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How
To Get THERE from HERE
Part IX I
hate losing as much as I love winning. I
realize that no matter how talented I get as a dice-influencer, winning and
losing will always remain a part of this game. I
also realize that I have to take some risk in order to make money while playing it. What
the savvy Precision-Shooter comes to realize, hopefully sooner than later, is that the higher
your talents climb and the more money you devote exclusively to your specific advantage(s); the less risk your bankroll is
subject to…and obviously, the more net-profit you will be able to make. That
formula meshes perfectly with my hate to lose, love to win philosophy. Please
notice that making consistent money from this game does not involve taking undue
(disproportionate or unjustified) risk.
Ø
The
advantage-player actually endures much less risk with each wager that he makes
(when compared to the exposure and liability taken by a random-roller) even though he
might have hundreds or even thousands of dollars more in play than the
indiscriminate-shooter does.
Ø
It’s
also important to understand that if you are an advantage-player but you are betting on
wagers where you have no edge; then you are still simply gambling just like
everybody else.
Ø
For
the advantage-player; lower risk, higher returns, and better profit holds the appeal.
Ø
The
giddy and mostly immature thrill of letting it all hang out and needlessly risking money
to random-chance simply does not hold nearly as much charm, allure or temptation as making
consistent profit does. That’s the
significant difference between an advantage-player and a gambler. The
gambler does it for the thrill, excitement and entertainment. The
advantage-player does it for the profit-achievement and the sense of accomplishment that
comes from beating an “unbeatable” game. In
other words, he’s in it to WIN and he does it for the money. Gambling
for the thrill instead of using our advantage-play skills for the profit is
often what prevents otherwise sober, diligent and conscientious players from every
reaching their easy-to-achieve Precision-Shooting goals. Your
Route Determines Your Destination
The
lower risk…higher return…and better profit advantage-play path is fairly easy to
chart; however the execution and disciplined maintenance of that plan is never easy. Staying
exclusively on the advantage-play road is made all the more difficult if you have always
struggled with discipline, as I have. My
own route to consistent dice-influencing profit is:
Ø
Continually
develop your dice-influencing in tandem with your tailored-to-skill betting-methods.
Ø
Strictly
bet when and where you have the advantage.
Ø
Reinvest
a reasonable portion of your profit to fuel more and/or larger advantage-play wagers. There
are probably other ways to get there, but frankly, I’m not aware of any of them. Success comes from balancing your skill against
your bankroll and interlacing it with your tolerance for risk.
Ø
It
does you absolutely no good if you have a high tolerance for risk, but your dice-shooting
sucks.
Ø
Likewise,
it does you absolutely no good if you have a discernable advantage over certain wagers,
but you put more of your money on NON-advantage plays which quickly erode the player-edge
that you’ve worked so hard to build up against the casino.
Ø
It
doesn’t take very many non-effective (non-advantage) wagers to eat away at your
prevalent margin…no matter how good you are. You’d
be amazed at the number of incredibly skilled players with whom that message is completely
lost on. The
path to consistent dice-influencing profit may be easy to characterize, but like I said,
the actual journey is always much, much more difficult to travel and survive…
Ø
Sustainable
success comes from balancing the inherent risk of putting your money into
play…against the prospects of turning your dice-influencing skills into actual
retained profit.
Ø
Too
much risk without a sufficient validated edge against the bets you are making, too often
rewards you with a loss instead of a rightfully earned profit.
Ø
Likewise,
the use of too little wagering-capital on bets where you do have the advantage
means you’ll get too little return (net-profit) for the amount of effort that
you’ve put into building your talents. Invariably
that results in frustration and irritation over the apparent disconnect between your
strong shooting-talents and your weak wagering-earnings. For
the advantage-player, the equilibrium between balancing his skills and his bankroll
against the risk and volatility of the game (and particularly against the bets that he is
making) is often a frustrating equation. Let’s
look at a few ways to better manage that journey and make it a little less
frustrating… Matching
Betting-Methods to Your CURRENT Skill-Level
It
doesn’t have to be that way. In
simple terms, consistent
dice-influencing profit
comes down to HOW to bet, WHEN to bet, and WHAT to bet on. My
upcoming 6-Sigma Betting Approach and Bankroll Strategy
series takes what we know about currently thought-to-be-optimal Betting-Methods and
ties them directly into what your current bankroll indicates it CAN afford, and what your
CURRENT Precision-Shooting skill-set indicates your bets SHOULD warrant. In
a nutshell, the simplest way to do that is to weave YOUR risk-tolerance, YOUR skill-level,
YOUR bankroll, and YOUR win-objectives together into an advantage-play matrix that matches
each of those elements into an ideal betting strategy that is right (and tailor-made) for
YOU. How
does a moderately talented dice-influencer even begin to tackle that skill-based,
money-based, risk-based, and goal-based template?
Ø
We
first have to look at the advantage (if any) that you have over the house, and on what
particular bets each different dice-set indicates that it will produce the steadiest or
most productive return-on-investment for you.
Ø
We
then look at how consistently you can produce that advantage. The more reliable your skill is, the more money
you can confidently wager on it.
Ø
We
also have to look at the risk/reward ratio as well. If
you have a consistent but low-edge advantage over some of the more conventional wagers
like the Inside-Numbers; and a higher, but more volatile advantage over a few of the
enhanced payout wagers like the Horn, World or other specific bets like the Hardways; then
we can accurately measure how much of a given bankroll (based on your
risk-tolerance and your win-objectives and your current outcome-volatility)
should be dedicated to the reliable but lower-edge Inside-bets (or to your most dominant
Signature-Numbers) versus how much money you can safely stake on those less-dependable but
higher-payout Prop-bets.
Ø
We
then look at ways to use various betting-methods and wagering strategies to extract faster
profit, but with a lower associated risk (again, based on what your CURRENT skills
indicate).
Ø
Enhanced
profit-extraction means that we not only look merely at our dice-influencing edge over a
specific number or group of equally-occurring numbers and the base-amount of money we
should be betting on them. Rather, we also
have to fully consider various ways and means to ramp-up and expand the revenue-mining and
throw-to-throw retained-earnings that we are actually able to extract from that advantage
on nearly every hand. What
does that really mean?
Ø
Superior
(and reliably steady) profit-extraction might mean the use of Steeper (or more rapidly
triggered) Regressions; it might mean using variable percentages and staged-ratios of
bet-Progressions and stepped Power-Presses, and it might also mean the use of assorted
bet-plateaus and on-going income-removal (revenue-mining and throw-to-throw
earnings-extraction) methods. In
fact, your skill-based, money-based, risk-based, and goal-based objectives might demand
the use of each one of those elements during different stages of your hand.
Ø
For
example, your current skills may demand that you treat your Come-Out rolls not only as a
separate game-within-a-game profit-source, but also as a pre-validator (qualifier)
that helps determine how you handle the first couple of rolls and your associated initial
bets after you establish the PL-Point…all based on how successful you were during the
C-O sequence.
Ø
Further
to that, you may find that using different bet-decision trigger-points (that are derived
from your skill-based, bankroll-based, risk-based, and goal-based objectives) as each
successive throw unfolds; gives you more roll-to-roll control over your retained-winnings
as well as helping to maintain the every-roll-is-a-money-roll freshness that
fosters sharper mental and physical acuity and dare I say…more dice-influencing precision.
Ø
As
savvy dice-influencers, we also has to look at how to avoid over-estimating our skills and
over-betting our bankroll, as well as how to avoid under-rating our skills and
under-betting our wagers. Like I mentioned a
moment ago; consistent profit comes from carefully balancing all of your needs and wants
against your current skills and bankroll capabilities.
Ø
Successful
Precision-Shooters have to tie all of their throwing-talents together with suitable
betting-methods and appropriate wagering-levels that are matched to their own particular
bankroll, risk-tolerance and win-objectives. As
our skills improve and evolve, and as our bankrolls increase through ability-based
wagering, and our risk-tolerance changes based on the confidence that those validated
skills inspire; then our betting-methods including regression/progression trigger-points,
ramped bet-plateau positioning, and profit-extraction/bet-pressing ratios, etc. (but not
necessarily the strategies behind them) have to change right along with them.
Ø
If
you first isolate the specific numbers over which certain dice-sets produce a reliable
enough advantage for you; then you have the makings of a consistent money-generator.
Ø
You
have to do your homework to determine how big your advantage is, how consistent it is, and
whether it is authentic enough to actually bet on it. Listen,
I’m not trying to get the children of your village to sing my name in praise…but
making consistent money off of this game is
really THAT SIMPLE! I’ll
readily admit that it does sound complicated, but it’s really not. Once
you know where your advantage lays; then your duty is to bet it in a way that reflects
both the ratio and volatility of that advantage, as well as reflecting your bankroll
limitations, your risk-tolerance and your win-objectives. Your
job is to determine that proper mix. Skilled
dice-influencers who fail to do so are doomed to complete and abject failure. Fairly Judge Your
Own Capabilities
How
often do YOU throw decent length hands? A
savvy dice-influencer can answer that question instantly and accurately if they make
actionable notes soon after finishing each casino session as well as tracking useable
information like that during each one of their at-home casino-simulation sessions. Critical
information such as knowing how often you throw decent-length hands, provide the essential
insight and knowledge that a successful dice-influencer needs to know in
order to convert his current right-here, right-now skills into steady geared-to-ability-bankroll-and-risk-tolerance
earnings. For
example…
Ø
If
you know how often you can hit at least one Horn-number during your Come-Out
roll…that information is valuable.
Ø
If
you know how often you hit back-to-back Horn-numbers during your Come-Out roll…that
information is valuable as well.
Ø
If
you know how often you throw Point-then-7-Out hands…that information is obviously
valuable.
Ø
If
you know how often you hit at least ONE Inside-Number during any given hand…then
you’d have to agree that that information could be quite valuable too.
Ø
If
you know the average length of your hand (especially when you take out the diluting effect
of the rare mega-roll hands)…then that information also has to hold some value in
terms of crafting a useful betting-method that will work almost every time you use it. Your session-notes
(from both your at-home practices as well as your real-world casino encounters) will help
you keep track of the good, the bad and the truly ugly. More
importantly, those notes provide the “what-are-my-current-skills-telling-me”
information that enables you to become a better and more profitable player. Those session-notes often illustrate where your
strongest, most reliable geared-to-skill betting-opportunities are, as well as
highlighting some of your current wagers where NONE your money should be bet. Of course, knowing
where your bets should and shouldn’t be placed presumes that you’ll actually
take the appropriate action the next time you are in a casino. Otherwise all of your efforts are for naught, and
it will probably add even more exasperation to your currently frustrating skill-to-profit
disconnect.
Ø
Fairly judging your
own capabilities means that you are measuring how much better your own shooting is when
compared against the random-standard. This in
turn will clearly show you where your current dice-influencing strengths are and where
your most compelling and most potent money-making opportunities will be found.
Ø
For the responsible
Precision-Shooter, that information underscores the value of his own talented shooting as
opposed to the indiscriminate risk that is associated with any arbitrary betting on
random-tossers.
Ø
That gives the
well-balanced player a better understanding of how his money is both won and lost. It also gives him a fresher appreciation and
awareness of how he can convert his current dice-skills into right-here, right-now
tangible and consistent profit without adding one additional grain of risk. In other words, you
have to fairly judge your current capabilities and then transfer that information into a
workable betting-plan that suits your
specific dice-influencing advantage (all the while being mindful of the considerable
volatility that accompanies many wagers even though you have a significant player-edge
over them), as well as reflecting your bankroll limitations, your risk-tolerance and your
win-objectives. The self-discovery
that accompanies that sort of persuasive session-notes information often convinces a tiny
number of mature players to radically scale back most or all of their NON-advantage-play
wagering as they shrug off the yoke of a negative-expectation game, and in its place they
opt to concentrate more of their wagering-weight onto the bets where they actually have an
honest-to-goodness edge over the house. Unfortunately the
number of players who actually make and stick to that decision (of strictly playing craps
as a positive-expectation game and betting exclusively on advantage-play wagers) is
pitifully small. As a result, the population
of sustainably successful Precision-Shooters will probably remain equally small. Shallow
Valleys, Higher Peaks
Most
gamblers have a hard time handling small wins, but to my mind, securing and maintaining
the profit that small wins generate, are a major first-step in the process of taking your
current dice-influencing earnings from where they are right now, to where
you want them to be. In
many cases, a small win is never big enough to satisfy the gambling instinct
that hides deep inside most of us; so we often hang around the tables trying to turn a matchstick
into a lumberyard. Unfortunately,
instead of having a small win to show for all of our efforts; we end up burning through
that small win plus our entire bankroll with that “gotta-get-a-bigger-prize”
mentality.
Ø
Small
wins can cause anxiety in the budding advantage-player simply because they know
they have the advantage, yet a small win (to them) is insufficient evidence that their
edge over the house is working properly.
Ø
The
fact is that most intermediately skilled Precision-Shooters only have a small edge over
the house…so a small win should provide gratifying proof that their
dice-influencing skills ARE working.
Ø
A
small edge over the house, and a small win extracted from the casino, means that you are
on your way. It also means that you have very
little latitude to screw around with it. Anything
you do that runs counter to the tiny advantage that you have developed, will quickly
diminish and eliminate it. Small
edge…small wins…small margin of error.
Ø
Most
players need the ego-boost that a big win offers in order to maintain the faith in their
own Precision-Shooting skills…and to justify all the time they’ve invested in
developing their proficiency in the first place. That
rush-to-get-to-the-Promised-Land-of-BIG-wins mind-set often makes any tangible
improvement all that much harder. There
are NO shortcuts to reliable Precision-Shooting profit-consistency that I’m aware of. I’m waiting for even ONE person to prove me
wrong…or to even offer an alternative and shorter route. Though
I tend to agree that you can't get rich off of small wins, they do play an integral (and
extremely critical) part in a dice-influencers growth-and-development. We talked about this subject extensively in the
two-part How
Good Is YOUR Precision-Shooting series. As
a recap, the Phases of Precision-Shooting include:
·
The
“Open-Minded Random-Roller” Phase
·
The
“Inquisitive Beginner” Phase
·
The
“Unpredictable/Unreliable” Phase
·
The
"Lower-Losses" Phase
·
The
"Break-Even" Phase
·
The
"Inconsistency & Frustration" Phase
·
The
"Redemption and Confirmation" Phase
·
The
"Decision" Phase
·
The
“Professional Player” Phase It’s
almost impossible to successfully (and permanently) bypass one of those stages and jump a
step or two ahead unless you are prepared to encounter a seemingly endless and
exasperating parade of self-imposed setbacks and impediments along the way that will make
you wish you didn’t try to short-circuit (and short change) your learning
process in the first place. It’s
critical to understand that even though you find it so frustrating to be garnering small
wins NOW, it is a vital and necessary step in order for you to get to the bigger, steadier
and more reliable wins in the near-term. These
are the walk-before-you-run steps that will secure and protect all of your
sure-footed steady wins in the future. Don’t
short-change yourself and don’t let your impatience or frustration conspire to delay
or impede your progress. Crawl before you
walk and walk before you run. Your bankroll
and ego will thank you. Small
wins can also really help your game in the psychology of subsequent (down-the-road)
victories over the casino. That is, they help
to set up a proper mind-set, a better attitude and a positively-framed Precision-Shooters
outlook. If
you confidently EXPECT to win (based on your history of small, steady wins);
then you’ll likely continue to do so…only now the value of those wins
will be bigger (based on your more-closely-matched-to-current-skill wagering and
your gradually expanded bankroll). Let
me put it this way:
Ø
If
you keep the depth of your losses shallow, then a portion of your current small wins can
be used to offset those tiny losses.
Ø
When
the good, medium-length hands occur; then those earnings can contribute more to your
overall retained-income…instead of being used to offset and bail-out your previous
deeper losses.
Ø
Multiple
small wins also tend to boost a players confidence, and enables them to ratchet-up their
game-plan betting-level to the next snack-bracket quite a bit sooner than sporadic larger
wins do. An
erratic win-loss record (strictly based on YOUR shooting and YOUR betting) tends to
make many players gun-shy about ratcheting up their wins even though their advantage over
the house is growing by leaps and bounds (and even if it is manifesting itself with
longer-duration rolls). Further
to that, small but steady wins have the effect of boosting a dice-influencers confidence
before they boost their bets...and frequent small wins will provide a lot more
self-assurance and impetus than a string of large repetitious losses that are punctuated
by a rare big win will. If
you keep the loss-valleys as shallow as possible; then you won’t have as far to climb
just to reach the break-even point of sea-level. That
way, more of your skill-based energy can be used to conquer ever-higher profit-peaks
instead of using those same earnings to merely offset larger losses. Your
Skill…Your Attitude…Your Success
As
a dice-influencer develops his skill, so too does he have to keep tabs on how he feels
towards the game and especially towards his Precision-Shooting efforts. Feelings of desperation, anxiety, anger,
frustration, apprehension or worry, can keep even the best of us from reaching or
maintaining our true potential. A
players outlook, attitude and mind-set are often times the major impediment that keeps him
from accomplishing his goals or maximizing his fullest capabilities.
Ø
The
distraction of an unsettled mind is often more than enough to negate any physical
dice-influencing edge that you have developed over this game.
Ø
When
you add in the stress of a casino environment and factor in your monetary risk; it is
often too large of an obstacle for many aspiring dicesetters to constantly overcome. Conversely,
a positive attitude can often make all the difference in confidently executing a steady
stream of on-axis, primary face outcomes roll after roll after roll. Equally,
a good attitude and outlook will often speed the ascent from the frustrating break-even-and-small-wins
phase…into the confidence-building redemption-through-bigger-and-more-consistent-wins
stage of Precision-Shooting. In
other words, how you THINK has a direct and dramatic effect on how you SHOOT. We’ll
be exploring this topic in quite a bit more detail in the very near future. In
the meantime, Heavy has dedicated quite a bit of time and effort in chronicling this
“crap-between-your-ears” X-factor of success, and I would urge you to
take a close and studied look at his ongoing efforts.
It makes for excellent reading, as well as a providing a fine basis for
self-improvement and dice-influencing mastery. Until
next time, Good Luck &
Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life. Sincerely, The Mad Professor
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