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Ask the Mad Professor
Part 17
(read part I
here or Part 2
here or Part 3
here or
here for part 4 for
here for part5 or
here for part 6 or
here for part 7
or here for part 8 or
here for part 9 or
here for part 10 or
here for part 11 or
here for part 12 or
here for part 14
or here for part 15 or
here for part 16)
I really appreciate everyone’s E-mail and Instant Messages, and not just the
complimentary ones either. Although I
can’t always reply to each and every message in a timely manner, I want you to know
that your input is respected and valued. I
often find that your well thought out inquiries deserve and require a fuller response that
would also benefit many other readers. Therefore,
you may just recognize some of your own e-mail queries as the subject matter for one of my
full-length articles, or replied to here, for the benefit of many.
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Q: |
MP, I heard about the “Bikini Blackjack Pit” near the
pool area of the Rio Hotel-Casino, but was wondering if any casinos have female craps
dealers in bikinis? |
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A: |
Yes, the Tuscany Hotel-Casino (see my
Cheap Craps Guide Part V article for a profile on this place) has recently added a craps table to
its own Bikini Pit. |
You’ll
only find the bikini-clad dealer-babes from 6 pm. to 2 am. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
nights (and on Mondays during the NFL season). It
has improved player-traffic somewhat, especially with guys who intentionally
“short-spot” their Place-bet action so the dealerette has to r--e—a—c--h across the table to pick up the chips (cheques).
I’ll refrain from offering my personal views about this
latest fad, or how long I think it will last; however if they start paying Place-bets at
even-money as they do in the Bikini Pit for a “natural” in blackjack (instead of
the normal 3:2, or the new lower-yield 6:5), you can bet that you’ll hear my opinion
loud and clear.
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Q: |
Why
don’t you do public appearances, and hold seminars or sell books and promote a line
of videos? Do you have something against
making money? I would never buy a book
written by someone I’ve never met. |
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A: |
Well,
I guess you don’t own a Bible, Torah or Koran then do you, and your personal library
is probably a little light in the classics as well. Seriously
though, I don’t do seminars or vend other sundry wares for reasons that should be
quite obvious, but I’ll repeat them. |
All
of my discretionary income is derived strictly from playing craps.
Doing
this for a living is something that I actually enjoy, but I also want to safeguard the
money that I make. I take pleasure in the
whole Precision-Shooter
Lifestyle,
and want to preserve my ability to CONTINUE enjoying it.
To
my mind, it’s better to stay under the casino-radar, and not send up carnival
skyrockets or unfurl semaphore flags to announce my arrival at the tables; and
there’s certainly no need to instruct the boxman to order a “chip fill” of
high-denomination cheques because I plan to “clean him out”.
I
earn my money at the tables…from the casinos. Frankly, the less people who know who I am; the
longer I’ll be able to continue doing what I do.
In other words, I don’t need my face on a box of Wheaties breakfast
cereal to validate who I am or what I do.
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Q: |
MP, what is the average length of your craps sessions? How do you decide when to leave, and how long of
a break do you take between each session? |
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A: |
It all depends on my shooting and my mind-set. The table, the casino, and the sheer number of
other players also contribute to that decision. |
If
my shooting on a particular table is dialed-in, I will sometimes stay until it starts to
turn "bad". If my head is in the
game and the profit is flowing, and I am getting the dice cycled back to me quickly
because of few players at the table, then I'll continue to play. In that case, my session can range anywhere from
40 minutes up to several hours.
If
the table is crowded, I'll usually only shoot once or twice before seeking less-populated
layouts. If all of the tables are crowded,
I’ll bide my time until I get a great hand or until I start to feel any frustration
about the dice taking so long to get back to me.
My
actual playing time really depends on all of those factors and the casinos loss-tolerance
(profit allowance for me, or for the whole table if it has filled up and everyone has won
a lot during my roll). Again, the idea is to
prevent the casino from associating MY face with the disappearance of THEIR
money.
Right
now, it takes me about 12 to 15 actual hands (of my own Precision-Shooting) to make my
“daily nut” (the minimum amount of profit that I want for the day). If my shooting is really grooved-in
at an empty table, I can usually hit my daily win-goal in about 30 to 40 minutes of solo
shooting (when I'm getting about 4 rolls per minute).
In that case, I might even win my daily-nut in just one hand (although it
does not happen very often). If my shooting
is only fair to middling, and the tables are crowded, obviously it takes quite a bit
longer (about three hours) to reach my daily win-goal.
Once
I reach my win-goal, I will use incrementally larger (higher) profit-plateaus and then
continue to play by ratcheting up my locked-in winnings by setting ever-stricter (tighter)
loss-limits. In total, I put in a grand total
of four to six hours of craps play per day.
That
four to six-hour time span is divided by breakfast and/or lunch, and may be played on
different tables, in different casinos, and often even in different gaming jurisdictions
(Las Vegas, Primm, Jean, Mesquite, and Laughlin or Detroit, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Rama,
Turning Stone, and a dozen or so outlying Michigan casinos).
On average right now, I play about 25 hours per week over a four
or five-day week.
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Q: |
Do
you think that some of today’s popular gambling writers are “two-timing” by
working WITH the casinos to take away from players any of the positive advantages that
they are teaching them to have during their player-seminars? |
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A: |
In
the legal profession (or the street-hooker business) this is what you call, “Trying
to suck and blow at the same time.” Yes,
the sad fact is, several very well-known gambling writers also
consult with the major gaming-corporations to provide counter-measure services AGAINST the
very advantage-players that they hold seminars for. |
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Q: |
As you know, I have some mobility problems, but I would still like
to get around Las Vegas without getting exhausted from all the walking. Is there any place to rent motorized scooters or
wheelchairs in Vegas? |
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A: |
Yes,
there are several places, but the one that consistently gets the best reviews for customer
service and problem-free equipment is Mesa
Medical (702-263-8511). They will drop off a scooter at your hotel so it
is waiting for you upon your arrival, and then when you leave, they pick it up after your
departure. |
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Q: |
I understand that there is a video that a couple of guys are
working on that will show “proof” that dicesetting works. Do you think that it would affect the way that
casinos view what we do? |
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A: |
In the face of video proof, it might take a little while before
every casino takes protective counter-measures, but I can assure you that once they are
convinced, it won't take long. |
Let
me put it this way:
You and I would NEVER have heard of Rodney King if someone
hadn't put out hard video evidence of his beating by the LAPD. We may have suspected of or heard rumors
that those types of things were being done; but it took video proof to galvanize a
community response. Without it, it would have
been just another perp making yet one more unsubstantiated claim of police brutality. Unfortunately that would have also meant missing
out on the three-day street party that came to be known as the LA riots. The video proof made all the difference then, just
as it will with Precision-Shooting now.
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Q: |
Hi MP, you mentioned that the dice-sets and tosses that you
use are in your articles. I don’t want
to read through all of them, so can you narrow it down for me so I can find them. You also
mentioned that you use both the pendulum and from-the-table launches. Why the two? |
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A: |
The
various tossing styles that I use are covered in my Shooting Bible series,
especially
Part II ,
Part III,
Part IV,
Part V and
Part VI. |
As
to the different sets, well I don't play around with them too much unless I get into a
real performance slump. Generally, I use the S-6 or All-7 set for the Come-Out, and then
the V-3, X-6 or V-2 for the Point-cycle. I sometimes make slight facial-adjustments to
those sets during a roll, but generally I don’t get overly fancy with them.
The reason for using both the from-the-table launch and
the pendulum-swing release, is to compensate for different table/felt/underlay
characteristics and various throwing-distance lengths.
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Q: |
Mad
Pro, I enjoyed your Match-Play Coupon Circuit
series of articles so much that my wife and I got a good portion of our last Las Vegas
trip paid for by using a combination of match-plays, free food coupons and free-room
deals. We even tried the off-menu
Porterhouse Steak Special at Ellis Island Casino that you mentioned, and couldn’t
believe that we got a $5 match-play even after only paying a $1.98 for both dinners, using
the 2-for-1 voucher that you also wrote about in that series. Are you planning any more articles that cover
other “angles” that Precision-Shooters can use to gain even more advantage over
the casino? |
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A: |
Let me first say that when you order the Steak Special at Ellis Island,
you’ll get at least one $5 match-play. If
you ask nicely, you’ll just as likely end up with two or more. If you are a recognized regular, you might end up
with even more simply because the tourists who frequent this place often don’t know
about the match-play coupon and some employees of EI don’t bother to let them know
about it either. Therefore, when they
reconcile the chits at the end of the day, there is always a positive-balance between the
number of steak-special covers that they’ve sold, and the number of
match-plays that they’ve given away. Regular
visitors to that restaurant who “take care” of the employees who take
care of them, are often rewarded in kind with multiple m-p’s. It’s a symbiotic server/client relationship
that is alive and doing quite well in Las Vegas. Unfortunately,
the price is now $4.99 for that same special, but with the Two-For-One Coupon it’s
still a good value.
To answer you second
question regarding more advantage-play “angles”; yes, there are definitely many
more that we’ll be discussing in future articles. |
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Q: |
MP, I recently had
surgery and my doctor has recommended that I avoid second-hand smoke. In a casino,
it seems like everyone smokes, and at the craps table it is even more difficult to get
away it. Any advice? |
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A: |
In Las Vegas; Bellagio,
Mirage and MGM Grand each have dedicated non-smoking tables, and several more casinos are
joining suit. At other places, no matter
where you play, my best advice is to seek out a table where one end is empty or where none
of the players are smokers; then politely ask the Table-Game Supervisor or Pit Boss if he
can put a “No Smoking” sign up at your end of the table. This is what a friend of mine (and a number of
like-minded dealers) refer to as “Swimming in the Non-Peeing End of the Pool”. I hope your health improves as well as your
shooting. |
Thanks
again for all of the excellent questions.
Until
next time,
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in
Life.
The Mad
Professor
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