Please remember! These are archives! The Dice Setter message board was shut down. What is published here are just a few of the threads documenting the early days of dice setting strategies and opinions written by the pioneers of dice influencing.
SRR Calculations
Heavy
Long Arm’s message about unrealistic expectations on SRR prompts me to question how everybody calculates their SRR. Do you use the total number of sevens you roll in a series? For example – if you set up your practice rig and make a hundred tosses and throw 20 sevens in the series is your SRR 1-5? If you roll 10 sevens in 100 will it be 1-10? I guess I’m guilty of taking come out rolls out of the series. I do not count naturals on the come out rolls. Instead – I play each hand as if it were at the table in the casino. Soooo – let’s assume it’s come out roll and I’m setting for the seven – then roll it. Great job. But it doesn’t count as a roll. Let’s say I throw is again. Excellent. But it still does not count in my SRR. Alright, third roll I establish a point of – say 9. When I roll a point number I begin my count. Now let’s go through a series. After the nine I roll 3, 6, 5, 6, 10, 8, 9. I’ve rolled a total of 8 numbers with no seven. Now we’re back to come out roll. I preset for the seven and throw it twice again. I don’t count those rolls. I start the count again when I roll a point number. Soooooo, I establish a 6 as the point. I then roll 4, 10, 8, 8, 8, 9, 6. I’ve rolled 7 more numbers. Now on the come out roll I roll an 8, then follow that with 6, 6, 5, 9, 5, 9, 7 out. Oops. Theres the seven. So I rolled 24 numbers in the series before the seven showed. So in my mind my srr is 1- 24, despite the fact that I rolled 4 sevens on come out rolls that I did not count. Now, if I added those four in – I would have a SRR of 1-5.9 or something like that – which sounds much worse than what really happened as reflected by what I was trying to do with my pre-sets. That is – maximize the appearance of the seven on the come out roll – and minimize it thereafter. Make sense?
Soooooo, I’m thinking that is where the confusion comes from on this issue. Questions? Concerns? Opinions?
Mickey D
Heavy:
I may still be too much of a novice to offer a credible response but here’s my $.02: My feeling is that those natural sevens should be considered in the count. I look at it this way, if I’m a right bettor, the absolute most important thing I can do is avoid throwing a BAD seven; a seven that takes down my bets and lowers my bank roll. That’s the only thing I’m trying to do. Everything else I do, the sets, the throws, the grips, they all support the one true goal of a precision thrower: SEVEN AVOIDANCE. On a come out, it’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax. I welcome the seven, it pays me money, and, as a bonus, it eats into the otherwise expected probability of sevens that are out there lurking to take me down. So if I can hit 2 or 3 or whatever all the better. So if I go 30 rolls without a seven out and threw 6 naturals somewhere in between, there is one indisputable fact that has occurred: I was successful in avoiding the seven out for thirty rolls. No if ands or butts about it, and my SRR is 1:30 Respectfully submitted.
Rhythm Dice Setter
Agree 100% with Heavy’s SRR calculations. That is the way I count my SRR. I only worry about the ‘7’ that you lose out on and pass the dice. A good dice setter will always throw some 7 on the come out when it doesn’t hurt so I never count the 7 on the come out roll as it doesn’t hurt you unless you are on the DP line.
Heavy
This is true unless your are a come bettor – which I HOPE you guys understand is not (IMHO) the correct way to play.
Dominator
My .02 I do not set for the 7 on the comeout roll for reasons that will be discussed in the PARR class. We in PARR do count the final 7 in the SRR calculation. During practice, I do not use the 7 set. I throw the dice as if I am in my point cycle and try to hit numbers. when the 7 finally shows I include this in my count for a SRR if I am interested. IMHO, knowing your SRR during practice is not important unless you want to do this for a game to keep you going. I am more interested in practice and at the tables to see if my dice are on axis, are they staying together, are they landing where I want them to land on my practice rig, am I hitting primary numbers from the set that I am using, am I throwing repeating numbers and having a signature that I can use when I am live at the casinos. This to me is much more important than your SRR. Don’t get bogged down with the SRR and kid yourself, see if your dice are doing what you intend them to do. If they are not, then when you have a long roll during practice it has a lot to do with just luck.
Long Arm
With one exception, we pretty much agree with Heavy in counting sevens and rolls.
We consider craps as two cycles: The Come Out Cycle and the Point Cycle. Assuming you’re setting for 7 on the come out roll, we count rolls after the point is established as Heavy does, but we include the seven-out in the count. So, for Heavy’s example, the SRR would be 1:25 counting that final 7 in the tally.
However, if we don’t set for 7 on the come out roll, and there are some of us that don’t for reasons that will be explained at the class, then we start right with the come out roll since we are NOT trying to throw a 7. If we do, it goes against us in the final SRR Tally. So, in Heavy’s example again, let’s say he was NOT setting for sevens on the come out roll, but he did inadvertently throw the four sevens on the come out rolls. Those would tally in as he did: 25 + 4 = 29 rolls for the hand divided by 5 sevens including the miss-out 7 = 5.8.
The only difference here is we counted that miss-out 7 while Heavy did not.
Mickey D
I’ll weigh in once more in support for my side of the debate. I quickly looked at some of my recent practice sheets. In one of them I made 200 throws and sevened out 16 times. 200/16= 12.5 SRR. I only had 7 naturals. So that leaves me with 193/16= 12.06 That difference is just too inconsequential for me to waste time thinking about. I’d rather be down in the work shop honing muscle memory.
Let’s say for arguments sake that instead of throwing only 7 naturals (which is really a low number and should be much higher for a good precision thrower!) Let’s say that I threw 75 naturals. So that leaves us with 125/16= 7.81, which is a major misrepresentation of how well I controlled the dice and made money! So if I want bragging rights on the highest SRR at Mohegan Sun then I have to tank it on the come outs to keep my average artificially pumped up! It seems like this is one of those academia type questions that graduate students pay money to discuss. It doesn’t seem to be significant enough in reality, at least for me. I still made 200 throws and only sevened out 16 times. That’s damned good for anybody!!
Engineer
Let’s face it, if you make a dime on a seven it is worth something. It’s NOT always considered the losing number. You can only throw one in a shoot, your seven out!
So you have to consider the 7evens value. Would you rather make $50 on the come out and throw 5 more good tosses, or throw six good tosses, SRR 5/1 instead of an SSR 5/6 just to say you did.
The fact is if you don’t make your point (this is part of the reason you want a long roll at times. Where is that damn potato 8? Make the point, you have your freedom on the comeout, but there is much to be said for setting for winners on the comeout.
If you anything like me there I times I don’t want to fool with the seven, but want to see if I can stay on track.
In the end though it all winning rolls divided by the 7.
Ray
Mr. Patterson (Long Arm) took the time to e-mail me a couple times about how his SRR is figured, and I’ve come to agree with it’s logic since it keeps accurate account of how successful our dice setting is when trying to throw point numbers, so I want to restate it for anyone’s benefit. None of our come-out rolls are part of the SRR unless we are setting to throw a point number. If we set for sevens or the whirl bet on the come-out roll, but throw a point number instead, that is a failure of our setting for sevens or the whirl bet, and is not a successful attempt to throw a point number, so any such first point number is not counted as part of our SRR. If, however, we were setting to throw a point number on the come- out roll, and did so, then that would be a success at setting for a point number and would be counted as part of our SRR. If we make our point, we make a note of the number of times we rolled while setting for point numbers, and we keep adding the number of subsequent rolls while setting for point numbers in later series until we seven-out. Thus, we add up all the rolls for point numbers between seven-outs even though we have had new come-out rolls in between. This accurately measures our success when trying to make point numbers and avoid sevens. I keep a separate record of my successes per attempts with the all-sevens set on the come-out roll, but this has nothing to do with my point number SRR.
Mickey D
This SRR thing makes perfect sense from MR. Patterson’s perspective: two separate entities, the come out cycle and the point cycle. I also agree whole heartedly with Dominator. In practice, I don’t throw the dice just to try and say I had long, uninterrupted runs of numbers without a seven out. That’s an empty statistic. But as he says, did I hit the numbers I was trying for with any consistency? If I did then my practice was successful. Am I hitting my target? Are the dice on axis? I often use the two color dice to track how well the dice stay on axis. If I’ve set the crossed sixes and throw a 5/3, that’s a good roll and I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, however if I’ve thrown a 3/5, then that’s a throw of pure luck which puts me in the same group with all the seed spreaders. Those are the type of things that are more important to me and to which I devote most of my practice time.
Whitey
I remember Irish and someone else talking about ATBL, Average Throws Between Losses (Losers?).
Anyway, that’s what i’ve been using in practice, which basically starts counting with your first come out, and stops counting when you “seven out”
In practice this gives you a really good idea about length of hand. Of COURSE you also need to know whether you’ve hit your numbers or not too, but if I have a high ATBL for a set of hands, I can also assume a better chance at also having hit my numbers.
