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Ask the Mad Professor
Part 12
(read part I
here or Part 2
here or Part 3
here or
here for part 4 for
here for part5 or
here
for part 6 or
here for part 7 or
here for part 8 or
here for part 9
here for part 10
here for part 11)
A man brought a very limp dog into the
veterinary clinic. As he laid the dog on the table, the doctor pulled out his stethoscope,
placing it on the dog's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and
said, "I'm sorry, but your dog has passed away." "What?" screamed the
dogs owner, "How can you tell? You haven't done any testing on him or anything. I
want another opinion!" With that, the
vet turned and left the room.
In a few moments, he returned with a Labrador
Retriever. The Retriever went right to work, checking the poor dead dog out thoroughly.
After a considerable amount of sniffing, the Retriever sadly shook his head and said,
"Bark". The veterinarian then took the Labrador out and returned in a few
moments with a cat, who also checked out the poor dog on the table. As had his
predecessor, the cat sadly shook his head and said, "Meow." He then jumped off the table and ran out of the
room. The veterinarian handed the man a bill for $600. The dog's owner went postal.
"$600! Just to tell me my dog is dead? This is Outrageous!" The vet shook his
head sadly and explained. "If you had taken my word for it, the bill would have been
$50, but with the Lab work and the cat scan..."
The
cyber-questions keep on coming in, and I appreciate all of your kind thoughts and “
‘atta boys”. The biggest thanks and
kudos really have to go to Irishsetter for hosting this fine website, and for keeping it
fresh, timely, focused and with so many great new articles that are listed on the “What’s
New” page every couple of days; this site is truly the ultimate source for
Precision-Shooters. We all appreciate
Irishsetters dedication and commitment.
Here’s another excellent batch of e-mail inquiries from a wide variety of readers
again this week.
| Q: |
Stashing
techniques 101 – Okay, Mad Professor, how do you stash so many gaming-chips without
the box-man knowing that you are coloring-up for much less than you actually won? |
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| A: |
It
depends on how busy the table is, and how long it has taken to build up that profit. Usually, I begin stashing $25 chips into my pocket
as soon as I buy-in. If the floor-supervisor
starts rating me within three minutes of my $1000 buy-in, he sees that I have already
apparently “lost” about $50 or $75. That’s
a good start. |
As my time at the table progresses, I will continue to bleed off
those green chips. If my betting-payoffs
deliver any black $100 chips to my rail, I will check all of the other players rail-space
to see the total number of black chips in the player-rails and on the felt betting-layout. That will tell me how closely they are watching
the C-Note chips. If I am the only one with
those chips; then they stay in my rack, and I concern myself solely with squirreling-away
the green chips. Conversely, if there is a
lot of “black” action on the betting; then the $100 chips (cheques) are not
tracked as carefully. Table action and color
of the action pretty much determine how much I skim and what “color” I skim.
| Q: |
How
long have you owned a real craps table? I’m
surprised that it pays dividends to you at this point in your professional career. If Ms. Mad P. had not purchased it, would
you have bought it for yourself? |
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| A: |
Good
question. I got the craps table as an early
Christmas present in late November, 2001. I
have been able to refine my game quite a bit with it.
I wish I hadn’t waited for so long to ask Mrs. Claus for it. Yes, a craps table was a small treat that I had
planned for myself last year, and Ms. MP very thoughtfully beat me to it. |
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| Q: |
The
last time that I was in Vegas, we tried out the tables at Sunset Station. They were great just like you said they would be. I was wondering what the rooms are like, and if
the comps are fairly easy. We usually stay
downtown at The Freemont or Lady Luck and get full comps.
How does the Sunset Station compare? |
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| A: |
I
can tell you that the rooms and suites at Sunset Station are in much better shape that
either The Freemont or Lady Luck. I find the
mini-suites at the Lady Luck are too crowded with too much furniture for the space. SS has good quality rooms, and the comps are
fairly easy to get, but their comp-level is a bit higher than Lady Luck, and more on par
with The Freemont. |
In
the Sunset Station rooms, they have several free premium movie channels including HBO and
Showtime. There is a room-service card where
you can place an order for jumbo popcorn, two soft drinks, Twizzlers, and two Kit Kats for
$7.50. This is a nice feature if you have
bored children with you, or you want a quiet, relaxed in-suite evening.
Sunset also has an outdoor-amphitheater that has frequent
big-name concerts. It sounds as though your
level of play would also qualify for free concert tickets for the likes of Alice Cooper,
Little River Band, Eric Burdon, Patty Loveless, Blue Oyster Cult, Ronnie Milsap, and The
Doobie Brothers, etc.
| Q: |
I
was in Vegas for the “September to Remember” with Irishsetter, Heavy and Frank
Scoblete. A couple of us tried out the
California Hotel. It was a profitable, but
crowded session. I didn’t see that
Precision-Shooters plaque that you mentioned quite a long time ago. Is it still there? |
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| A: |
The
Golden Arm Award plaque is still there, and is located on the large brick column as soon
as you go down the two small steps into the dice pit.
It’s not strictly a “Precision-Shooters” plaque so much as it
is a “long-roll” plaque. To
qualify, your roll has to be at least one hour long.
The longest documented roll at The California
is three hours and eight minutes. I wasn’t
there for that mega-roll, but a friend of mine, Hawaii Joe was in on it, and he tells me
that the shooter was definitely
a Precision-Shooter from the islands.
Oh by the way, if you are playing there again, check out their
Pasta Pirate restaurants “Chocolate Heart-Attack” cake. It has a pudding-cake bottom, cheesecake middle,
and thick chocolate-ganoche top. |
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| Q: |
MP, this isn’t
really a craps question, but I’ve been surfing Heavy’s Roulette Message Board,
and I was wondering if you could tell me if you know of any single-zero roulette wheels in
Vegas. |
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| A: |
With single-zero
roulette, the House-edge is about 2.7%, which is roughly equivalent to Place betting the 5
or 9 in craps. Vegas single-zero wheel houses
are: |
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v
Nevada
Palace- home of the ultimate 10-cent minimum game
v
Stratosphere-all
wheels
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Monte
Carlo-all wheels
v
MGM
Grand-usually $25 tables
v
Venetian-usually
$10 tables
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Tropicana-almost
all wheels
v
LV-Hilton
v
Frontier
v
Luxor-one
single-zero wheel, open some of the time
v
Rampart
Casino-scheduled for replacement with double-zero wheel
v
Hyatt
Regency Lake Las Vegas/Casino Baraka
v
Mandalay
Bay-$25 minimum
v
Fiesta-Henderson-may
have been replaced with a double-zero during their Congo-theme to Mexi-Carib-theme
conversion.
v
Caesars
Palace-$25 minimum, $100 on weekends
v
Paris-$25
minimum, $100 on weekends.
v
Bellagio
has European rules (en prison), which lowers the House-edge to 1.35%. That is cheaper than a Place bet on the 6 or 8 in
craps, but these are $25 and $100 minimum-bet wheels.
v
Mirage-same
as Bellagio |
Thanks again for all the great
questions. Until next time.
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in
Life.
The Mad
Professor
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