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Mama Said There Would Be Days Like This In Part One of this
article, we talked about winning being easier to handle mentally, than losing. It makes sense of course because when we win, it
reinforces what we are doing. Winning seems
to vindicate all of the previous failed efforts, and the subsequent hour upon endless hour
of practice, thought and study that we put into perfecting this craft that we call
Precision-Shooting. We are talking
about how you handle those losing sessions, and how to ensure that they don’t turn
into MAJOR losing sessions. Losing sessions are
a part of the game, even for the professional player.
You have to use that losing session as one more step towards your next
winning session. I don’t know
if you’ve ever heard of the Fuller Brush Company.
They used to have door-to-door salesmen that literally covered Canada and
the United States. They would sell various
brushes and home-gadgets to housewives. From
the 1930’s through to the early 70’s they traveled the country selling their
wares. One of their philosophies about
rejection was pretty good, and it is applicable to salespeople even today. For every house that they visited and did not sell
anything, they knew that statistically they were one house closer to making a sale. The worst losses
that I have suffered in the last ten years, is when I refused to accept small losses, and
I let them turn into BIG losses. I would then
get onto a losing streak trying to both recoup the previous loss, and also to prove that I
still had the shooting-edge that I’d become so proud of flaunting. The results?
Pure CRAP! That is what I
define as having a “meltdown”. As I mentioned in
Part One, Heavy is fond of saying, “Any win beats any loss, any day.” I want to add that, “Any small loss beats any
huge loss, any day.” Another truism. Thanks Heavy. I produce an
average of 19-out-of-20 winning sessions. Now, it’s what happens during those 1-in-20 losing sessions that makes all the difference to
not only my bankroll, but also to my way of thinking. In Part One of this
article, we talked about making notes after each session.
Again, if you already haven’t begun to do so, I would urge you to. It’s not only part of the learning process,
it’s part of the continual improvement process.
Your evolution as a Precision-Shooter, is directly pinned to how well you
learn, from not only your mistakes, but also from your successes. By making note of
not only session-statistics like roll-lengths and betting-range; you should be keeping
track of your mood, your energy level, your level of excitement and expectation before and
during your session. After your session ends,
you should be making notes about what went right and what went wrong. You should be making notes about what you would do
if you had the opportunity to play that session over again.
You should especially make notes about what you want to do differently at
your next session. With all of that
being said, I thought that I would give you a little glimpse into my own session notes. Since there is a small number of readers who are
unable or unwilling to believe that anyone else in the entire world could possibly earn
more money or consistently throw the dice better than they could, I’ve deleted as
much reference to the amount of money won during the “good” sessions, but the
“bad” (read: losing) sessions are exactly as they happened. I took 1200
sessions from my database of playing in various casinos.
I included only the major “meltdown” losing sessions. I left out all of the winning sessions, and
included only a summary or overview of the “meltdown” notes. For simplicity I’ve deleted all reference to
the actual casinos, the table length and location, dice and felt conditions, and dealer
skills unless any of those factors figured into my reasons for losing. There are some
easily discernable trends that you should be able to see as you read through. See if you can figure them out. Read on: I had had 76
winning sessions, interspersed with only a couple of very minor losing ones. I was satisfied with my SRR, which at the time was
close to 18:1. Obviously I was feeling on top
of the world, and I felt pretty invulnerable. Losing Session
example #1 I lost $250 over a
period of 2.0 hours. At the time I
didn’t think anything of the loss. Yes,
it was unexpected, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary.
I hate losing, and anytime it happens, I take a critical look at the
“whys” and “wherefores” of “how” it happened. I concluded that the dice weren’t “with
me” on that occasion, and I passed it off. However,
I was eager to get back to the tables to prove to myself that I still had “IT”. The “IT” being the razor-sharp edge
that I know that I need to make consistent money from this game of craps. Losing Sessions
example #2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 I followed up Losing Session #1 with a couple of short and barely
profitable sessions that produced a grand total of $200 in profit. I decided that a concerted effort to get my game
on track was needed. Instead of having one or
two short, but leisurely sessions, I decided that a serious three or four hour session
where I really got my shooting back on track was exactly what I needed. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Losing sessions #2 through #6 generated losses of: $170
2.5 hours Yep, over a period
of 15.5 playing hours, I managed to string together a loss of $1735. For those of you who are not mathematically
inclined, that equates to a loss-rate of approximately $115 per hour. What did my session
notes have to say about all of that? Well, I wrote a lot
about hands that looked like they were going to develop into something, but right at the
cusp of success and profit, I produced a terminal 7-Out.
I wrote that I
thought that I could turn things around, so I changed casinos. When that didn’t work, I changed casinos
again, and just for good measure, I changed my target position on the tables. When that didn’t work, I not only changed
casinos, but I also changed my shooting (standing) position at the table. Clearly that didn’t work, but it didn’t
deter me from trying a couple more variations. When I finally
packed it in, it was only then that I realized that I had been awake for more than 20
hours, and that I had played more than 75% of those hours at a craps table. I ended up taking
the entire next day off from all casino action. I
spent a leisurely day with my girlfriend doing one of her favorite activities, shopping. Now normally, I hate the torture of the endless
shops that she goes into. Okay, if there is
an uncomfortable chair to hunker down into while she tries various outfits on; then
it’s not quite torture; it’s more like waiting for the warden to stamp your
papers AFTER you’ve received parole. That
makes the waiting tolerable, but hardly pleasurable. When I returned to
the tables, I was quite a bit more cautious than usual.
I didn’t start with large bets. In
fact, most players would view my initial approach as hesitant and perhaps lacking in
confidence. In reality, it was my own way of
insuring that I didn’t let things get out of control, AGAIN! I figured that even
if my shooting was lousy, I didn’t have to lose very much money to find out. Fortunately my cautiousness and conservative
betting also let me relax while I was at the tables.
Usually when a
professional athlete gets into a losing streak, they try variations on what has previously
worked for them. They are usually too busy
trying all kinds of swing, stance and hit variations that they “over-play” the
ball, or in this case the dice. I felt that I had
fallen into that trap during those previous five losing sessions. Now, instead of worrying about all of the physical
things, I just wanted to get my swing or throwing motion back on track. I didn’t really care too much about the Pass
Line bets that I had on the table. I
intentionally didn’t back them up with any Odds or make any Place bets. I simply threw
the dice, and when I made a couple of Pass Line Points, I was pleased with
the little bit of profit, but I was even more pleased with the way the
“sweetness” had returned to my throw. From that
“meltdown” forward, there was a long, prosperous period of winning sessions. I went on a 108-session streak, that contained a
few very small losses. My confidence was
buoyed, and I was quite pleased that ALL was right with the world. I want to stop
right here to say that each one of those 105 wins out of 108 sessions, did not ALL produce
incredible profit. In fact, one of them only
produced $25 to the good. Does that qualify
as a winning session? You’re damn
right it does. It may not even fill up the
gas tank, but I will take those meager wins any day simply because when you are on a
winning streak and the dice are leaving your hand perfectly; then most, but not all of the
winning sessions are going to produce much larger wins than those $25 ones. The big wins will
come, and they will take care of themselves. The
task is to build up some small and CONSISTENT wins, and before you know it, those $1000 to
$5000 winning sessions are tumbling your way. That
is how it works. There will be some tiny
wins, a coupe of huge wins, and a whole lot of $200 to $800 wins that fill up your
bankroll. But first you have to develop
CONSISTENCY and avoid the meltdowns. Losing Sessions
example #7, 8 and 9 Ah, we could call
these the “MP’s show-off” losses. I
was with some casino-savvy friends who happen to play blackjack. This husband and wife team fancy themselves as
semi-professionals. Ms. MP and myself had
never managed to be in the same gaming-city as them at the same time. The husband had always chided me for playing a
negative-expectation game like craps, while I showed no interest in a “clearly
superior” game like BJ. After a fine dinner
at the Great Moments Room in the Las Vegas Club, it didn’t take too much coaxing for
me to volunteer to show them how I could play, day after day, month after month and year
after year at such a bad choice of games. We had a few drinks
with dinner and a few more afterwards. The
alcohol lowered my tolerance for the ribbing that Mr. & Mrs. Blackjack were giving me. Ms. MP encouraged my offer to “show them
what I actually do with the dice”. The LV Club tables
were busy, so we ventured to three other downtown casinos.
The results were the same. I
would find an empty or near-empty table. I
would buy-in and get the dice. I would
establish the Point. Within 2 or 3 rolls, or
on one stellar occasion, 6 rolls, I managed to throw a quick 7-Out. The first couple of times it happened, there was a
bit of snickering from Mr. & Mrs. Blackjack. On
the final few 7-Outs of the evening, there were visible and audible winces from them. It hurt…and let me tell you it really
hurt…in two places. It hurt my wallet,
but it especially hurt my ego. There I was, Mr. Mad Professor, trying to show how I had mastered the game
of craps. I wanted to prove how
much better craps was than that tired old game of “21”. I felt like a buffoon, and I said,
“well sometimes I have bad sessions…maybe it was that heavy dinner we just
ate”. Of course, I knew it wasn’t
that at all. Simply, I had set myself up to
fail, and the booze just helped things along. I
wanted to prove myself and the whole concept of Precision-Shooting to the
“non-believers” or infidels, but I failed miserably. The losses from
those three sessions were: $675
That entire $2135
loss took just ninety minutes to accomplish, and that includes the walking time between
downtown casinos. Gee, there’s an
accomplishment to be proud of! The only
face-saving part to this story is that the next day they saw me playing at a table in the
Golden Nugget where all of us were staying. They
engaged me in conversation, but the rest of my tablemates put up such a roar about
disturbing the shooter (me) that they threatened to call security. I turned discreetly to them and said that a lot of
players were superstitious when someone was on a hot roll.
It was only then that they saw my chip-rail full of green, black and purple
chips. They backed off at a respectful
distance until I finished my roll about 15 minutes later.
Losing Sessions
example #10 through #20 All eleven of these
losing sessions occurred at Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls, Canada. I had been away from the casino-scene for a little
while when I returned to play there. I
hadn’t practiced at all, and my throwing never did find any kind of rhythm or
“groove”. The tables are ALWAYS crowded, but I felt like playing anyway. The high $15 minimums were a bit of a turn-off,
but it didn’t stop me from buying-in. Over
a four-day period, I played a total of 45 hours.
Just to put that in perspective, when I am in Las Vegas, I play on
average of 20 to 30 hours each week. So this
rather intense amount of play was a little out of character for me. My session-losses looked like this: $425
It doesn’t
take a genius to figure out that I was on a losing streak.
It also doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this was one of those
meltdown things happening to not only my bankroll, but also to my discipline. It’s at a
point like that, that I began to wonder if I had a gambling problem. I sure had a winning
problem! The session notes that I made after
each loss were almost IDENTICAL in what they said. Essentially,
all my notes bitched about super-crowded conditions, incredibly bouncy tables, slow
dealers and a general frustration with all of the random-rollers that I had to endure in
the endless wait to get the dice back into my hands again.
I was losing so
much on random-rollers that even when I managed to put together a decent hand with the
dice, the joy had been sucked entirely out of the moment because of all of the frustration
leading up to it. Clearly playing an
average of 11 hours a day was also taking a toll on my ability to reason and to apply any
reasonable level of discipline. Exhaustion
has a way of warping ones sense of perspective, patience, restraint and self-control. Surprisingly, my
dice skill-level wasn’t all that bad. While
I had a higher percentage of Point-then-7-Out hands; I also managed to be MUCH better than
the average bear that populated that neck of the woods.
Still, that didn’t prevent losses.
It only aggravated them, and provided an increasing level of frustration for
me. Clearly, things were deteriorating, and
any reasonable game-plan had long since spiraled out of control. Due to the
one-chance–with-the-dice-every-60-to-75-minutes frustration, I let the losses rack up
in hopes for “just-one-more-chance” with the dice. I always felt that I could redeem myself and my
losses by having a monster hand. Well,
the monster hand never came. The losses
continued to rack up, and I was pretty disgusted with myself. I gave up craps for
a couple of weeks at that point. There
wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t look back at that particular meltdown
and wonder how I could lose all grasp of discipline.
It took about twelve days before I had both forgiven myself for the transgression,
and also put enough distance behind that ego-bruising set of losses to put it into proper
perspective. I matured quite a bit in those
two weeks. I finally took a
L-O-N-G drive to clear my head, and to give myself a stern talking to. Yes, I did talk to myself, and the message was
pretty clear. “If you are going to make
good, consistent money from this game, you have to stop wasting it all on random-rollers,
and concentrate on your own Precision-Shooting.”
Simple message? Yes Did it work? Yes The cure for that
streak of losses was pretty easy. I simply
went to a gaming jurisdiction with a few more playing options and a lot less people to
pack the tables with. I went down to
Biloxi, Mississippi, and my winning ways picked up exactly where they had left off before
my Niagara meltdown. In fact, during my
prolonged stay on the Gulf Coast I didn’t experience one major losing session for the
entire duration. Yes, I experienced some
losses, but none were even close to my loss limit. In
a way, it was like I was SO scared of going into one of those dreaded meltdowns, that I
intentionally cut any losing sessions short. To
my mind, a $50 to $150 loss was extremely attractive compared to the uglier alternative of
HUGE losses. The winning sessions easily
outstripped the cost of the losing ones, and I was able to re-affirm that I had the will
and fortitude to end a session before really bad things had a chance to happen. Since that catastrophe in Niagara Falls, I didn’t have a major losing session until the The Great Northeast Road Trip. I’m proud of
that accomplishment, but more important is the level of discipline that those major losses
instilled into my playing regimen. Those were
hard-learned lessons. They were expensive
lessons, and I have wondered if I’d be as good of a player as I am today if I
didn’t have those battle-scars to remind me of what can happen if I don’t stick
to my self-imposed limits. I think,
principally, that is the major reason that I have implemented such strict loss-limits on
my current playing. It’s the fear that
if I start to lose; then my losses will spiral out of control. So, one of the
secrets to improving my own game was to prevent them from becoming total bankroll-meltdown
losses, and the need to prevent any small losses from becoming worse than they already
are. My advice to you?
Mama said that
there would be days like this, but I think that she sure would be proud of me now! Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in
Life. The Mad Professor
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