|
The Mad Professor’s
Precision-Shooting
Laboratory Tour
When you earn your
living strictly by playing craps, you have to be pretty sure you not only
know what you are doing, but also that what you do will be enough
to profitably sustain a fairly nice lifestyle.
So come on in, I’d like to take you on a tour of…
The Mad Professor’s Precision-Shooting
Laboratory
My lab, which looks suspiciously like a rather large, overly-garish rec-room
(think, Elvis’ jungle
room meets Danny Ocean’s playroom
meets Dan Tanna’s bungalow; or a rather small pre-80’s
casino dice-pit replete with a retro Rat
Pack lounge). This is where I cultivate and develop new
dice-influencing concepts as well as where
I rehash, re-engineer, re-invent, recalibrate and
generally overhaul old methods and
strategies into a new breed of D-I-centric advantage-play
hybrids.
The Table
Everything here in the lab is centered around my 12-foot PaulSon table which
was an oh-so-
thoughtful early Christmas present from Ms.
MP several years back. Most of my toss-dynamic
improvements over the last three years or
so have been fostered almost entirely on this table and
then re-validated and confirmed at the
real-world casinos.
A couple of examples of those toss-dynamic improvements include the:
Dead-Cat Bounce
Although I had enjoyed some off and on success with this particular
toss as far back as 1995, it
never really got to the point of being an
on-demand, on-command weapon.
It wasn’t until I spent a lot of time tweaking and practicing the
stopped-dead-in-its-tracks-at-the-
base-of-the-wall DCB to the point of
perfection; that I was able to attain a level of reliability that I
wanted.
Without this table, the Dead Cat Bounce would have remained one of those
freak outcomes that
happens more by random accident than
by deliberate intention.
Underhand Forward-Spin Toss
If there was ever any singular element of my own dice-influencing that I was
reluctant to pass onto
the D-I community as a whole; the Underhand
Forward-spin Toss would definitely be in the Top
Three.
For me, the palm-up underhand toss can conquer some of the most “unplayable”
tables on this
planet. More importantly though, it brings
an even higher level of primary-face, on-axis
reliability to the tables
that I’ve traditionally had no problems with (while using a traditional
overhand palm-down backspin toss); so I now
use the U-H Toss on a wide range of table-types
and lengths, in an even wider range of
casinos.
Again though, without this table here in my laboratory, I doubt that I’d
have developed this toss
much beyond the point of being a
dice-throwing oddity instead of the solid-gold performer it is
today.
Spin Control, Trajectory
Variation & Backwall Rebounding
The more you know about what the dice you will do if you throw them a
certain way, the better able
you are to make tiny on-the-fly adjustments
to your basic throw in order to adapt it to the various
and sundry tables you’ll encounter.
Now obviously that statement should be self-evident, but that isn’t always
the case especially when
the question of how much or how
little adjustment may be needed to turn a snarling angry-cur of a
craps table into a placid little lap-dog.
If you don’t know precisely how a subtle change to one element (like
spin-rate) may affect several
others (like initial bounce-height
and backwall rebound distance); then it becomes a matter of
near-random guessing. When your
money is on the layout, the real-world casino is the last place
you should be guessing.
For me, your at-home practice-rig is the place where you can and should test
both the extreme
outer limits of each toss-dynamic element
(both individually and collectively); but also where you
should be determining how the tiniest
of adjustments can have a major impact on your outcomes.
In most cases, subtlety is the key to refined and consistent
precision-shooting.
By testing and quantifying not only the outermost boundaries of each
element, but also gauging and
measuring the subtlest of lightly-nuanced
adjustments; you can learn all kinds of things about your
toss which may be applicable at all kinds
tables you’ll run a cross...or maybe it will be applicable at
only one. The point is, the more you know
about what the dice will do if you throw them a certain
way, the better able you are to make the
required adjustments no matter where you play.
Most of my own on-axis, primary-face advancement in the last three years or
so have come as a
direct result of what I’ve developed on
this here table.
Though the DCB, the U-H Toss, and all of the Spin Control, Trajectory
Variation and Backwall
Rebound studies are only three examples out
of the hundreds of development projects I could
credit this table with (such as Neutral
Dice Pick-Up, Facial Control and Double-Pitch Avoidance,
the Inch-by-Inch 100% On-Axis
Primary-Face Process, Resolving Large-Muscle/Small-
Muscle Conflicts, Grip Pressure
Variance, and Release-point Follow-Through to name just a
few more); I think it gives you a pretty
good idea of how vital this one piece of lab equipment is in
terms of furthering the art and the science
of what it is I do.
Over here beside the PaulSon craps table are few more pieces of
indispensable gear; the most
important of which is my array of…
Laser Tools
If you haven’t had a chance to really study HSCIII/Maximus’ Laser
Practice…Laser Perfection
idea in Part Eight of my
Current Practice…Future Profit series
http://www.dicesetter.com/mp/mad138currentg.htm or the follow-up that
he, Jeffrey47 and I did in
Part Nine
of that same series
http://www.dicesetter.com/mp/mad138currenti.htm ; then you are
missing out on what I consider to be
one of the most important skill-elevation tools ever
adapted to the art and science of
dice-influencing.
This is also a perfect time to offer a public apology to Maximus.
When our friend HSC III changed his internet handle to “Maximus”; I
made a change to the
accreditation of his Laser Practice…Laser
Perfection idea in my newly published
Crapshooting
Bible
to reflect that. Unfortunately however, there was a slip between the cup and
the lip, and
somehow the accreditation accidentally got
dropped. Obviously I take full and complete
responsibility for that gaff and I feel
absolutely terrible about it. I offer my sincerest apologies to
Maximus, and I can assure everyone that the
oversight about crediting his absolutely outstanding
idea will be corrected in subsequent
printings.
Nearby my laser equipment, you’ll also notice a number of computers at my…
Roll-Tracking Station
…which look like they would be more at home in the telemetry shack at the
Kwajalein/Wake Island
MRTFB Reagan Test Site than in my
retro-style dice-pit.
I currently use Maddog’s BoneTracker as my primary
roll-tracking program simply because it
tracks exactly what I want it to track and
it delivers the information that I need, in a format that I want.
I have lots of other roll-tracking software around here, but frankly B-T
is the one that I currently use
almost exclusively. Besides its ease of use
and outstanding functionality, BoneTracker also keeps
tabs on the five critical Foundation
Frequencies that are the backbone of the free online DiceTool
program (
http://www.bj21.com/links.shtml ) that is an integral and
fundamentally imperative
part of my Crapshooting
Bible.
Using Bonetracker in combination with the DiceTool is a powerful amalgam
that helps you sift and
sort through your roll-tracking data in a
way that separates the useable information from the merely
curious (or as Irishsetter would say, it
separates the noise from the static and sharpens the
signal-to-noise ratio).
An advantage-play dice-influencer has to know
for certain which bets and which sets offer the
biggest advantage over the
house for his current skills. Your bankroll cannot afford uninformed
decision-making or
ill-informed guesswork. The B-T/DiceTool combination gives you the
critical information that
you need.
In terms of my own game, DiceTool has significantly ratcheted up my
in-casino earning by forcing
me to focus most of my betting-weight on
the wagers where I have the biggest edge and convinced
me (through clearly obvious
edge-per-roll and edge-per-decision values) to discard
or scale back on most of the marginal or near-negative ones.
DiceTool is indispensable in terms of helping you bridge the gap between the
validated skills you
know you have…and the advantage-play
revenues you deserve.
As I mentioned previously, for those of you with web-enabled PDA's like a
Blackberry, Treo, or
HP's PocketPC; the full (and completely
free) online version of DiceTool is now fully accessible to
your PDA without need of downloading
any programs.
That means you can instantly access D-T during let's say a
between-shooting-opportunities
washroom break, to do an in-casino
right-here/right-now which-bet/which-set for this
particular table analysis.
Total cycle time (from starting to enter your five Foundation Frequencies to
getting a complete
what-set/what-bet/what-edge
profile) takes no more than 5 seconds!
Without a doubt, this will provide a HUGE benefit for players who have
encountered difficulty in
bridging the gap between the
shooting-skills they know they have...and the amount of dice-
influencing profit they actually collect.
I also use two software programs from Steen (
www.cloudcitysoftware.com ). The first is the widely
known and highly popular WinCraps™,
while the lesser known is his Crapless Craps version called
NeverEverCraps™. I use both of those
programs primarily at my War-Gaming Station, which I’ll
walk you over to shortly.
Voice Recognition Software
As most of you know, I use IBM’s ViaVoic™e voice-recognition software
to pen most of my rather
lengthy articles (like this one), but what
most of you don’t know, is that I also use V-V to
automatically enter roll-tracking data
instead of having to manually input it. It not only acts as a
time-saver, but it also lets me focus and
concentrate on each and every practice toss as if it is THE
toss.
Since we have the luxury of a fully stocked (to the point of intoxicant
bedazzlement) bar here in the
lab, let’s pause for a moment to sample
some fine libations.
Over here by my own Wall of Fame (which I’ve created with those casino
chip-set shadow-boxes
you can buy in Las Vegas) to mark some of
my more outstanding conquests from the green-felt
jungles of the precision-shooting world,
you will find my…
War-Gaming Command Center
Though it only appears to be three felt layouts (one Crapless Craps,
one normal, and one
microfiber), with a couple of customized
sets of casino chips, a laptop computer, a calculator, and some random
scribbling on a few pads of paper; there’s actually more to it than that.
Well actually, no, that is all there is to this station; but
it's what goes on here that makes the
difference.
My war-gaming station is where I cultivate and develop new dice-influencing
betting-concepts, as
well as where I rehash, re-engineer,
re-invent, recalibrate and generally overhaul old betting-
methods, money-management processes, and
time-worn wagering-strategies into a new breed of
D-I-centric advantage-play hybrids.
A couple of prime exemplars of this process would be the…
Initial Steep Regression
While regression-betting is nothing new (it’s been a hallmark of John
Patrick’s work dating back to
the late ‘70’s); we have been able to
refine it for advantage-play precision-shooters to the point of
near-perfection in my ongoing 25-part
Regression Avoids Depression
series.
Darkside-Shooting
The largely untapped and highly favorable prospect of making the
all-powerful 7 work for you during
the point-cycle is also nothing new, but
from a de-randomizers point of view, it offers a gold-mine
that is easily excavated but
mostly ignored.
The winning concepts that you’ve been reading about in my ongoing
Shooting From The Don’t…
A Journey of
Opportunity series were initially assayed, distilled, and
filtered right here on my
war-game layouts before being refined,
re-weighed, re-evaluated and ultimately re-validated on the
real-world casino tables.
Still other gaming-approaches like my Game
Within A Game…Profiting From Your Come-out
Cycle
strategies and many of the Iron-Cross betting-methods that we continue to
explore in the
You Can’t
Shine a Cow-Patty…or Can You? series, all came from
this bet-scenario command
center.
When you add in the amount of profit that many players have already derived
from using some of
the angles in my
Match-Play Coupon Circuit series or
the Dodging Bullets As A Darksider
(the
infamous Choppy-Table/Short-Leash
Method (C-T/S-L) series; my time and effort spent in this
particular corner of the lab has been
definitely worth it.
Ready For Release
As you look around these three layouts, you’ll also notice a few more new or
recently
re-manufactured advantage-play methods that
are pretty much ready for release. The first few
include…
D-I Specific Kelly-style Wagering
There’s little doubt that the Kelly Criterion is the best way
to grow your bankroll without unduly
imperiling it. However the multi-wager
opportunities of a craps layout often complicate the situation
to a point where most players end up either
severely over-betting their bankroll or dramatically
under-betting their dice-influencing
abilities.
Much of my new material will focus on clarifying and unraveling this
optimal-play aspect; so, many
of my future articles will be dedicated to
helping you link the needlessly-wide
skill-advantage/net-profit disconnect.
Hittin’ and Runnin’ Techniques
I make no secret about my precision-shooting doctrine of flying under the
casino's ever-watchful
radar. Frankly I think I’ve developed the
art of hiding-in-plain-sight into a tenet that can serve other
players who are just as interested in
preserving and safeguarding their golden-goose-of-D-I’ing
equally well.
With that in mind, I’ve developed some incredibly effective Hit ‘n’
Run, shoot-and-scoot betting
techniques that get you in and out of the
casino with an armful of their cash but without any undue
notice or heat. Obviously I am anxious to
share as much of that with you as soon as possible. Yes,
it is THAT important.
In concert with that, I’ve also developed some
high-dollar betting-methods that I’ve been using at the big-buck, high
bet-minimum ($50+) tables of the Northeast. The parade of fascinating
characters that I've met along the way makes for an interesting read, but
frankly none of that would even be addressable if I first hadn’t developed
and refined my betting-methods right here on the war-game layouts.
The same applies to my…
Crapless Craps Strategies
I previously mentioned using Steen’s WinCraps™ version of Crapless
Craps called
NeverEverCraps™. I
have used it extensively to evolve a number of Crapless betting-methods in
preparation for (and subsequent refinement
of) the wagering strategies I used during my
yet-to-be-posted
Crapless Craps Tour Across America
series.
Again, if I hadn’t first quantified, analyzed, and properly calibrated all
of these concepts on this
test-bed; my profit picture couldn’t have
progressed so quickly nor would it be quite so rosy.
There is also a ton of new stuff that I am still working on, but frankly all
of the New Development stuff
is going to have to wait until a little
later on the tour.
Let’s continue our exploration of what
several visitors to my lab have variously described as
Keyser Soze’s safe-house, Lefty
Rosenthal’s post-Vegas/pre-Boca think-tank, or Reuben
Tishkoff’s retirement shrine to Old
Vegas. I prefer to think of it as a slightly indulgent architectural
celebration dedicated to a game that most
people think is unbeatable.
Come on over here for a minute, I want to show my…
Gaming Library
The first thing that any craps player would notice is the sheer number on
NON-gambling books that
are part of my craps library.
That’s no accident.
You’d be surprised at the number of advantage-play dice-influencing concepts
that are directly
applicable to craps even though they were
initially developed for fields of endeavor as diverse as
Fluid Dynamics and Micro-adaptive Flow
Control, Friction-Stir Welding, Hyperspectral
Radiography, Aeronautics Propulsion and
Telemetry Acquisition, Energetic Surface Processing,
Biomimetrics, Compiler/Profiler
Logging, Financial Derivatives, and even the over-analogized
Butterfly Effect.
You’ll also notice row upon row of gaming books that do not even discuss the
subject of craps.
Again, that’s no accident.
There are a ton of advantage-play ideas that can be gleaned from books that
are focused on other
casino games like Baccarat, Pai Gow, Video
Poker, and obviously A-P blackjack; as well as
books directed towards casino management
and surveillance.
Now to be fair though, I do have a pretty substantial collection of
craps-related books; but frankly
very few of them hold much worth in terms
of making a net-contribution to the collective knowledge-
base of the dice-influencing community, but
obviously a few do.
You’ll also notice a smaller collection of videotapes and DVD’s. My favorite
among those is the
complete four-volume set of Steve Forte’s
Gambling Protection series and its companion printed
to me of the same name.
Next to my gaming library is my…
Trip Planning Area
Okay I’ll admit this part of my lab does look like the Lady Luck Lounge at
the old Desert Inn during
Robert Urich’s rein as “Dan Tanna”,
and first-time visitors do half-expect to find Huggy Bear
slouching over his fourth round of gin
martinis; but this is actually where I plan my casino trips, as
evidenced by the stack of comp offers, food
and show vouchers, match-plays, and Any Room…
Any Weekday postcard offers
semi-neatly organized by gaming-region and country.
To show that it is in fact a legitimate trip planning area and not just a
throwback-to-a-60’s-era
lounge, you’ll see a larger-than-life
wall-map of the world that has colored push-pins in all of the
casino destinations where I’ve played, as
well as pins of a different color to demark the few places
that offer craps but where I haven’t yet
had the pleasure of playing.
A little earlier in our walk around the lab I mentioned that I had a few…
Projects Still In
Development
They include:
~Jeffrey47’s new
PerfectionDensity concept that we’ve been discussing over on the “Accordion”
thread at dicesetter.com’s M-board.
In a nutshell, the PerfectionDensity concept helps us track the quality
of each throw in relation to its
actual outcome in a way that we can
accurately predict how likely we are to encounter clusters or
clumps of certain outcomes within a
fairly tight time-frame (as measured by point-cycle rolls).
Though it is still in the conceptual stage; the idea of taking the
quantity of influenced throws a
skilled shooter is likely to produce during
a given point-cycle (as we’ve already done in the
Regression
Avoids Depression series), and merging it with a
predictive-model where the
quality of each toss and the
recurrence-interval (or frequency) of each clump of “good throws” is
measured and weighed against the actual
outcome; makes for a very compelling, bet-focusing
venture.
~I am also continuing to work on my
shooting from pretty much every player-position at both
sides of the table. As I
mentioned previously, I have set up the SL-end table-surface as medium-
firm/neutral and the SR-end as
medium-soft/bouncy. That way, I can practice on two different often-
encountered but completely contrasting
surfaces; and then move around the table, shooting from
each of the player-positions while
practicing on both types of surfaces.
That coincides with my strong recommendation that you set up your practice
rig to closely mimic
the table-surface you encounter most
often at the casinos you normally play at most frequently.
~In concert with that, I am also
working on improving my pitch-control and facial-correlation
like
never before.
Avoiding double-pitches has always been of utmost importance to me, but I am
finding it even more
relevant in terms of how much it can
improve my in-casino profitability at an accelerated pace. In
other words, for every additional
percentage-point that I can improve my facial-correlation and
pitch-control (especially in
avoiding double-pitches); my profit improves at a much higher rate
simply because most bets payoff at better
than 1:1 even-money, and therefore the payback for any
improvement in pitch-control or
facial correlation is disproportionately rewarded when compared
to the improvement itself.
As a result, small incremental improvements to pitch-control and
facial-correlation has allowed me
to make huge advances in the amount
of money I can rake off of the tables, despite the fact that the
actual improvement itself has not really
been that significant. Obviously I’m pursuing that
particular project with noteworthy gusto.
~I have also started to work on some
function-expansions for DiceTool as well as a couple of
add-on features. To help the serious
recreational dice-influencer make more profit from the current
skills they have right now, I am also
working on some advanced bet-calibration, bet-spread, and
bet-sizing features for DiceTool that will
take all of the guesswork and fear out of your wagering
decisions. Watch for more details on
this development very soon.
~Needless to say, I am still
improving and refining my Game Within A Game
come-out cycle
betting-strategies for both Rightside and
Darkside bettors. As well, I am also composing some
incredibly efficient variants of the Iron
Cross wager that you’ll be reading about in my ongoing
You
Can’t Shine
A Cow-Patty…or Can You? series.
~Along those same lines, my
War-Gaming Station has seen me putting in a fair amount of effort
into some fascinating counter-intuitive
approaches to the Field-bet while using variants of the
S-6 dice-set on
low-population, high-buck tables. I’m debating how long I can hold off on
expressing
my overwhelming enthusiasm for this
sometimes shorter-lived, but much-more-profitable
point-cycle betting approach.
Well folks, that’s the five-cent tour of my
precision-shooting laboratory, so let’s mosey on over to the table and see
what our toss looks like.
Good Luck & Good Skill at the tables…and in Life.
Sincerely,
The Mad Professor
Copyright © 2006
Back
to The Mad Professor Speaks Main Page!
|
