I ran into an old craps-pro friend at the table yesterday afternoon.
We hadn’t seen each other in almost four years even though we both often play at the same gaming-houses on the Northern Circuit (A/C, NY, ON, MI, PQ, and WI); but at different times of the day and night and on different days of the week.
When I say that he’s a craps-pro I should really elaborate and say that he uses craps as one-half of his income-stream, while the other half is made up by his entertainment business. His dice-influencing ‘job’ takes up about two or three days each week, and his play-schedule is very flexible except on weekends when his other job which consumes about two-and-a-half days a week, takes center-stage…literally.
I mention all of this because his method of betting is perhaps the purest form of D-I advantage-play that I have ever seen over such an extended, nearly eight-year period of time.
When we used to shoot together prior to 2003, he’d bet $50 on the Passline and back his PL-Point with maximum-Odds.
He’d then Place-bet the 6 and 8 for $300 each, and set up a $50 Come-bet. Wherever it traveled, he’d back it with max-Odds.
If he got more than two Come-bets up on any of the numbers without first hitting a 6 or 8 (which was rare); he’d stop Come-betting until one of his two Place-bets hit; then he’d recommence Come-betting.
During a hand, he never pressed his wagers nor increased the flat portion of his PL or Come-bets...ever.
When I used to bet on him, he was always good for at least five or six Inside-Numbers hits, and at least one PL-Point repeater, plus an occasional back-to-back Hardway-number hit (although that was something that I was never absolutely sure was net-profitable for me). Even though he’d throw an average of at least one PL-Point repeater, I almost never went on the Passline with him; opting instead soley for that Inside and Hardway action.
Though his hands were never exceptionally long, it was the consistency of being able to count on collecting from at least five or six Inside-Numbers hits that made him (to my mind anyway) the closest thing I have ever seen to being a money-making machine…and I mentally kicked myself in the ass for losing contact with him in the first place.
Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon’s session with him.
He was still betting the exact same way…save and except for the fact that his base PL and Come-bets were now $200, and they were backed as always with maximum-allowable Odds, and his Place-bets on the 6 and 8 were now at the $600 level.
When I commented about the fact that he still bet the same way that he did four years ago, he said that he simply stuck with what worked and that he had jettisoned everything else that didn’t work.
He mentioned that he had tweaked his base-toss a little bit since the last time I saw him; though I couldn’t see much of a difference other than a slight shift in his finger-placement as well as the way he studiously re-squared the dice just prior to commencing his toss-motion.
Other than that, his dice were still flying through the air with Borg-like precision and they were still landing with minimal scatter and only nominal (less than 3 or 4-inches) of backwall-rebound rollout...and the thing that always set him apart from most of the other skilled dice-influencers that I've run into over the years, was the fact that both dice remained virtually equi-distant to each other in relation to their backwall backwall impact point.
That is, if the left-die rolled out four-inches from the backwall; then the right-die was not only almost always also four-inches from the backwall; but both dice were never more than the same distance away from each other.
To me, that kind of consistency was, well, in a word, it was "bankable".
When he saw me back my PL line-bet with full-Odds and then put up a hefty Inside-Number wager on him as well as…but without my traditional Hardways-action on him; he chuckled and said, “I see you haven’t changed much in the way you bet on me either.”
I responded by basically repeating what he had said to me only moments before, “I stick with what always has worked and I’ve jettisoned anything else that didn’t.
His consistency was still as reliable as it was when we last met. I collected off of an average of six Inside-Number hits, and he was still producing an average of at least one PL-Point repeater per hand.
I asked when he had ratcheted his base-bets from a basic $50 to the present-day $200; he said that he had raised it by about $25 per year, although he allowed that his bankroll-growth would justify a much more rapid rate of increase.
We ended up shooting together for a total of just over six hours, and in all that time his average hand stayed pretty much true to what I had always come to expect…and had always come to profit from.
By adding the PL w/full-Odds dimension to my betting when he had the dice, and by dropping the feast-or-famine Hardways; I noticed that my per-hand profit increased substantially over what I was able to usually win off of him four years ago.
I made a little promise to myself right then and there to take a serious look at ALL of my current betting in order to stick with all the stuff that works…and to jettison pretty much anything else that doesn’t.
The difference it should make to my net-profit promises to be substantial.
As always,
Good Luck and Good Skill at the Tables…and in Life.
The Mad Professor
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