Original Mistakes are Cheap…Repeated Mistakes are Bankroll Killers
For modestly skilled dice-influencers, the line between winning and losing as well as the profit or loss that goes along with it, is an incredibly thin and tenuous one.
That simply means that the margin between making money and losing money from your own D-I skills; has very little "give" or elasticity to it.
You’ve probably heard the old adage by Derek Bok, president of Harvard University, “If you think the cost of education is high, you should check the cost of ignorance”. That holds true for advantage-play craps as much as it does for life itself.
The biggest cost of learning to profitably influence the dice is NOT in the original mistakes that we make along the way, but rather in the mistakes that we keep on repeating over and over again.
If you keep on making the same betting-mistakes that are unduly hindering and restraining your net-earnings; then chances are you will continue to have a disconnect between your skill and your profit, not because it has to be that way and not because the profit isn’t there for the taking, but simply because you choose tokeep it that way.
If the "I probably shouldn't do THAT again" 'lessons' you learn at the table need to be endlessly repeated before you do something about them; then the road to net-profit is going to be a needlessly long, rocky, and frustrating one.
The Disconnect between Skill and Profit
One of the biggest disconnects between dice-influencing players and the skill-set that they possess; is the amount of money that they make or rather, the amount of money that they DON’T make.
Given a similar edge in nearly any other casino game, countless numbers of advantage-play pro's should be descending upon dice-influencing like degenerate craps-players used to flock to off-hour 25-cent bird-games at the Plaza, LVClub, and El Cortez.
The problem of course is that dice-influencing is a physical skill that has to be coupled with iron-willed mental discipline and matched-to-skill betting-methods.
Many who have the discipline, lack the physical skill; while many who have thephysical skill...lack the discipline.
Due to that skill-variability and the fact that most players from our community initially approach craps as gamblers first, and only subsequently become advantage-players after the fact; acts to conspire against the success of many of our most skillful dice-influencing citizens.
That is, for most players, even though their physical skills have been developed to the point where they can play with a major advantage over the casino; it's easier to REMAIN a gambler than it is to make the difficult transition into becoming a disciplined, consistently-profitable advantage-player.
For that reason, I still stand by my opinion that most skilled players severely UNDERBET their own skill by a rank of several multiples...and concurrently OVERBET random-rollers (and other unqualified shooters) by just as much or even more of a disproportionate margin...all the while zig-zagging bets on their own shooting all over the place (based on one or two errant outcomes) instead of putting it on on KEEPING it on their highest-validated (by several-thousand tosses) box-numbers.
If you want to see why zig-zag dice-influencers have very little overall NET-profit to show for all their skill, and why their BIG-win monies rarely last for more than a session or three; simply watch the way they bet. That will tell you everything you need to know about how NOT to make money.
It’s Heart-Breaking To Watch
The number of exceedingly skilled dice-shooters who are still in that frustrating break-even stage of profit-production is absolutely astounding...and obviously quite disappointing to me.
If a modestly-skilled player reduced his random-betting by as little as 25% to 33%and instead wagered that same amount of money on top of his bets where he has a substantiated and validated edge; then he'd likely garner the profit breakthroughs and revenue consistency that has been eluding him for so long.
By narrowing the bet-focus to where you have a valid edge and removing money from all the places where you don't have an advantage, puts you in a position to make more money off of your current talent. Of course you could maintain an, "I'd rather be lucky than good" stance; but frankly that will only ensure that you'll occasionally have a big win, and that your overall losing ways will continue for decades to come.
The message and the methods are out there, but the adoption-rate is still exceedingly low.
It is heartbreaking to watch a player with an obvious finely-honed skill, under-bet his own advantage to the point where there’s rarely any profit to show for it; and then watch him piss it away by over-betting on random-rollers as he awaits another turn with the dice…only to start his own under-betting process all over again.
To my mind, most talented players keep themselves unnecessarily locked in break-even purgatory simply because they continue to under-bet their specific skills, yet willfully and continuously over-bet many marginal or negative-expectation wagers on themselves...as well as their seeming addictive fondness for mis-sizing and/or mis-wagering on random-rollers.
The Immutable Truth
I used to frequently post replies to Message Board trip reports where players complained about how much money they lost while betting on random-rollers...while equally lamenting how much money they could have and should have won from their own hands "if I had only bet it a little more appropriately".
I used to gently encourage them to redeploy some of those randomly wasted dollars onto their own biggest-edge, best-bet opportunities; but I long ago stopped, simply because I saw the futility of doing so.
So here are some immutable truths about what we do, that continue to hold merit even after all of these years:
Ø If you are more of a gambler than an advantage-player; then your profit objectives will never be met, however your gambling urges will probably be satisfied.
Ø Despite what they say, most people just want to gamble, while very few will do what is necessary to actually win. I’ve accepted that fact for the verity that it is.
Ø Another immutable truth is that if you continue to under-bet the specific wagers where you hold the biggest advantage over the house; then the rest of your lesser performing bets will continue to be a profit-robbing drag, and your true revenue-making potential will continue to be stymied and frustrated almost every time you pick up the dice.
Ø Obviously there will be times when you win, but those happy events will be far outnumbered by the severity and/or the frequency of your losses.
It doesn’t have to be that way, but most talented players choose to keep it that way.
A long time ago, Heavy and I discussed the fact that many skilled players are actually afraid of winning and feel unworthy of gaming-profits (for various psychologically explainable reasons), so they make bets that they know will pretty much ensure their continued losses; and despite what they say...they would rather remain part of the losing majority.
Unfortunately, that still appears to be true.
A simple change in how much you bet on your own validated-edge wagers, versus how much you bet on your OTHER NON-validated neg-ex wagers as well as what you bet on random-rollers...can most times bridge that skill-to-profit gap...and in doing so make it far, far easier to stay on the profitable side of that winning and losing line.
Like I said earlier, the biggest cost of learning to profitably influence the dice is NOT in the original mistakes that we make along the way, but rather in the ones that we keep on repeating over and over again.
That has nothing to do with LUCK; but it has everything to do with letting your D-I skills do the GOOD that they are dying to produce...if only you'll give them an adequate and properly-funded chance to do so.
If you remember anything out of what you just read, let it be this:
Original Mistakes are Cheap…Repeated and Continued Mistakes are almost always Bankroll Killers
Good Luck & Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
Sincerely,
The Mad Professor
Copyright © 2009
