Golfers, bowlers, baseball players, football players, basketball players, hockey players, tennis players, soccer players, and individuals and teams in every sport imaginable keep statistics. You’ll find both team scores/records and individual scores, records and statistics.
And the lingo is something else. There are Points For and Points Against, Attempts and Completion’s, Fumbles Lost and Fumbles Won, Sacks, Carries, Interceptions, Rushes and numerous totals and averages for everything..
We know PIM’s, GP’s. AST’s, +/-’s GAA’s, MIN’s, PTS’s, OFF and DEF. We know PAR, Yards and purse. There are GP’s, AB’s, HR’s, RBI’s, AVG’s and ERA’s. And, if you’re not familiar with the sport you’re probably unaware of the lingo.
And if that isn’t enough sports announcers keep us well informed on the “probable outcomes”, such as “in this situation when this team is leading after two periods, they have a record of 14, 2 and 1.” I even heard that Tampa Bay has never won a game (playoff?) when the temperature drops below 40 degrees.
Everything we do in life we keep statistics, or somebody else keeps them for us. In a manner of speaking your boss keeps them for you on your job performance, or lack thereof.
Even we as precision shooters keep our own stats. We have our SSR and our signature numbers. We have our grip(s), table position, stance, arc and throw. We practice and keep a record of our tosses and can compute percentages for our rolls based on a particular set and what the random results should have been. We can practice our come out set and compute the percentage of times we toss a seven.
But, there is another area that you need to maintain some “stats” on and that is keeping records of your last outing? How did you do? Did you win or lose? How many sessions did you play? We can keep the statistics of the pure actual numbers we throw and the outcome. But, there is another area that we need to address that, in my opinion, is of equal or more importance. It deals with you personally and not the numbers that you threw during a particular session.
I believe that each of us needs to keep a short written record of each and every session that we engage in. I’m not talking about a 500 word dissertation on each session. What I’m talking about is simply a few notes on how the session went. Did you win or lose? How did you feel physically during the session? Were you tired or irritated? Was your energy level up, down or so, so? Did you stay at the table too long? Did you jump in too soon? Did you bet too heavy at the beginning? How was your play, smart or dumb? What did you do right? What did you do wrong?
Here’s what I wrote after the end of one session recently:
11/14/01 10:22pm-10:45pm , Harrah’s Buy In: $200 Position: L1 Results: -$56
Table crowded. Played smart to start with and was ahead at one point and should have left. I kept waiting for my turn to throw, which turned out to be a disaster. Energy level was down and I should have quit for the day and gone to bed.
When I look back on this it tells me a couple of things. When my energy level is down I DO NOT shoot well nor do I make good decisions. I have even noticed the same thing happens on my practice table at home. I also need to walk away with a win, any win is better than a loss.
Just like our signature numbers we too have our own individual tendencies at the craps table, some good some bad. I had a lot of them (still do), mostly bad tendencies. It wasn’t until I took the time to jot down a few notes after each session that I began to know, and understand myself. It’s called self-analysis and sometimes it’s not pretty.
However, once you get into it, it becomes rewarding. You no longer find that you are making the same “mental” mistakes that you used to make. You become a smarter player and will be respected by the dealers, and more importantly, by yourself. If you take a few minutes to jot down a few notes about YOU and your play, you will be able to look back at your sessions and spot some areas that you need to work on.
Just as you work on your grip, stance and toss … you’re probably like me and need to spend some time on self, as in “self discipline.” I had a tendency to jump in too soon without taking the time to see how the table is going before making a bet.
It’s only when you are honest with yourself that you will be able to improve your play, and your profits. Patience is NOT my middle name! I know it and so does everybody around me. Knowing this I know that I have to force myself to wait for a new shooter and at least use the 5-count BEFORE placing a bet. I also am more observant of the shooter. If 3 of their first 5 throws is a 9, I’ll place the 9 and sit back and wait, something I would have never done before.
If you can’t be honest with yourself your session results will probably suffer. We all like to remember our wins and talk about them and let our losses fade into the sunset. Keep your own session stats, review them a few days after your trip, and resolve to modify your play to eliminate your weak areas.
And remember, ANY win is better than ANY loss ANY day!
Paul
