I've Got 8 More: This Cat's Life

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2008-08-31T21:34:00Z

Letter From Las Vegas

2007-07-04T23:17:47Z

Letter From Las Vegas 4, July 2007
It’s over 100* today and it will be that way for the next few months. That’s OK. I knew what I was in for when I moved here.

I also knew that becoming a Las Vegas “local” would mean some changes to the way I approach my craps game. As appealing as it might sound, living in the gaming capital of the world and having hundreds of tables to choose from, all day, every day has it’s pitfalls. But approached with a little planning and common sense, those hazards can be minimized and the plusses fully enjoyed.

With the approaching “Great American Crapshoot” coming up in just a couple of weeks, I thought it would be a good time to talk about one of the pitfalls I’ve learned about the hard way:

Expectations – Realistic and Not.

Specifically, I’m thinking of expectations of profit when joining another, or several DI’s at the craps table.

Since arriving, I’ve had the chance to shoot with quite a few DI’s all of varying skills. We’ve had good sessions and totally forgettable ones too. No huge monsters and plenty of PSO’s too. Yet almost all of the people who have joined me at the tables have skill.

You’d think with all that skill that we’d be routinely taking home yards of cash for our efforts. Actually, I find it easier to make money on my own than with other good shooters.

When I’ve talked to the well-know local players, to a man they tell me the same thing; “You can’t hit the tables with everyone who comes to town. The game is too tough and when you are with friends you’ll bet differently than the way you do on yourself.”

Now, these aren’t anti-social curmudgeons. These are guys who know how to win and also love to play.

In two weeks, with dozens of good and excellent players coming to town, we have a great opportunity to rake in some cash. But will it happen?

How many times have we read (and written) trip reports that end, “all told, we lost a few hundred, but it was well worth the great time we had with some great folks.” ?

In fact, many of those same reports mention one or two monster or mini-monster hands and probably the author saw more than a few shooters who were posting well-above average SRR’s during the whole trip…and they still lost money.

I only mention this because since moving here, I’ve learned first hand and from watching at least a dozen visiting DI’s shoot that you won’t keep your money if you don’t manage your betting as strictly as you do for your own shooting.

I remember the first time a “Big Name” shooter came to town. I was practically spending the money we were going to make before he got off the plane. As it turned out, that was my first losing streak since arriving a month earlier.

Since then these are the lessons I’ve learned:

The tables are always there. They’ll be there when you are ready. Even over a 3-Day trip, you can be selective.

No matter what, craps is a tough game to consistently profit from. Recognize success when you see it in front of you. I would trade every future monster hand to know I would never PSO again.

The same game that makes you money when playing craps alone will be the game that makes you money when with other skilled shooters.

It’s very tempting to look to another DI to do the heavy lifting and bet more than your game plan dictates. This is especially true if you are not shooting well yourself. The truth is, you have to qualify, with your own eyes, every shooter you consider betting.

More players to bet, skilled or not, means you’ll need a bigger bankroll to weather the inevitable cold streaks.

There’s no such thing as a “Sure Thing.”

The shooter who has 1 point hand after 1 point hand is waay ahead of the game.

If casinos can profit consistently from a House Advantage of just a point or two we can and we should, with a Player Advantage that is often much larger.

None of the above is news. The same common sense and discipline that we apply on our solo trips holds true with larger groups. It’s just very tempting to think that, “With all this talent, somebody is going to have a big hand!”…and then to start betting for it.

I hate to sound negative about what promises to be a great time coming up. I’m not. I think we have a great opportunity to bring a lot of talent to bear and to walk with some nice coin for our efforts.

And I’m really looking forward to hanging out and hitting the tables. But all of that will be so much more memorable if, on Monday we all have more money than we had before the GAC.

See you in a couple of weeks.

-DC

“DeadCat” 2007

Hands High! Shooter Has the Dice!

2007-01-25T11:11:01Z

As I write this we are just a few days away from the official "unveiling" of this site. It has been a ton of work but worth it and rewarding in it's own right. This site was conceived originally to provide a place for people to see the great archived material from "IrishSetter's" ground-breaking website, Dicesetter.com that now appears to have shifted focus away from precision shooting under new ownership. As the concept grew, we found there were a variety of needs to be filled. In addition to hosting large archives, we wanted to provide the fastest and most convenient way for prolific writers like Mad Professor, IrishSetter and others to get their new material published without delay. We also wanted to provide a website that was not just a private message board for the many Dice Influencers (DIs) who have plenty to share and are an unusually literate bunch. We want this site to be accessible to the novices and just curious out there. We wanted to provide information and reference materials for those who are in the new to the concept of Advantage Play Craps (APC) to help standardize the DI vocabulary. We even threw in some "Craps Basics" for the complete novice. You will notice that although we have a private members' forum, this site stands alone too, and is not a mere "come-on" where you will be asked to pay for access to "the Good Stuff." For these reasons, and others, we decided to go with a WebLog, or "Blog" because at its core, this site is a vehicle for several writers, who all wanted to cut the time between writng and publishing. In fact, most of the regular writers will be given personal passwords and accounts to post their new articles directly to the site. Others will submit pieces through an editor (me) but the delay will still be minimal, no complicated conversion to HTML, no worries about bandwidth. So as we prepare to go "live" I'd like to take a minute to say a well-deserved "Thank You" to a few people: Thank You, Charlie, my business partner in all of this, who is backing our start-up and has shared some great content from his 3 craps books, this site would not exist at all if he hand't pushed the idea and put up some funding. Thank You, Pace, our webmaster and my Movable Type (software) coach for your work in start-up and being there to fix the problems we might have down the road. Thank You, Mad Professor, our "Clean-Up Hitter" for allowing us exclusive use of his vast archive once on the DS site and more importantly agreeing to choose this site as his main vehicle for publishing his prolific stream of new material. If this site is your introduction to the MP, you have stumbled on a great resource, iinovative poneer and generous teacher of APC through his work here and on the forum. Thank You, IrishSetter, who got the ball rolling years ago by starting that Geo-Cities message board about a little-known method of advantage play, "Dice Setting." FIrst for that and now for sharing his archives for use as instructional and insightful material here and once more for agreeing to write even more all new articles, here. Thank You, Maddog, the creator of the single most useful tool in the APC's toolbox (besides his/her practice rig), "BoneTracker," a program that allows you to input practice results and crunches the numbers in all imaginable ways, all to help you make your time at the tables as profitable as they can be. He's let us set up a download link for the latest version, free for anyone who wants it. Look for it and for new and archived articles from him here. Thank You.Jeff47 for reworking your "Mindful Living" series for publication here and agreeing to continue providing us insight into your specialitiy, the oft-misunderstood "Mental Part" of performance and helping us bridge that infamous mind-body gap. Thank You, Tinhorn Gambler, for your ongoing column about life in las Vegas, "Las Vegas, What's Hot and What's Not." You are always on top of news in that most unique of cities that you happen t call "home." And Thank You! To all those who have already submitted articles under their own by-lines or as "Guest Writers" like Heavy, Appstappis and others, for content already submitted and that which is yet to come. If I forgot to thank you it as my mistake and I apologize, but the thanks are there. It is all your contributions that will make this site a constantly evolving and growing resource for the APC community and it will be second to none. If you have found this site but come from a different "School" of the "Dice Control" world, you are welcome here, too. Nobody has a lock on this information and we can all learn from each other. If anyone wants to contribute material contact me and I will make room. -DeadCat Next time in; "I've Got 8 More: This Cat's Life" my blog and chronical of my move to Las Vegas where I plan to use my APC learnin' to enhance my day job's wages.