The Dice Institute

Preparing for a Specific Opponent  Par -2
So here we are in Las Vegas ; I’ve fully prepared myself to tackle the widely-disparate tables at four casinos with a high-Odds betting-scenario that I had been war-gaming for about three weeks.

The four fields of chosen battle are at:

 - Main Street Station with 20x-Odds

 - Hooters with 10x-Odds

 - LV Hilton with 10x-Odds

 - Sam’s Town with 20x-Odds


The Time-Schedule
I selected the dates for this experiment based on the fact that no major conventions were booked in town (this is important for getting semi-deserted table-time at the Hilton), no major holidays were nigh (which is relevant to all four, but especially germane for near-solitary off-hour shooting at MSS), and no table-filling end-of-month welfare checks were imminent on the calendar (which can be very applicable to the ebb and flow of flea-swarms at Sam’s).

Equally, I paid special note to the time of day when the best shooting-opportunities would present themselves at each of these stores. All times are for weekday play, though YMMV:

 - Sam’s Town…3 am to 7 am

 - Main Street Station…5 am to 10 am

 - Hooters…4 am to 11 am

 - LV Hilton…2 am to 11 am


Essentially, I figured I had about eleven good hours each day to work my high-Odds experiment; but I also anticipated that it wouldn’t take anywhere near as much daily play to properly authenticate whether or not my single-focus betting format would work as well as I had hoped.

Still though, I was fully prepared to put in as many hours as needed in order to toss enough hands to give me a statistically-worthy answer to the question that brought me here for this experiment.


The First Part of My Betting Plan
I planned to conduct this experiment with a three-step approach.

The first would see me betting $10 Passline wagers, and then starting the Point-Cycle by backing the PL-Point with half-sized Odds…and then adding one-unit on each subsequent point-cycle toss until I either maxed-out the Odds or I 7’d-Out; whichever came first.

So for example, when playing at Main Street Station, I started with $10 PL line-bets and initially backed it with $100 in Odds.

 - That amount represents one-half of MSS’s allowable 20x-Odds.

 - With each and every subsequent toss that either didn’t repeat the PL-Point or didn’t 7-out; I added one more $10 unit to those Odds until I maxed them out at $200.

 - Whenever I repeated the PL-Point I simply started the add-one-unit-of-odds-for-each-point-cycle-roll routine, until that hand resolved itself.

 - Similarly, whenever I 7’d-Out, I’d start my next self-thrown hand with the same half-Odds as before and build with each subsequent point-cycle toss by adding $10 after each throw.

At the two casinos that offer 10x-Odds; I simply started with 5x half-Odds and built from there.


The Reasoning Behind Part-One of This Plan
My reasoning for this approach was two-fold.

First, I wanted to be sure that my shooting on these, often diametrically-opposed tables, was up to a de-randomizing standard that actually meant something. I mean, I wanted to be sure that all that table-tuning that I had done at home was actually reflective of what I was encountering here in the real-world, and that my level of influence was close to being as high as my betting-scheme hoped and called for.

Second, I wanted to see if there was any validity to the notion that starting out with full-Odds right from the start of the point-cycle was somehow depletionary to my overall results. That is, I wanted to know to a certainty, how much an early-in-the-point-cycle 7-Out was reducing my overall profit, versus what I was giving up by utilizing low initial Odds when I bullfrogged or near-instantly repeated the PL-Point within the first couple of point-cycle rolls.


Results from Part One of my High-Odds Betting-Plan
I anticipated that it would fully take two-and-a-half days of play before I’d be able to know for sure that (i) my shooting at each of these joints was up to par, (ii) that foregoing full-Odds right from the first point-cycle roll was a bad idea, (iii) that all four of the respective casinos wouldn’t show any undue concern about the way I was shooting or betting, and (iv) that I could get frequent enough shooting opportunities at each place so that my roll-stats from each could be impartially combined to give a fairly accurate overall assessment of whether or not my high-Odds hypothesis held as much water as I hoped it would.

I put in pretty near the full eleven-hour allotment of prime-shooting table time on Day One. Off-hours shooting also meant off-hours traffic (or rather, a lack of it) in Vegas’ CMA, so I was able to move around with near-total impunity for the most part until my shooting-day was nearly over.

 - I found that all my at-home preparation had paid off. The trouble of tuning both ends of the table to mimic different layouts and backwall-dynamics, the added effort of shooting from somewhat lengthened table-positions to reflect various throwing-distances, and even endeavoring to replicate the resilience of different side-rail padding; all contributed to rapid-adaptation once I stepped up to the real thing in Vegas.

Now let’s have no pretensions here though. I wasn’t able to get my table to mimic the EXACT bounce-characteristics of each of those tables, nor did the different backwall alligator that I practiced with offer a PERFECT rebound-dynamic match for each of those I actually encountered. Instead, they were close enough to approximate what I ran into to a greater extent than I anticipated. In some ways, that was nearly as gratifying as the betting-experiment results themselves.

My first-day results were strong enough and small-sample statistically-compelling enough to convince me to move on to Part Two of my high-Odds betting-plan.


The Second Part of My Betting Plan
The second step of my three-step approach was to use full-Odds right from the beginning of each point-cycle when I was shooting.

 - For this experiment-segment, I also started each hand with $10 Passline wagers.

 - Once the PL-Point was established, I backed it with the fullest allowable Odds for that store (20x-Odds in Sam’s and MSS, and 10x-odds in Hooters and the Hilton).

 - If I repeated my first PL-Point for that hand, then on the next same-hand Come-Out, I increased my PL-wager to $15, and once again backed it with the fullest Odds possible ($300 in Sam’s and MSS, and $150 in Hooters and the Hilton).

 - If I repeated my second PL-Point for that hand, then on the third Come-Out, I increased my PL-wager to $20, and once again backed it with the fullest Odds possible.

 - If I repeated my third PL-Point for that same hand, then on the fourth Come-Out, I increased my PL-wager to $25, and once again backed it with the fullest Odds possible ($500 in Sam’s and MSS, and $250 in Hooters and the Hilton).

 - For any subsequent same-hand Point-repeaters beyond the fourth one, I intentionally restricted the flat portion of my PL-wager to the same $25 value as I had for the fourth PL -Point.

I would love to tell you that I threw lots and lots of hands that were greater than four PL-Point repeaters; but that was NOT the case at all. In fact, in my entire five-day experiment, I only managed that feat less than a dozen times.


The Reasoning Behind Part-Two of This Plan
More important than just collecting data on the sheer average number of manifold PL-Point repeaters I was likely to throw on these tables; was the records I gathered on how my use of high-Odds would affect overall hand-to-hand and session-to-session bankroll volatility, as well as how the pit-meisters would react to my use of those maxed-out Odds, and what effect the ratcheting up of my PL-wagers (and their subsequent increased Odds-values) would have on my overall profitability.

To that end, I was curious as to whether or not the fact that I threw less three PL-Point-repeater hands than I did of the two PL-Point-repeater variety, and lesser still than the one PL-Point-repeater type, would be adversely affected because I was using progressively more money on same-hand PL-repeater outcomes that were statistically less likely to occur.

In other words, I wanted to find out if my adding money to same-hand PL w/Odds wagers as each PL-Point was repeated, was making me more money or if it was costing me more money.

I’ll share the results of those findings in a subsequent article, but first let me fill you in on where I took this experiment to its conclusion.


The Third Part of My Betting Plan
The third step of my three-step experiment was to start each hand right at the $25 Passline value, and then back each PL-Point with full-Odds until the hand ended.

This meant no same-hand increase in the value of my flat-bet Passline wager regardless of how many PL-Points I repeated in the same hand, and it also meant full start-to-finish max-Odds.


The Reasoning Behind Part-Three of This Plan
Again, I was looking at several things:

First, I wanted to use this experiment as a further proof-of-concept for my “Preparing For a Specific Opponent” initiative.

Second, I wanted to gather even more statistically-valid proof that the use of variable-value Odds could be quantified and codified in a way that anyone could use it.

That is, I wanted to come up with a practical way for a shooter of a given SRR-rate to be able to plug in his roll-stat Foundation-Frequencies or even just his base SRR-rate all by itself; and come up with a general understanding of how much money he’d likely make over a given number of sessions using a given PL $-value and a range of selectable Odds-ratios.

Third, I wanted to get a better understanding of how average hand-duration as well as ‘exceptional’ mini-mega' hand-duration (where multiple PL-Point repeaters are successfully completed in the same hand) would be affected by the use of steady-Odds or variable-Odds over a statistically reasonable number of trials.

Fourth, I felt it was important to gauge the reaction of pit-dwellers to the various bet-values I was using during each stage of this experiment, as well as to monitor any untoward behavior that might escalate as subsequent same-hand PL-Points were repeated.

Fifth, I still wanted to see what effect the use of relatively-extravagant Odds would have on a hand-to-hand and session-to-session volatility basis in terms of a given session buy-in or trip-bankroll.

For example, if a skilled shooter could take the information that he just gleaned from the above-noted formula, and then plug in the value of his total bankroll or his current trip-bankroll, and be able to determine the degree by which his bankroll was likely to grow over a reasonable number of trials; then that was something I definitely wanted to have a hand in developing.


Again, I’ll be sharing the results of those findings in a subsequent article; but for now let me just say that the idea of Preparing For a Specific Opponent is a too-often-overlooked opportunity that can really propel your performance way beyond what you ever thought was consistently possible.


As always,


Good Luck and Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.

The Mad Professor
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