting skills is to understand what elements of
your shooting are working, and which ones arent.
Ø
Sometimes
you have to temporarily suspend further work on the ones that are working, in order to
cure any underlying flaws and compellingly deal with any remaining off-axis instigators.
Ø
When
you build a strong fundamental throw, then its easier to shape, assemble and contour
the more nuanced elements of your Precision-Shooting.
Ø
Without
a strong foundation, it makes absolutely no sense to even try to work on refining the
advanced elements, because youll eventually have to undo and disengage all of them
when inconsistency forces you to go back to RE-develop a properly built foundation.
Ø
Its
much better to build those solid underpinnings NOW, and then work on the far-more-difficult-to-master
advanced components later on. Then,
and ONLY then does it make sense to closely track your session-to-session rolls in
order to determine your SRR or your most dominant Signature-Numbers or your Inside-Number
ratios. At
that point you can also run some casino-simulation sessions where you war-game
various betting-approaches and explore different wagering-scenarios.
Ø
One
of the ideas behind war-gaming is to help you deal with all kinds of situations that can
occur in the heat of casino-battle. In doing
so, these exercises help you manage and contend with any given situation more assuredly
and without undue consternation when it happens for real on the green-felt battlefield.
Ø
It
teaches you to make tiny, on-the-fly adjustments if youre not getting the
dice-results you want. It also teaches patience, perseverance and subtlety in terms
of not making too radical of an adjustment in order to cure a minor problem.
Ø
The
more acclimated and accustomed you are in dealing with various situations, the better able
youll be in handling and adjusting to it when you run headlong into it in the
casino.
Ø
The
more comfortable you are in dealing with various situations, the less likely you are to
mishandle them during your casino battles.
Ø
If
you find yourself making too many bone-headed errors or weak-discipline plays in the
casino; then these simulation-sessions are invaluable for engineering those problems OUT.
Ø
Moreover,
your casino-simulation sessions build positive muscle-memory that is more easily recalled
when you get to the real-world tables.
Ø
Repetition
of properly executed throw-dynamics during your casino-simulation sessions is what builds
the muscle-memory that youll need in order to get roll-after-roll-after-roll on-axis
consistency when you have your money in play on the real-world tables.
Ø
Your
Sevens-to-Rolls Ratio is a measurement tool to be used as personal development
information, and not for bragging rights. Therefore, honesty with yourself is critical if
that data is going to be useful as a learning and training gauge.
Ø
Your
at-home sessions can also be used to help develop the discipline that you should
be using in the casino. That is, if you find yourself in a hole when you are losing in the
casino...THEN STOP DIGGING! If you run into a
rash of 7-Outs when you are recording your Practice Tosses at home...then STOP
RECORDING...and START TWEAKING and defunkifying your throw!
Ø
Many
players think they should be keeping track of EVERY at-home toss. That is NOT the way to
develop your toss...that only reinforces your toss if it is already
near-perfect.
Ø
If
you split your practice sessions into casino-simulation time and experimentation-and-development
time; youll more likely reap tangible and verifiable results from both, while
avoiding that stalled-out feeling from either.
Each
Practice Session should have at least one casino-simulation war-game scenario in
it. For example:
Ø
Part
One
could be a "cold start" casino-simulation session whereby you walk up to the
Practice Rig just like you walk up to a casino table. The dice come to you and you
immediately make your Come-Out toss (no free throw "warm-ups" allowed).
Ø
From
that point, you continue until you 7-Out. Should
you be recording THOSE tosses, or at least counting the number of rolls you are getting
and the number of Signature Numbers you are hitting? Hell
YEAH! Those
are part of your "Casino Simulation" tosses, so you should be recording them
because they'll tell you a LOT about what you could expect from your throw when you get to
the casino to do your First Throw, First Session, First Day
dice-tossing. These are the rolls that are
especially important to track and record because they closely mimic what you would be
experiencing in the casino. Part
Two
of your Practice Session war-game entails putting yourself even deeper into the
casino-context.
Ø
If
you were in the casino after completing the first hand as you just did; what would you
then do?
Ø
Would
you take a long break to count your winnings or lick your wounds?
Ø
Would
you immediately change tables to get the dice back in your hands as quickly as possible?
Ø
Would
you hunker down and wait until the dice cycle back around to your spot again? Whatever
you would do in the casino is what you could decide to do right now at your Practice Rig. Immerse your mind into how you act in the casino
versus what you normally do on the Practice Rig.
Ø
If
your answer is to shoot again as soon as possible, then do so.
Ø
If
the answer is that you would normally take a break after such a big win or such a bad
roll; then do so.
Ø
If
you want a portion of your Practice Sessions to simulate your Casino Sessions; then make
it so. Part Three
of the war-game scenario is where we really separate the Casino Simulation part of our
sessions from the "toss development" portion of it. The
experimentation-and-development tosses are the ones where you are testing,
analyzing and investigating numerous ways to make your on-axis throw more consistent. That means youll be making lots of mistakes
that take you successively CLOSER to your goal. Therefore,
you probably shouldn't be recording them because you are TESTING, RESEARCHING and
conducting EXPERIMENTS in your shooting-lab and NOT doing a simulated
casino-session.
Ø
When
you are satisfied with some of that experimenting; THEN you can conduct another Casino
Simulation session and, YES, you should record or at least track those outcomes. Part
Three of this exercise also entails betting the way you do in the casino. Actually,
it entails betting the way you SHOULD in the casino. This
is where you work on your betting as much as you work on your shooting. Though its a little more complicated than
walking and chewing gum at the same time
its not like its hyper-spectral
radiography, quantum physics, organic chemistry and thermodynamic characterization all
wrapped up into one.
Ø
How
many times have you finished up a great hand in the casino, yet hardly had any money to
show for it?
Ø
How
many times have you looked back on a session and said, I KNEW I should have bet
differently
I would have had a ton of money right now?
Ø
How
many times have you NOT made the wagers you KNEW were the ones you SHOULD be making
instead of the ones that you WERE making?
Ø
How
often do you hesitate to increase/decrease or call off your bets even though your gut or
conscience tells you to?
Ø
How
often do you tell yourself, Just one more hit when that decision
doesnt pan out versus the times when it does? This
portion of your casino-simulation war-game exercise lets you develop the confidence you
need to make the betting moves that your skill-level deserves.
Ø
When
your betting-skills keep pace with your shooting-skills it allows to you to benefit from
the talent that youve developed, instead of depriving you of the dividend. As a result, your frustration-level actually goes
down while your profit-flow goes up.
Ø
It
also reduces your sensitivity to dealing with the higher bet-levels that weve been
talking about in the twelve-part How To Get THERE From Here series.
Ø
Experimenting
with various betting-scenarios, fine-tuning your wagering-plateaus and regressions, as
well as your bet-activation triggers and termination points during your at-home sessions;
works to reduce and dispel your anxiety when you take your show on the road. The
purpose of all this of course, is to develop your precision-betting in
relative lock-step with your precision-shooting. Your
Development as a Shooter We
talk extensively about this "Precision-Shooting is a JOURNEY and not a DESTINATION"
concept quite a bit more in How to Get THERE From Here - Part Six, but
the simple fact remains that we use our Practice Sessions to develop our skills,
and the real-world tables to validate and profit from them.
Ø
If
we merely use our at-home sessions for practice-by-rote routines instead of actual
development and improvement; then it's not likely that our Precision-Shooting performance
will advance any further than it is right now. With
that in mind, I would recommend that you record your at-home Casino Simulation tosses, but
use your development and toss-tweaking time as a non-rigid, non-recorded experimentation,
testing and research opportunity. Your
current practice determines your future profit, so its pretty easy to see how and
why the time you spend on your at-home rig today can pay bigger dividends at the casino
tomorrow. Good
Luck & Good Skill at the Tables
and in Life. Sincerely, The
Mad Professor
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