|
|
|
Dice Coach & Instructors / Newsletter / Contact / Home
|
|
|
How
To Get THERE from HERE
Part VIII This
is probably the right time to remind you that this particular series is for players who
have gotten past the basics of dice-influencing, yet are still struggling to move their
game up to the next snack-bracket of profitability. It
delves into the finer points of breaking out of your current revenue bracket and into one
that better reflects the actual edge that you have over this game. After all, if you have a discernable edge over the
house, then it should be showing up in terms of bankroll growth. For many players, they get the one (a validated
edge over the casino), but not the other (a real increase in the amount of actual dollars
that makes it into your pocket). To
make a successful transition, most players have to leave behind old superstitions,
ineffective or at least, inefficient betting-methods, and worn-out money-management
concepts that simply don’t work often enough to provide sustainable profit-growth. Getting
from HERE (where your current Precision-Shooting profitability is right now) to THERE
(where your dice-influencing profitability deserves to be) usually takes a complete
rebirth of your game plan as far as what you do, how you do
it, when you do it, and how long you do it for. The
WHY part of that equation is the simplest:
Ø
You
want to increase your profitability without substantially increasing your risk.
Ø
You
want your edge over the house to be reflected in real earnings that go directly into your
pocket…and stay there. The
route is straight-forward.
Ø
We
bet when we have the advantage, and we only bet on wagers where
we have the advantage.
Ø
We
measure how much of an edge we have over each bet that we make; then we deploy a suitable
portion of our session-bankroll in relation to that edge. That’s
how an advantage-player derives full benefit from the edge he has developed over the house
without endangering the integrity of his bankroll. For
every bet that you make in a casino where you don’t have an advantage, you are
willingly giving back a portion of the edge that you’ve worked so hard to gain. When you give back too much of the advantage, then
you are back in the same bend-over-and-pick-up-the-soap position you were as a
random-roller. Your
Primal Scream
That
sound you hear is the primal scream of being reborn into the higher-ranks of
Precision-Shooting reliability. It’s
not an easy process, and it’s not always without pain.
The
development of an aspiring Precision-Shooter is similar to the journey of a child
progressing through adolescence and finally emerging as an adult. The process is never without setbacks,
disappointments, unanticipated opportunities, distractions, coincidence, and unexpected
challenges. In other words, there are many
parallels between how we handle our personal strengths, weaknesses, threats and
opportunities in everyday life that are directly reflected in how we manage and control
our Precision-Shooting efforts as well. To
go from mediocre (or break-even) profitability to the point where you are earning what you
really deserve from your skills, you have to take an almost primal approach to how you do
it. I
say “primal”, because this whole series will make you look far below the surface
of normal dice-setting discussion, and force you to answer some fundamental questions
about whether you are truly willing and able to embrace the elemental changes that are
needed to successfully take your money-making capability from HERE to THERE. One
of the things that each article in this series really focuses on is how to ramp up your
betting while simultaneously ramping up your mental control and discipline. One goes hand in hand with the other. Great
shooting does little good if you don't have money on the proper wagers, or in the right
proportion to your abilities and your bankroll. In
the bigger picture, you also have to grapple with the mental aspects of this game, like
self-control and discipline. If
you fall short on one of those elements; then you’ll always fall short of your
potential. Finding
Where Your Profit Is Hidden Part
of your job as a dice-influencer is to determine which numbers you are actually
“influencing” the most. That
doesn’t always mean the numbers you are throwing the most, but rather the ones
that are appearing more frequently than their Standard Expectation. For
example, if you throw two additional 6’s and 8’s in every thirty-six rolls,
that’s a 40% increase over how often the Expectancy Chart tells us a random-roller
will throw them, so now each of them show up 19.44% of the time instead of their usual
13.88% appearance-rate. However,
if you throw two additional 2’s and 12’s in the same average sampling, then for
them it’s a 200% increase over how often we can expect them, and now each of them
pops up 8.33% of the time instead of their usual 2.77% appearance-rate. Though
you’ll now see a total of fourteen 6’s and 8’s, which obviously represents
an excellent betting opportunity in and of itself; the six 2’s and 12’s,
represent a much higher profit potential even though they appear less than half as often
as the others. As
a dice-influencer you have to determine which numbers you are actually influencing the
most, and then act on that information by wagering on that advantage in a way that will
maximize your profit without endangering your session-stake. There’s
only eleven numbers to choose from, and depending on how you throw the dice, how often you
are able to keep them on-axis, and of course which dice-sets you use; will determine which
numbers are influenced the most. It
is your job to determine which numbers they are.
Ø
How
many times have you said to yourself, “Hmm, I sure am rolling a few more
“x” than I usually do”?
Ø
How
many times have you sat down and reviewed your roll-tracking notes from a practice session
and noticed the clustering of certain numbers that you don’t normally bet on in the
casino?
Ø
How
many times have to done a cumulative review of several recent practice sessions and
thought to yourself, “Gee, there sure are a lot of recurring numbers that are
appearing way more than normal, but I don’t usually bet on those when I’m in the
casino; I wonder if I should?”
Ø
How
many times have you looked at your roll-tracking spreadsheet and been amazed to find that
some of the low-occurrence numbers like 2, 3, 11 and 12 could actually be one of your
strongest plays as far an exploitable advantage over the house is concerned? Your
job is to sift, sort and mine that mountain of practice-session roll-data to find the
golden opportunities that are hidden within. You
can’t rely strictly on gut-feel, hunches and intuition for accuracy…sometimes
you have to use more precise roll-tracking and deciphering tools that instantly identify,
define and classify what would normally take days, weeks or even months for your
gut-feelings to clue into. If
you’re not using some of the incredibly easy-to-use software that is free for the
asking (and accessible from this site); but relying instead on intuition and guesswork to
guide your bet-making decisions; then it’s going to be quite difficult for you to
isolate specific up-to-the-minute skill-based wagering opportunities. Or
to put it in the vernacular… When
you have immediate access to weather-tracking Doppler radar, satellite-imaging and
advanced, up-to-the-minute predictive-modeling; relying solely on Aunt Bertha’s
bursitis to forecast the national weather isn’t always the paradigm of accuracy. Find
Consistent Opportunity and You’ll Find Consistent Profit
A
clear-headed and non-predisposed view of the numbers that you throw most convincingly,
both at-home and in the casino; is needed in order to gain a full understanding and
appreciation of where your best betting opportunities are to be found. Let
me give you an example:
Ø
If
you first measure how many of either your Signature Numbers or usual Place-bets roll, on
average, before you throw a 7-Out; then you have a measure of HOW and WHERE you can
lock-up an early profit without exposing your bankroll to undue risk.
Ø
Let’s
say that you usually get about 3.5 of those hits prior to a 7-out. That means you would
allow yourself enough time (as measured by the number of rolls thrown) to secure a profit
before you decide to take the lions share of your money out of harms way. Knowledge
is power. If
we know what kinds of numbers we throw before we normally 7-Out, then we also know how
many rolls we usually have to work with in order to ensure a profit from almost every
hand.
Ø
In
this example you could do a Steep Regression immediately after your third
bet-collection. If we know we usually are
able to collect about three-and-a-half times on either our Signature Numbers or usual
Place-bets before a 7-Out, we have to structure our bet-decisions in COMPLIANCE
with that knowledge and not in DEFIANCE of it.
Ø
A
more conservative approach would be to do a Steep Regression after our first hit,
and then to narrow our betting-range (the numbers that are covered with wagers) even
further just before we get to our usual 7-Out point. What
we do with our knowledge delineates and defines our DESIRE TO WIN versus our DESIRE
TO GAMBLE. Knowledge
and understanding of the extent to which we can influence the dice (and for how many rolls
per hand it usually lasts), can help us decide what to do at each step along the way. For
example, that same knowledge can help us decide what to do during the Come-out phase of
our hand.
Ø
Do
we use the C-O as a separate profit source, and if so, should we aggressively press our
Come-Out wagers that hit, in the hope of scoring a major ego-boosting payday, or do we
satisfy our wallets with a lower and less volatile, but more predictable income-stream? Those
questions can best be answered and continually updated by the information we glean from
our practice-session roll-tracking database. If
we know how many times a parlay would work versus the number of times that it won’t;
then we can calculate whether it is a good play or not. If
you won’t ask yourself those questions because the answers may force you to change
your game; then there’s a good chance that your profitability will stay pretty much
where it is right now as opposed to where it deserves to be if your bets were
deployed in a more efficient manner. You
may like to make hunch-bets, but most bankrolls cannot afford them. If your shooting-skill doesn’t justify it,
then it probably isn’t a valid on-going proposition. The
knowledge that you compile from your practice-sessions also helps us decide what to do
with the first couple of rolls after we establish the PL-Point.
Ø
If
we know that we’ll throw an average of three Inside-Numbers within the first six
Point-cycle rolls; then that knowledge can help us structure a betting-approach that
permits a profit-lock within that same short time-frame.
Ø
It
also forces us to take a long hard look at the other non-Inside-Numbers that are
also being thrown in that same period. Do
they offer a viable betting-opportunity; and if so, do any of them offer payout-multiples
that are superior to the ones that the Inside-Numbers are offering? Our
roll-tracking knowledge also helps us decide what to do once we have an early profit
locked up, and what to do once we reach the point in our hand where we usually 7-Out.
Ø
Many
players are comfortable in turning all of their bets “Off” at their average-roll-length-7-Out
juncture, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that in light of the retained-profit
that they’ve made up to this point in their hand.
However, I prefer to regress my Place-bets down to a lower level where I
have a substantial profit in my rack, but still keep my most dominant Signature-Numbers in
action in the event that this hand goes beyond its normal length. Our
roll-tracking information not only tells us how many throws of the dice our hand will
usually last, on average; but it also tells us how often and how far it will go once it
gets past that average. Logic
tells us that about 50% of our hands will obviously last longer than that norm, and our
combined practice-session and casino-session data will tell us how far it will usually go
once it gets past that point. All
of that information gives us a better understanding of opportunities that are real
as opposed to imagined, and it helps us properly structure our bets as each hand
unfolds. Since
we’ve discussed how to handle the shorter-than-average hands, what do we do about the
longer-than-average ones?
Ø
If
our bets are “Off” when we reach our average-roll-length-7-Out point; do
we leave them off? If they’ve been
regressed to their lowest level, do we leave them at that value or do we raise them if the
hand continues? If we press them, how rapidly
should we do it, and will we get to a point where we should regress them again, or will we
get to a point where the increases should be even bigger with each and every
subsequent payout. How do we decide whether
or not to spread our bets over a wider range of numbers, and at what point during any
given hand should we do that? The
answer to all of those questions is found deep within your current roll-data. You have to listen to what your dice-influencing
skill is telling you. The more knowledge and
insight you gain as far as unearthing exploitable betting-opportunities are concerned; the
better prepared you’ll be to profit from each of them.
Now,
having said that…a betting-method that works perfectly for someone else may be the
exact opposite of what you should be doing with your money. If you don’t look at what YOUR roll-data is
telling you; then your money-making skills will probably never catch up to your
dice-influencing skills. When
you overlook, ignore or completely disregard a given edge that you’ve developed
(either because you’re too stubborn to change or too lazy to look for it in the first
place); then you’ve done the casinos a favor that they wouldn’t be so quick
about doing for you. They’re in business
to take your money…why make it any easier for them? An
advantage-player decodes his roll-tracking data…uncovers previously hidden wagering
alternatives…and translates all of that into actionable bet-decisions that produce
more profit, more often, and more persuasively. When
you unearth all the opportunities that are hidden within your dice-influencing sphere,
you’ll find consistent profit attached to many of them. It’s
up to you to do something about it. To
succeed at Precision-Shooting, you have to develop a keen understanding of your skills,
and then use that knowledge to extract profit from the exploitable and credible ones, and
not get sucked in by the flimsy and ineffective pretenders. It
is up to you to figure out which bets offer the best prospects and which ones aren’t
yet ripe enough for harvesting. When
you find consistent opportunity, you’ll find consistent profit. Remember,
the objective of this whole exercise is to take your game-earnings from where they are now
to where you want them to be. Let
me give you an example of how you have to dissect any betting-method that you are thinking
about using, to find out if it is appropriate for you and your current skill-set: Advantages
& Drawbacks of Regression-Betting
Regression-betting
offers numerous advantages along with a few restrictive drawbacks.
Ø
The
biggest drawback of course is that a quick 7-Out before you have a chance to regress your
bets to a point where you have a locked-in profit, leaves you in a position where you have
to overcome a substantial loss.
Ø
The
way to combat that is to take a serious look at the percentage of hands when quick-outs
occur, and then structure a betting-method that properly deals with it. In most cases, a Steep Regression might still
work, but you have to engineer it in such a way that the times that you lose to a quick
7-out before you’ve collected at least one bet and regressed all of your wagers down,
is overcome by the sheer income-producing force from the times when you don’t throw
an early-out.
Ø
As
I’ve said previously, Precision-Shooting is a thinking-man’s game. You have to put enough contemplation,
deliberation, consideration and careful thought INTO
what it is you do at the craps table in order to get a consistent profit OUT of it. The
benefits of Regression-betting are many:
Ø
Steep
Regressions let you take advantage of all but the shortest (Point-then-7-Out) hands by
locking in an early profit on the first paying hit; yet it
lets you stay in the game with multiple active bets still on the table.
Ø
You’ll
find that the broader you spread your initial bets, the steeper the regression has to be
to accomplish the same goal. For example, if you simply Place-bet the 8 for $12 and
regress it to $6 after one hit; then you’d still have an $8 profit to show, even if
the 7 shows up on the very next roll. However, if you do that for both the 6 and
the 8, then you’ll only have an in-rack net-profit of $2, but of course you now have
twice the amount of money still in action on twice as many numbers.
Ø
Likewise,
as you spread out to $44 Inside ($12 each on the 6 & 8, and $10 each on the 5 &
9), then one $14-paying hit doesn’t come close to giving you ANY net-profit to work
with and still allow you to have all four Inside Numbers covered at the $22-Inside value.
In this case, you could reduce the breadth of the bets, by reducing your
active-wagers to just the 6 and 8 for $6 each, or you could increase the initial
Inside-Numbers (pre-regression) wager to $66-Inside, which would still leave you one-buck
short in order to cover the 5, 6, 8, & 9 at the $22-Inside regressed level.
Ø
In
the next highest alternative, you could go to $88-Inside for a $28 one-hit payout which
would generate enough cash-flow to cover a steep, fully-paid-for regression to the
$22-Inside level, and still guarantee a minimum $6 net-profit after all is said and
done. As
you can see, the wider you want to spread your bets (to increase your prospects of picking
up a “first-hit” payoff), the higher your initial wagers (both individually and
collectively) have to be in order for the first hit to pay enough for minimum-bet coverage
on just as wide a range of bets once you regress them. In
other words, the wider the range (the more bets that you want to cover); the higher your
initial total bet needs to be if you plan to use a Steep Regression and maintain just as
wide of a spread of numbers. With
regression-betting, the idea is to get as early of a profit out of the way (off the layout
and into your rack) as soon as possible; and then by the time your hand reaches it’s
average roll-length, you should not only have that initial profit locked up from a couple
of rolls earlier, but also a few more bucks from the interceding rolls that bring you up
to your roll-average. At
this average roll-length juncture we have a couple of decisions to make.
Ø
We
can keep our bet the same, regress them again, turn them off, or press-and-collect from
here on out. The
recurring theme that I keep hearing from talented shooters who aren’t pulling in the
profit that their own dice-influencing indicates that they should; is that they are
waiting to build their bankroll to a point where they can comfortably do a proper
regression. Okay,
that’s fine, but the fact remains that they’ll continue to watch their bankroll
erode or at least stagnate (by putting off the use of an early and steep bet-regression),
by sticking with wagering-approaches that often call for three, four, five or more
winning-hits before break-even profitability is ever reached within any given hand. The
naked truth is that if you can afford to make bets that cover multiple numbers and
therefore require multiple hits before everything is paid for; then you can afford to
start with a narrower spread of bets and use an early regression to lock up a win (and
still keep some wagers on the layout after you regress them) in the event that your hand
continues past its average length. Of
course you could leave the big bets up there for a few additional paying-hits, but you
also know that each throw brings you one step closer to your average roll-length 7-Out. Each
additional roll means additional risk, but it can also mean additional profit. You have to weigh and balance those
elements…not with greed and fear, but with knowledge and intelligence. One
of your tasks as a Precision-Shooter is to carefully interpret what YOUR
average-roll is indicating, and for you to arrange and configure your wagers to best fit
within those parameters. Did
I Mention That Knowledge Is Power?
Obviously
a player has to put substantial effort into figuring out which betting-methods and which
wagering-amounts are right for him. The
lazy approach is usually the unprofitable approach. Once
you know what your average roll-length is, how many Signature-Numbers you hit in that same
period and which ones are covered by the bets that you want to make; then you’ll have
the information to determine a good Steep Regression starting point, as well as
determining how quickly and how steeply you should regress them once they hit. From
that point, you’ll also know how quickly you can build them up again from their
regressed-value or whether it is best to turn them “Off”, and for how long. As
your skills progress and your self-knowledge increases, you'll be able to make actionable
improvements to the WAY you bet, HOW you bet and WHEN you bet. It all comes down to knowing yourself,
knowing the edge that you have over the house, and knowing how to bet it properly. If
regression-betting allows you to get the risk of losing out of the way sooner in any given
Place-bet sequence; then it also gives you the opportunity to build additional profits
much earlier and much more steadily during any given hand as well. As
skilled Precision-Shooters, we may not be able to change the house-vig on any given bet,
but we certainly have the opportunity to put it behind us and attain (and retain) the
advantage over the casino on a go-forward basis. That
means that once our active bets are fully paid for, it is our responsibility and our duty
to take full advantage of the edge we’ve developed over the house as much as possible
(but still within the loss-tolerance scope of the casino that we are currently playing
in). In
other words…make as much money as you can, but do it without endangering the future
of any dice-influencer’s money-earning capability at that particular gaming-house. Consistent
and predictable profits are derived from evaluating and then capitalizing on the
betting-opportunities that our dice-influencing skills offer up…and by avoiding all
the other bets where we don’t have an edge. If
we know where we have a discernable edge over the house; then we know where the lions
share of our profit can come from. Knowing
it
is one thing…doing something about it is completely different. If
you want to get from HERE to THERE, then you have to make the proper wagers
that convert your theoretical advantage into real and tangible earnings. Good Luck &
Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life. Sincerely, The
Mad Professor
|
|
