The ambassador of a small African nation visited Russia, and was entertained by the Russian ambassador. For two days, the African ambassador was wined, dined, and generally treated to the best hospitality that Russia had to offer. On the final day of his visit, the Russian ambassador said, “As your stay is coming to an end, it is time for you to play our traditional game, Russian roulette. One of the six chambers of this gun is loaded – you spin the cylinder, point the gun at your head, and pull the trigger.” This scared the African slightly, but he was a proud of his brave warrior heritage, and to show fear would be unthinkable. Both men took their guns, spun, and pulled the triggers. Both chambers were empty, and both ambassadors breathed a sigh of relief. The African ambassador was very impressed with the courageous game, and thought hard about the subject before the Russian Ambassador was due to visit his country the following month. When the visit came, the African ambassador treated the Russian with all hospitality. Leading him to an ornate room in the palace, the African ambassador said, “Now it is time for you to sample our game, African roulette”. He led the Russian into the room, where there were six beautiful, naked women. The African ambassador said, “These women are the most beautiful members that represent our six tribes. Any one of them will provide you with oral sex – take your pick”. The Russian was pleased by this idea, but he couldn’t see the connection with Russian Roulette. He said “Well, ok, great, but where’s the roulette part? Where’s the danger?” With a big grin on his face, the African ambassador answered, “One of them is a cannibal.”
It always pays to watch out for things that can bite you, whether literally or figuratively.
Long craps tables have always given me problems because it took the “precision” out of my Precision-Shooting”. The new grip that I am using for those long tables has helped my performance quite a bit.
I’ve nicknamed this grip, the Mad Professor’s “Long-Ranger.” It is set up as follows:
- Set the dice side-by-side on the table as you normally would, and put your two middle fingers on the “forward-edge” of the dice.
- Then let your two outer fingers gently grip the side-axis of the dice, and use your thumb to VERY gently support the outer-side of the first (lowest) joint of your index finger.
- Now turn your hand over, so the palm is facing up, and in a soft under-handed motion, GENTLY toss the dice to a spot as close to the back-wall as possible. The objective is to have the dice gently roll into the wall and have a MINIMAL one to three on-axis rolls on the roll-back.
Flamingo-I started out here because of their six long and difficult tables. With hotel occupancy at an all-time low, they pre-comped my suite. The tables were as sparsely-populated as I’ve ever seen. I played fifteen sessions here over a five-day period. My average Sevens-to-Roll-Ratio was 14, with the shortest being 2 rolls, and the longest being 24 rolls.
O’Shea’s-They used to have two pretty good tables here, when the Craps Pit was located to the right rear of the casino. When they moved it near the front entrance, they changed to their current single long table. Although I’ve experienced quite a bit of previous success on it, I wanted to re-confirm it while using my new grip. I played a total of 12 sessions here, each containing at least three separate hands. My average Sevens-to-Roll-Ratio was 12, with the shortest being 2 rolls, and the longest being 21 rolls. This didn’t equal my normal shooting abilities using my usual grip, but it was still profitable, and more importantly, it was contributing important roll information that would prove valuable later in my trip.
Casino Royale-This was the busiest casino that I experienced in the post-WTC/Pentagon tragedy. Their two low-limit long tables were rockin’ as usual. Success eluded me at this place. It took the dice quite a while to circulate the table even though no was stringing together anything resembling a good hand. I played a total of 3 sessions here. My average Sevens-to-Roll-Ratio was 4, with the shortest hand being 2 rolls, and the longest being 7 rolls.
Imperial Palace-This casino was interesting for two reasons. They had the fullest hotel occupancy, but the casino activity was subdued even though it was more than two weeks after the New York/Washington/Pennsylvania events. The other item of note, was that a fellow craps player who shot the dice from his wheelchair was putting together a stupendous string of hands. He set the dice, while his wife/girlfriend cheered him on. Each of his hands lasted more than 30 rolls. We had the table pretty much to ourselves for over ninety minutes. I played a total of 9 sessions here. My average Sevens-to-Roll-Ratio was 15, with the shortest being 2 rolls, and the longest being 31 rolls.
San Remo-Most people avoid this house, because it’s a little bit off the Strip, even though it is right beside the Tropicana. I’ve been hassled here by one particular box-man who hates having ANY players win. Even when a random-roller starts to profit from the game, he gruffly starts to brow-beat them, and rant and rave over anything he can think of. On the other hand, I like the European ambiance of this small, un-crowded casino. Fortunately my “favorite” box-man wasn’t working during the 3 sessions that I played here. My average SRR was 15, with the shortest being 2 rolls, and the longest being 31 rolls.
I also played at New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay during that initial five-day experiment. These four casinos have “medium-long” tables, that I’ve had previous success at using my normal “pincer-grip”. Out of curiosity, and for the sake of comparison, I tried the “Long Ranger” grip on these tables as well. I wanted to compare roll success against my previous achievements. For this set of experiments, I rolled from my normal shooting position, and then switched to a further spot on the table.
I’ll spare you all the details but here’s a summary and comparison of the two styles:
- Using my normal Pincer-Grip from my normal shooting position I have worked my roll-ratio up to 28-to-1 over the past two years.
- Using the new “Long-Ranger” grip from my normal position, my roll-ratio at these four casinos was 19-to-1 over twelve hands.
- When I switched to a farther position on the tables, my SRR dropped to 17-to-1.
- When I switched to the farthest position on each table, using the Long-Ranger, my SRR dropped to 12-to-1.
Armed with that information, I was satisfied that the new grip was good enough to use on long tables, but on the medium-long ones, it didn’t generate enough rolls per hand to justify switching from the Axis-Pincer to the new grip.
You’ll notice that so far I have specifically avoided the mention of profit or betting methods. In Part Three, we’ll take a look at that and at some other Las Vegas and Laughlin casinos where we improved upon what we learned during our first in-casino experiments on the Strip.
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
By: The Mad Professor
