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Dice Setter Precision Shooter's Newsletter
Welcome to another edition of the Precision Shooter Newsletter! This months newsletter is a bit briefer than most because, frankly, I'm busy gearing up for Crapsfest. Please note that we have a NEW contributor this month, Jeffrey47, who is a message board regular. Thanks for your continued support of dicesetter.com. Ooops! PS. Because of a security issue, apparently some subscribers did not receive last months newsletter. If you didn't get it, just visit the archives at the bottom of the page!
Mindful Living, Mindful Shooting - Part I of a
series
I
hope to provide something further to consider about the mental side of our
practice. As we all know, precision shooting
depends on it. We
will discuss how mindfulness in our daily lives might bear on the quality of our
precision-shooting practice and play.
Many
skilled players psyche themselves out of winning
because
of all the stuff that they keep in their head.
--
Mad Professor
We
live in a multi-tasking world. The mindset
we occupy when thinking about one thing while doing another is probably the
dominant mindset of our lives, even our culture. Certainly,
it's
a mindset through which a lot of what we do is constantly filtered. For
example, we may read the newspaper with the TV on, while we eat our breakfast. The phone
rings and while we're
on the line there's
another call to take. We navigate multiple
windows on our computers. We drive the
freeways listening to books on tape. The
list of activities we never fully engage in is endless. In
its proper context, there's nothing wrong with this multiple-doings mindset. Our brains are certainly capable of it, and our
ability, perhaps
a need, to
absorb layers of information from which to synthesize something new is a
fundamental aspect of creative, artistic, intellectual, and even entrepreneurial pursuit. Unfortunately,
this dominant mindset of ours can be an impediment to shooting with the precision we
strive for. Mindfulness? What is that? When
I speak of mindfulness I'm
not talking about the experience people refer to as "being
in the zone." Mindfulness is certainly related to the zone, but
there are distinct qualities unique to each. I
view mindfulness as kind of a precursor to the zone.
I will be talking more about the relationship between mindfulness and the zone in
upcoming articles. Suffice to say for now, if you don't
attain at least an inkling of mindful awareness, youre not as likely to be getting
in the zone. Insight
into the mindset of successful dicesetters is provided in articles and message-board posts
right here on Irishsetter's site, of course. Articles
by Mad Professor contain some of the most illuminating discussions of these matters
anywhere to be found. See, for example,
How to
Get It and How to Keep It , and How to
Get There From Here, Part VII . MP
refers to an "every-roll
mind set"
derived from a combination of "absolute
concentration... raw intensity... and single-minded focus. Our attention needs to be on the dice
and on having each one next fresh toss end on the same axis and primary faces they
are set on. Consistency, MP reminds us, requires a "Quiet Mind," with no distracting thoughts, yet a full consciousness, but not a hyper-awareness, of what is happening around you. Success depends on living in the moment, and shooting and betting in the present tense. MP
even provides a bullet-point road map for maintaining an every-roll mindset as a dice hand
progresses, highlighting the many functional benefits to be derived. MP explains further that invoking this same every-roll mindset when
practicing, conditions us to be able to do it more automatically in the casino. Over time, it should feel be comfortable and
totally natural. You should be able to slip
into it as easily as an old pair of slippers. See, Current
Practice...Future Profitability, Part IV . Mad
Professor makes it sound so alluringly simple; while reminding us in no uncertain terms
just how difficult it really is. Revisit
those materials often, because the truths of which MP speaks will reveal themselves more
fully over time. There
are still remaining questions, however. Ø If the whole thing is so simple, why does it require such extreme dedication to achieve? Ø And if it's so obvious, why is it so easily overlooked when we play? Ø Why is there anything so seemingly mystifying associated with advantage play at craps anyway? Ø Why is there a
mystery connected with getting whatever
it is we're
supposed to get? Ø Hey, it's beginning to sound a bit like one of those things: When you know, you'll know. And
to one extent or another, for each of us, it is one of those things. If
the "every-roll" mind can feel like a perfect old pair of slippers, maybe
our everyday mind is more like a starched white shirt and tie . . . or a
strait-jacket. If
entering and maintaining a mindset different from the one we're
accustomed to is the task, is it any wonder that it seems a mystery, as
if we're
outside looking in, even
though everything's
being explained so perfectly and in such excruciating detail? And
is it surprising that this mystery can seem to crop up to block our path to the very
skills upon which the promise of further progress depends? Having
a road map is useful in any journey. But it
can be easy to mistake the map for the road, or to misinterpret the scale and compass
showing the distance and direction we are required to travel. From
a new and different vantage point
of increasing levels of mindfulness in our
everyday existence we might better read the map's encoded directions; and
penetrate the seeming mystery that stubbornly insulates us from further elevating our
precision-shooting skills. Put
another way, as we more diligently exercise simple mindfulness in our daily lives, we may
be better able to achieve similar mindfulness when it's time to shoot the dice. In
future articles, I'm
going to explain what everyday mindfulness is to me, in practical terms, and more about
why I believe it can be an important component for improving our dice skills. Let's
see if working to raise our consciousness away from the rig may
help to get it done at the rig and then at the tables. That's right! We're just a few short weeks from Crapsfest 2005. Register now! Prices increase May 1st! Join Heavy,
Soft Touch, Dice Coach, Michael "The Professor" Vernon and friends May 20 - 22,
2005 in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada for three days of seminars, one-on-one coaching, and
live casino sessions. It is THE craps event of 2005. Here's what attendees had to say
about Crapsfest 2004:
Heres
The Fishing-Pole, Heres the Bait
Theres the Lake
A
short while back, Irishsetter started a thread on his Message Board that asked, If
there was one single piece of advice you would give to a new aspiring dicesetter, or if
you had to go through the learning process all over again, what is the one thing you would
change? I
didnt post a reply to that thread because most of the great answers that other
players supplied pretty much covered any thoughts or advice that came to my mind. However
upon reflection, there is one major thing that I would definitely change about my game if
I was first starting out again and it is also something that I would suggest to most new
open-minded players
and that is to learn to also shoot from the Darkside as soon as
possible. To
my mind, IT IS FAR EASIER to become proficient (and profitable) MUCH SOONER as a
Darkside-shooter than it is to get it right and steadily profitable as a Rightsider. Ø The
less frustrating the learning-curve is, and the sooner you reach tangible profitability;
the less likely you are to go off on all kinds of non-productive mismatched-to-talent
wagering tangents and the less likely you are to waste your time and money chasing down
the Holy-Grail of random-betting. Ø To
my mind, its often easier for an open-minded player to prove to himself the
immediate money-earning efficacy of throwing more of the already-dominant 7s
than it is to convert his at-the-frustrating-cusp-of-dice-influencing-success
Rightside-shooting into in-yer-pocket profit. In
other words, Darkside-shooting frequently offers a far more compelling Heres
the fishing pole
heres the bait
theres the lake sort of
sustainable-earnings option for beginners and open-minded veterans alike. Seneca
Allegany Casino
Welcome
to the southern-tier of Western New York. Seneca-Allegany
Casino in the city of Salamanca is equidistant from Buffalo, NY (to the north) and Erie,
PA (to the west). The
Seneca Nation of Indians operate this gaming-house as well as its sister casino in Niagara
Falls, NY. (see Shooting
From The Donts Part 6 for a complete profile on
Senecas Niagara casino). The
Senecas are also the only sovereign nation to host a U.S. city within their tribal
boundaries. Although
this casino isnt nearly as big as the other nearby casinos to the north and east, it
does offer some equally outstanding playing conditions. My
first Allegany session for this trip was at a fairly busy table with a dozen or so other
players. Either
the table had been fairly cold for all the right-side bettors who were there
or they
had all recently bought in for what looked like an average of $17 each. Judging by the looks on their faces, Id opt
to guess that their original buy-ins were much larger, but the relentless erosion of the
back-and-forth win-some/lose-some tide had diminished their collective bankrolls to the
miniscule amounts that were now in their racks. Two
out of the three dealers recognized me and asked where Id been lately. I gave my standard too much work
not
enough play reply which is usually good enough to shield the fact that I do this
for a living. When the stick-guy noticed that
I was shooting from the Dont, he asked if I had changed my game plan since the last
time I was there. I answered with my other
standard, I got tired of losing on the rightside, so I thought Id try it
from the wrong-side reply. Again
and as always, I want to maintain the appearance of being a gambler and not
that of an advantage-player. The
table was excellent to shoot on. The dice
were landing with a confident on-axis thunk and rebounding off the backwall by no
more than three or four inches. Although both
die didnt always end up side-by-side, they stayed in relative five to six-inch
proximity to each other. It wasnt what
I would call picture perfect, but the outcomes were within the realm of
expectation and my intentional DP 7-Outs showed up pretty much as often as I needed
them to. On
the other hand, my Come-Out strategy of aggressive World-betting was not providing
anything more lucrative than a barely break-even proposition. That is, I was rolling many more C-O 7-losers than
I was in producing the higher-paying W-B 2, 3, 11 or 12-winners. The long delay between shooting opportunities may
have contributed to those slow-to-start results. The
dice were moving around the table fairly slowly even though the conditions were choppy as
hell. By the end of my third hand, I was
ready for a break. I counted my winnings, and
although they were pretty hefty thanks to some wind-falls from my heavily-laid DP-Odds
(and no-thanks to my Come-Out Game Within A Game strategy); the nearly
two-and-a-half hours that it took earn it didnt seem at that particular moment to
justify such a big time-investment. That is,
when I divided my winnings into the time that it took to earn it, I didnt get any
giddy delusions that my hourly earnings-rate was on par with O.J.s lawyers or
Michael Jacksons therapist. When
I start to think that way about any positive cash-flow, its definitely time
for a break. I
grabbed a coffee at Senecas Java Cafe and sat down to update my Table Intel notes
for this casino. I use these notes to
reproduce replicable session-after-session positive results on all sorts of tables that I
havent played on in a while. The less
research, experimenting and fine-tuning that I have to do to re-acclimate myself to each
table, the sooner I can reach sustainable profitability no matter how long its been
since I last played on it. If you are
interested in what a typical set of my detailed notes look like, you could have a peak at Shooting
Bible-Part One for an illustrative example.
Although
my profit results from Session One were substantively positive, I noted that there was
significant room for improvement on that table as far as getting the dice to do exactly
what I wanted them to do. I also noted that
one of the positive offshoots of using the Straight-Sixes (S-6) set for my Come-Out
efforts was the fact that although my C-O World-bet profit was lagging far behind
its normal production-rate, it was producing an extraordinary number of
easier-to-beat PL-Points of 4 and 10. click here for the rest of the article! If you have any comments or ideas for future issues, feel free to email me at ed@dicesetter.com And as always, we are looking for contributors with a fresh perspective. Know someone who would be interested in receiving future editions of Good Luck! |
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