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Click Here For Examples of Stacking
Click Here for Top and Bottom Grips
Click Here For Mickey D’s “The Bowler”
more grips below!
The ‘Ideal’ Grip
This too comes from the Kononenko book. The grip consists of the two inner most fingers on the front surface of the dice, the thumb in the middle of the rear surface, and the finger nail of the pointer and pinky fingers applying pressure to the top rear corner surface. The theory behind this grip is that pressure is evenly distributed over the surface of the dice. (that’s why Kononenko called it ‘ideal’) Frankly, I have tried this grip and almost without fail, I had to use my other hand to get the dice securely into this grip, which of course is not permitted. On the other hand, once you have the dice set in this grip, there IS a great deal of control so perhaps with a good deal of practice, this might be viable. Again, this grip is most suited for straight away shooting. If you have some success with this grip, please let me know!
2 and 3 Fingered Pincer
These grips entails using only 2 (or 3) fingers to hold the dice, gripping them only on the ends. Most often it is the thumb and forefinger or the thumb and middle finger. These grips more often than not employ a forehanded throwing technique. Therefore, your positioning at the table would either be to the right of the stickman for the shortest throwing distance, or to the right of the boxman. The dice again are tossed in a manner that they fly in a horizontal line perpendicular to the back wall with little or no spin. The dice should land at the same time, take one short bounce and come to rest at the same time.
Mad Professor’s Long Ranger
See related article here
Front to Back
This is a tough one to master (I’ve tried without much success). The dice are gripped similarly to any other 3 or 4-fingered grip (thumb, fore, and middle fingers) only they are thrown to the wall so they strike it perpendicularly. Even though this is called the “front to back” grip, the dice are actually offset slightly as you hold them. This technique, like the stacking technique employs the “hammer” action. The dice should be thrown such that they land at the point where the table meets the back wall, the rear die hammering the front die against the wall, stopping in it’s tracks. Again this is a forehanded throwing technique.
If you are just starting out with setting, I’d recommend trying all the throwing grips to see which one is most comfortable and natural to you.
Good luck!
Other Grips
First demonstrating the blanket roll grip:
Next is the same blanket roll grip:
Then we have the dreaded whip shot grip.
