I'd Rather be GOOD Than LUCKY. (The Dice Institute)

My Not-So-Random Thought For May 25th, 2009

I'd Rather be GOOD Than LUCKY
Part One

Most people will tell you, "I'd rather be lucky than good", and so they use that wishful edict to chiefly rule their betting strategies (just look for the "press, press, press" or "press, power-press, and parlay" guys) and you'll find the players that feast on the occasional lucky streak...but lose it all back if not all during this session, it will almost all be surely gone by the end of their next two or three sessions.

They are counting on random luck (no matter how outstanding their own actual dice-influencing skill might be) to carry the day and open the flood-gates of unimagined riches. Sadly, the occasional wave of lucky windfall profits usually gets overwhelmed by the even greater wave after wave erosion of random outcomes whereby their once fat bankroll gets needlessly drowned in the riptide undertow.

Counting on luck to make it through a session (or life) is actually counter-productive. Sure, someone will sometimes get lucky, but as a casino strategy, it's a surefire way to the poorhouse (or at least a surefire way that requires your bankroll to be continually replenished from outside sources).

In many ways, counting on luck not only insults the intelligence and hard work of others who actually put in the refined labor and concerted effort to achieve their steady accomplishments; but it also gives rise to it's own special brand of laziness and apathy towards self-improvement and refined skills-development to a point where the steady ability-driven accomplishments of others are shrugged-off and rejected as being unexceptional (or at least unworthy of luck-driven headlines).

The point is though; luck itself is so flighty and unpredictable, that pursuing your endeavours with less than a whole-hearted full-court effort in the hopes that you'll be lucky too; is to short-change your chances of success by a magnitude that verges on the sinful.

Perhaps that is a reflection of the times, where the idea of working hard or workingsmart is largely rejected in favor of letting random luck determine your future instead of choosing your own path and pursuing it relentlessly.

While hoping for (and waiting for) luck to deliver unspeakable riches into their waiting hands, many people miss all kinds of opportunities that are theirs for the taking.

To my mind, that's the worst kind of gamble you can take.

Stop Gambling…Start Winning

Most gamblers, and gambling books for that matter, all advise you to bet-it-up when the dice are sizzling hot, and scale things back when the cubes are ice cold (or vice versa for Darkside bettors).

For this discussion, let’s ignore random streaks and indiscriminate trends; we’ll leave them for the gamblers. We are here to make money, not to gamble.

If you are counting on luck to see you through; then I'll sincerely wish you luck, because you are certainly going to need it (not only in the casino, but also in life).

For now let’s concentrate on the times when we ourselves or other skilled dice-influencers have the dice.

Under those circumstances, traditional wisdom still highly recommends that we shouldpress up our bets on a hot D-I hand, and scale things back to a minimum until any given D-I hand is adequately qualified as a bona-fide ‘good’ one.

On the surface that looks like good advice. I mean, who here thinks it’s a bad idea to strike while the iron (or the shooter) is hot?

Question Traditional Wisdom

To the shoot-for-the-moon, go-for-the-gusto, grab-for-the-brass-ring gambler that lives inside all of us, that concept seems to make a lot of sense; and since it follows what we've always been told is traditional gambling wisdom, we follow it just as blindly as every other loser…er, uh, I mean every other gambler who has ever thrown a pair of dice...and not surprisingly, we lose just like every other gambler who has ever thrown a pair of dice.

The reasoning goes that if we press things up when we are on fire, we’ll make enough money to overcome the losses that we expended when things weren’t nearly quite so hot.

Unfortunately when we look at the big-picture to see where we stand overall (by tallying all of our big pressed-up wins, our big meltdown losses, our small wins, and our small losses); we generally find that we still produce an overall net-loss.

You would think that by following the traditional press-when-you-are-winning school-of-gambling-thought, that we’d come out way ahead of the game…or at least even a littleahead.

Sadly though, when measured over a reasonable number of multiple sessions, most press-when-you-are-winning skilled-shooters emerge with a net-loss, or at best, anear-break-even position despite all of their D-I efforts.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, by buying into traditional gambling wisdom, most skilled players completely overlook advantage-play wisdom.

The two are worlds apart…as is their bankroll-related growth.

~One satisfies the gambler in us…at the cost of a steadily deteriorating bankroll despiteour generally positive-expectation D-I shooting.

~The other takes most of the gambling out of the casino-gambling equation and replaces it with advantage-focused bankroll-growing wagering.

Though the prospect of steady and stable bankroll growth is there for the taking for practically every skilled dice-influencer out there; scarcely few take it.

Why?

Gambling satisfies a primal urge that lives deep within our psyche. The thrill of the gamble more often than not outweighs the joy of the win. So even when a gambler loses, his urges are still partially satiated. If he manages to pull off a profit-making win, then all the better; but for him the real thrill is in the chase and not the catch.

Why do you think it's so easy to lose back freshly-made winnings?

It's because the gambler in us makes bet-decisions that are subconsciously geared to lose it back.

The idea behind this new series is to take your current shooting abilities, no matter how humble you personally think they are; and show you the most direct, lowest risk way to turn your D-I skills into real, tangible, and consistently predictable profit.

...and when you see someone that's really successful; don't delude yourself into thinking that it was all "luck" that let them achieve everything they've got. Stop for a second to consider that perhaps skill, hard work, unabashed resolve, perseverance, intense commitment, and dogged determination might have had a bit of a hand in it too.

Otherwise, if you'd rather be lucky than good; then just keep on farting into the same sofa-cushion and continue buying lottery tickets; and perhaps you will get lucky.

Me, I'd rather be good.

Until next time,

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

The Mad Professor
Copyright © 2009

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I'd Rather be GOOD Than LUCKY.

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