In my opinion it is possible for one to advance to the next level without the course. But you have no way of knowing if your "next level" is the correct one. It’s also extreamly difficult to get to the correct level on your own.

Is the class worth while ……. If you come with an open mind, willing to change everything you learned thru reading and continue to practice yes. Know it alls need not attend. And even after attending there is no guarantee. No magic bullet, just the opportunity to learn and excell. Would I attend the Basic again, yes.

I searched a few less expensive ways. They looked like they may be fun to do, and they fed into my excitement of getting into the "Dice Control" wave of interest. If you really take the time and research some "Classes," and "Training", you will find (it felt to ME anyway) a feeling of…"give me your money, listen to me, I know it all, hurry up, good luck…NEXT!" But I am a bit of a pain when it comes to spending my hard earned money.

The decision to go to Tunica was made. I entered class expecting…I don’t know what I was expecting really. It did follow the books I had studied, and read, over and over. With out the reading and studying of the books, I think the class may have been too powerful. (again for ME) I wanted it so bad, and was juiced to go. Ready to sign up for next class. NO. I was told to give it a year of study, practice, and actual use, before signing up for the next level of class. I had just paid them a lot of MONEY for training and advice. I listened.

Tough decision to spend that much on the first class. Tougher to spend a lot more for a second class. The real question you must ask, is…"What do I really want to do?" We all want to be a Champion, or to fly an airplane, or be a hero. You know your desires, and your track record. Me, I like to win. My track record shows the better my coaches, and trainers were, the better my goals were met. Everytime it was extremely hard work, and long practices, before a glimmer of progress. Progress always comes at a price. Some can pay.

If you want to have fun, the five count, and basics are really good. The next level ain’t easy, and it ain’t for everybody. Writing the check WILL NOT MAKE YOU DICE CONTROL SHOOTER.

For me….it has been the best investment I could have possibly made to advance in my passion. It has paid for it self, in real profits. I keep really good records.

You will enjoy the journey, whatever you decide. Good luck.
Shoot with passion…DavidM

If you are serious about learning how to control/influence the dice then you owe it to yourself to take the class. It really depends on how motivated your are. I want to be the best I can at this. But taking the class is only a small starting step. Lots of hard work, frustration, and doubt lie ahead. At least that is how my journey has gone.

Like any other physical skill (golf, tennis, etc) if you want to get to the next level, sometimes you need the help of a learned coach. That’s what you get with the class. Lots of different coaches all noticing something that needs tweaking.

For a red chip player it is a lot a cash to plunk down. I wish I would have built up my 401G more before taking the class. I was too under funded at first so I would sweat the money when I played. Bad mental position to play from.

Let me tell you a fiddle story. When I was a Sophomore at Texas A & M, I decided that I wanted to learn to play the fiddle after seeing Doug Kershaw at a concert. I had a guitar that I learned to play but no longer did play. So I took the guitar and traded it for a fiddle during the Christmas break. In January I showed up at the dorm with a fiddle that I had no idea how to play. A friend of mine whose name is Bryan Duckworth also showed up that same semester with a new fiddle. He too, had never played it before. So I had the first floor terrorized with the horrible sounds and he had the 3rd floor hating him. I messed around with the fiddle for several years, but never played it seriously. In dental school I began playing with a band of dental students and began practicing the fiddle much more.

Well, during the time I was dealing with dental school, Bryan was playing in College Station with a few locals there, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett. Bryan lived in an old house with Robert and another friend of mine from the dorm days. In fact, the porch of that house was written and sung about by both Robert and Lyle. That sophomore year, Lyle lived 2 rooms down from me in the dorm. He knew I liked music and would ask me to come to his room and listen to his new songs. I guess I should have paid more attention to them. He turned out to be a pretty fair song writer. Anyway, I digress.

Bryan became a pretty good fiddle player. He was much better than I was. Bryan picked up with one of the regional bands, and when he was playing in the area I would go and watch. One night after not seeing him for a year, I went and watched him play. I was astounded, he sounded better than I had ever heard him sound. During the first break I ask what the hell he had done. He told me that he began taking lessons from a classically trained teacher. Bryan gave me the phone number and I began taking lessons from this guy. By the way, it wasn’t too long after encounter that Bryan began to play with Robert, and did for many years touring nationally with Robert. I have seen them in Vegas several times.

During this time, I had been playing with a band on the weekends up in College Station. Robert and Lyle were still playing the regional circuit. Lyle was playing small clubs in Houston, Anderson Fair comes to mind, and places in College Station and Bryan.

Anyway, I began taking fiddle lessons from the teacher. During my first lesson, he looked at me and said I was a mess. My bow arm was out of sync with the beat. My bow down stroke was on the upbeat. My bow hand and arm position was horrible. My left hand was in a death grip on the fingerboard, so on and so forth. He said he was shocked I could play as well as I could at that time. He also said that I could never get any better without a complete overhaul of my technique.

OK, so I begin to take weekly lessons. I had to completely rebuild my technique. I got fired from the only band I ever got fired from during that period because my playing sucked during the rebuilding. However, the final outcome resulted in my fiddle playing improving 3 fold.

Moral of the story is, no matter what you do that is a physical activity, you need to learn the proper technique and you need coaching along the way to insure that the technique is not getting sloppy.

Dice control is no different. 12 years ago when I began investigating, there was no Golden Touch. There were some internet discussion boards, and that was about it. I was self-taught based on what I had read. Then I met most of our instructors in Vegas at an event presented by the precursor to Golden Touch. I had to rebuild my technique. Once again, I thought I was pretty good, until I saw these guys. I was about as far as I could go with the technique I was using.

If there had been Golden Touch when I started, my journey into dice control would have been much easier. All of us involved with Golden Touch have learned through experience. Everything we teach is based on experience, not theory. We have developed our technique from years of playing our method. We have adapted our betting recommendations because of our observations. If I would have had the information available to me back then, I would have saved thousands of dollars, more than enough to pay for the class, several times over.

We now have the Primer class, the Refresher class, and the Advanced class. In addition to those, we offer the Tune Ups and the Elite Video Analysis. Every one of these has been developed to help our customers become the best they possibly can.

NFF

Thanks.

Noah

You were in my group for that class at Sam’s Town in Tunica. I really enjoyed working with you. You were the most improved in my group from start to finish.

Our approach to teaching has evolved based on input from our students. The program we have now is so much more superior to what we offered back then.

As I said, we have adapted our teaching to our experiences.

I hope California is providing a happy home to you and your lovely wife.

NFF

well said

gman

It’s a lot of money, and I practice almost everyday, but I want to get to that next level, and I think the Dice control class would help me get there, but I am hoping to get some feedback on the class.

If you look to the right for each post you will see the posters name, Number of Posts, GTC Courses taken, GTC Records and accomplishments. That will give you some indication as to their background and accomplishments.

I took the course after approximately five years of study on my own and on the Internet. I am not a gambler and do not care to waste money on get rich quick schemes. I do not believe in systems!

[list=disc]There were a few things that I could not attain by myself.
[*]The correct grip for my hands.[/*]
[*]The correct stance.[/*]
[*]The correct toss.[/*]
[*]The correct release.[/*]
[*]The correct height of the toss.[/*]
[*]The correct follow through.[/*]
[*]A visualization of all of these elements in an elite toss.[/*][/list]

So I took the class after much internal debate.

We were warned not to practice before taking the class, as they would just have to overcome our bad habits. We were taught to take notes, practice for six months before going to the casino to try out our new skills. We were told not to go out gambling the first night after the class. We were told to have a quiet evening and get a good nights sleep before the second day of the class, as it would be difficult. We were taught the rudiments of Craps Math.

There were 33 members in my class. Some were experienced gamblers and remained gamblers even after spending their time and money on the course. Some were unaware of the Math of Craps and to this day will never learn. Some spent late nights in Las Vegas gambling while sleep walking through the class. Some came to the class to "hook-up". A few learned the GTC concepts.

Where do you feel that you will place in the people who take the class?

If you want to be the best musician, pilot, golfer, or dice controller, it is going to take lots of blood, sweat and tears. Nothing comes easy in life. The drive has to come from inside to make it to the top. I hope to see you soon in one of the future classes.

LML

We are so happy they didn’t. We never would have spent 6 months practicing what they taught us, and 1 year perfecting our tosses until we could actually go to a casino and start making some money. Over the years, we have taken every course offered, my 401G has been steadily growing, and the courses have been paid for with my craps profits.

After every class, there are posts from students as to how they felt about their experience. The front page of our web site tells you the dates of the classes. Read some of the posts after those dates, and you will learn how the students feel, and what they feel they learned.

This is an investment and a journey. You must be willing to practice every day, by either buying a practice rig, or building one yourself. You must have the discipline to stay away from the casino until you have put in enough practice time and throws. Otherwise, you will become discouraged because you will not be successful, and your money will have been wasted.

For us, this has been a life-changing experience. We have made many friends, and we are now retired and have a hobby that we can enjoy together. I hope to meet you one day in a class. If you are dedicated and disciplined, you would never regret it.

Goddess

"Goddess" wrote:
After every class, there are posts from students as to how they felt about their experience. The front page of our web site tells you the dates of the classes. Read some of the posts after those dates, and you will learn how the students feel, and what they feel they learned.

Here are some from the last class:

http://www.goldentouchcasino.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1808

http://www.goldentouchcasino.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1800

http://www.goldentouchcasino.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1813

http://www.goldentouchcasino.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1860

ROI…Return on Investment

You have to decide if spending money on dice control is to further a fun ‘hobby’, or are you doing it so you can beat the casinos out of their money. If it is a hobby, like golf is for many people, you can justify the course and the hotel charges and the travel, meals, etc., as something fun you like to do. To continue the golf analogy, I know people who have gone to someplace like Hawaii on a ‘lesson’ and play package and will spend many thousands on the pursuit of excellence in a game they may will never make a dime at. But, that kind of stuff is what they like to do with their discretionary income. Others like to spend money on cruises or sports cars. The list is endless. For these people, the cost of the class is not weighed against anything concrete. If you’re one of these, take several classes if it floats your boat!

For others, and I include myself in this group, dice control is something I want to excel at so I can make a profit versus the casinos while doing something I really enjoy — playing craps. Most of us played the game long before we learned dice control. Here’s the rub with the investment/return approach to the game. You absolutely cannot ( barring some huge luck string ) justify the cost of the course (travel, tuition, meals,etc.) if you are a $5 unit player with a return on investment philosophy. You won’t win enough to ever get back the $3000 – $5000 the course will cost you. If you take just two more refreshers and a couple of tune ups as a $5 player, you have thrown so much money into the ‘classes’ hole that you’ll never recoup those costs. If that feels ok to you, take the courses. In my opinion, you need to be at least a $25 unit player to hope to start recouping the learning costs. A conservative $25 player betting correctly, can win some very meaningful money on a realistic roll ( 15 – 25 rolls). A $25 player at 3,4,5x odds is earning $175 per hit. The $5 player is earning $35 per hit. To make it tougher, every time you have a losing trip, the cost of dice control just went up by the amount of your losses! Education costs + losses is what you have to make up in order to become profitable. I believe it can be done, otherwise, I wouldn’t be attempting it. As a dice controller who wants to make a profit, you better know where just about every dime has gone in terms of both education and losses…and wins, or you’re just a gambler who is fooling himself or herself.

One way or the other, you probably need to take at least one course, but do it with realistic expectations vis a vis your ‘why’. With the little bit of training I"ve had, I have established a decent edge and have far better results than I ever had as a random roller. My plan is to increase my bankroll to the point where I am at least a comfortable $25 player, at which point, I’ll probably invest in the 2d Refresher course. In the meantime, I’ll probably register for a video critique of my throw in October in Vegas. I have heard it is very helpful.

This is just my point of view and is not intended to start a debate. I do believe it is undeniable that if you approach this from a business perspective, what I have said above cannot be ignored or sluffed off. Are you going to try to make a profit or just have fun?

Alamo

"AlamoTx" wrote: You absolutely cannot ( barring some huge luck string ) justify the cost of the course (travel, tuition, meals,etc.) if you are a $5 unit player with a return on investment philosophy. You won’t win enough to ever get back the $3000 – $5000 the course will cost you.

I beg to differ with you on your statement regarding $5 bettors. It may take longer to recoup the investment, but I have done so by practicing diligently and following the GTC commandments. Perhaps most people don’t have the discipline or the desire to do the work that will achieve the results. In fact, Frank and Dom tell students that only 10% will ultimately succeed in our endeavor.

As I said in my response, if you aren’t going to practice, then it would certainly be a waste of money.

Goddess

My only response is that a lot of people say a lot of things on this board. I find it to be a bit like network marketing where a whole lot of claims are made…some even true. So, I can’t say you have not recouped all of the money you’ve spent on Golden Touch related stuff, but I do know craps as well as most people on this board, and I’m also a decent shooter and very disciplined. I can say that anyone on this board who claims he or she has never had a losing trip is not being honest (not that you said that). My point was that with $5 unit play, you have to win a lot of sessions to crack the mark for even one Primer weekend, much less the travel expense for live play. With three flat bets with full odds, the max you’ll have in play at any one turn will be $85. Not that much leverage, but then maybe you roll in the 20’s 95% of the time or something. I do not, and from what I’ve seen neither do most dice controllers.

By the time you’ve taken a couple of refreshers, you’ve spent a hell of a lot of money on ‘education’. As a $5 player, there is a realistic amount you can expect to win or lose per session and per trip, and it is a saw tooth pattern. Gamblers tend to ‘estimate’ their winnings high and their losses low. Personally, my results are kept as an accounting, to the penny….but that’s neither here nor there. Good news or bad, I always know exactly where I am with gaming.

Would love to shoot with you sometime. Will probably be back in Vegas in October and may buy a video critique…more investment $ on the minus side of the account. : )

Alamo

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No, I do not work for GTC, nor do I get paid to post! In fact I pay to take the classes just like you do.

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SethD2

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