I will go through the books and authors you listed and give them my rating with

Five stars * * * * * the best of the best
Four stars * * * * excellent
Three stars * * * good
Two stars * * leaves much to be desired
One star * awful
Zero stars 0 = use book to kill your enemy!

This is just my opinion. I don’t want to offend anyone on the board.

Scarne. Never read him.

Zeke Feinberg wrote The Dice Doctor. The book is not an advantage play book but a really enjoyable read from the late "old timer." Three stars: * * *

Sharpshooter wrote "Get the Edge at Craps" with Intro by Frank. Excellent book. Four stars * * * *

Jerry Patterson. I read a few of his books. I think his early works were good but he really went downhill with his target system in blackjack. A complete fraud. Two stars * *

John Gollehon writes small paperbacks and churns them out. Not a good writer. Pass him by. Two stars * *

Heavy writes some self published books. He is a competitor with GTC. Has nothing good to say about Frank and knocks GTC and especially Frank on his web site. I guess he figures that will get him customers. If this were a religion Frank would be the devil. Heavy is a true blowhard. I have no respect for him at all. One star *

Larry Edell wrote a book about making money at craps and it was just a betting system and really stupid. No stars *

Beau. Selling seminars and also Steve Nelli’s phoney betting system. Nelli was thrown off this board from calling members to try and buy his system. Don’t know much about Beau but I am wary of anyone selling betting systems!

Yuri Kononenko wrote about dice control and his book is pretty good. Three stars * * *

Stanford Wong. One of the great blackjack writers and he gets five stars for that * * * * *. His craps book Wong on Dice is just a rehash poorly done of Frank and GTC’s work. Two stars * *

Mad Professor. Thinks of himself as a genius. He has one book, The Crapshooting Bible, which was overlong and dull. His writing on his web site is also long winded. It’s hard to get through the BS. Two stars * *

Irishsetter. Writes for Heavy. Another guy who thinks of himself as a genius. Hasn’t written any books that I know of. No stars 0

Tenpin. I have no idea what this guy has done.

Dicesetter.com. Takes a mystical approach to craps and is idiotic if you ask me. No stars 0

All Craps. Don’t know it.

Rec gambling craps. I don’t think this even exists.

The names you listed. I have respect for Frank, Stickman, Dom, Billy the kid but the others I have no idea of anything they have accomplished. Some of those names I have no idea who they are. I don’t see any books by them on Amazon.com.

Getting to books. Here is my list:

1. Casino Craps Shoot to Win
2. Cutting Edge Craps
3. Get the Edge at Craps
4. The Captain’s Craps Revolution (tough to find)
5. Forever Craps – this is often overlooked and it has the complete story of the Captain. A must read.
6. Dice Control for Casino Craps
7. Beat the Craps Out of the Casinos (first book about the Captain)
8. The Craps Underground (tough to find)
9. The Dice Doctor (tough to find)
10. Winning Casino Craps

This is a very interesting post. I have talked in depth to members of the first few craps classes taught by GTC. I personally know Heavy and Beau. I know many many people from all the different dice camps.

Heavy and Beau are not vindictive anymore than Frank and Dom. Everyone I have ever talked to tells the same history.

There are only minor differences in the mechanics of each camps toss technique. GTC does the best teaching because of their approach. GTC has done the best job of marketing the product, thus they are the leader in the industry.

Don’t put John Patrick down. Although he believes in trends, one can indeed win following his advice because he really advocates regression in his betting technique. I followed his teachings for many years before I took the GTC class. I feel that through GTC I am more successful than with John Patrick.

As for Steve Nelli, I know him personally also. I never saw any direct solicitation by him on the board. I don’t know, but think he had many individuals personal e-mails and he went after business that way.

For those who don’t know Nelli’s method is available for free on the internet if one knows where to find it. I can’t remember if I bokmarked it or not but about a year ago the location was posted on John Patrick’s board.

I also have dismissed Soft Touch (dicesetter.com I think) as everything I have read by her was of little to no value to me.

Irish Setter had a board long before GTC and it has been discontinued. I have rolled with him a few times and he is no different from any shooter – GTC or otherwise – he has good days and bad.

Clark of Lois and Clark

Clark, thanks for the input.

Don’t put John Patrick down. Although he believes in trends, one can indeed win following his advice because he really advocates regression in his betting technique. I followed his teachings for many years before I took the GTC class. I feel that through GTC I am more successful than with John Patrick.

John Patrick’s Advanced Craps was extremely difficult for me to read as I already was disposed to reject his techniques. I took this book to the cottage and started reading it from the back pages to the front. It made more sense to me reading it that way(that may show more about me than Patrick).

I have read many gambling books and I do believe that Frank’s are unquestionably the best. There are other great writers but none have his writing skill and mastery of the subject in a way people can understand. To me he is the dice control movement and everyone else just plays in his band. And I give full credit to the Captain for teaching Frank the main ideas. It is sad the Captain has passed but we do have Frank and Satch as the two last members of the Captain’s original crew.

At least Scan and I were on the Rec:craps news group and there were discussions of Dice Control on that group and a fellow Jim Ferr who collected various betting approaches trying unsuccessfully to find a betting approach that was profitable.

Noah

CIII,

Your reference would get you there. At one time in the 2000-2010 time frame I was very active there. Know I was in the top ten of people who posted.

Had some interesting discussions there.

Search for "Jim the system man" for the many betting systems that Jim Ferr collected and posted.

He was a grat guy, don’t know if he is still around or not.

Noah

I have had instruction from some of the other gurus of dice control and while I have nothing against them it is amateur hour. When I finally took the GTC course at the urging of a friend I found total professionalism in their instruction and practice sessions. They tell you that the weekend is intense and it certainly is. The whole GTC experience from where they hold their classes to the talent of the teachers sold me. What has now sold me even more is the fact that I have been winning money since the classes. It is up and down but I play how I have been taught.

Professional is the key word when it comes to GTC. Friendly also fits.

"Scarne’s Complete Guide To Gambling", my bible in my gambling infancy. I was fortunate to come by it back in the early ’70’s, still have it although the dustcover is gone. It was printed in the early ’60’s and the book was very informative which included the math to back up his study. That bit of information esp., regards Blackjack and Craps gave me a defined path in gambling. The Basic Strategy for BJ was most helpful and is close to the strategy of GTC. The study of dice in the book was thorough and learning the game from a statistical standpoint was a challenge for me as a math challenged person. But it got me into the game with some understanding and knowledge that kept my losses from being to severe with some exceptions. I was in my 20’s back then and was going to Las Vegas with some regularity,and still do. Combined with GTC and the added power of dice control it has kindled a spirit of excitement to my gambling experience in trying to "Beat the Craps out of the Casino"…… 😎 😎

I went to a program given by Jerry Patterson in Las Vegas in 2001 I think it was and the speakers were Patterson, Sharpshooter, Irishsetter, Heavy and Frank. It was an interesting day. It was a day that was used to try to get students for Beau and Patterson’s classes and they even separated which students wanted to go with which teacher at the end of the program. That was kind of cheesy if you ask me.

Golden Touch Craps did not exist then. Frank was just a guest speaker at the time.

Here is my recollection of the speakers.

Patterson was dull and it was hard to hear him speak. Patterson was the MC. Sharpshooter was boring as all hell and also hard to hear him speak. He had a lot to say but really the guy was not much of a speaker and I almost dozed off.

Irishsetter was the absolute pits. He made Patterson and Sharpshooter sound like professional speakers. He should never have gotten up to speak. People around me were looking at each other when he was speaking that is how bad everyone thought he was. It was a complete embarrassment.

Heavy was really funny. He got the crowd alive with his talk. You could hear him with no problem and he was as I said very funny. I don’t think he had much to say in the way of strategy but he woke us all up.

The main event was Frank. As good as Heavy was Frank was in a class by himself. If you have gone to his talks or his Meet and Greets you know what a great speaker he is and how he can bring down the house with humor. He saved the day and made it memorable. What he had to say was interesting and he had great insight into casino playing.

I then signed up for PARR which I took soon after. That was a really disappointing class. I should have realized it would be having heard those guys Patterson and Sharpshooter speak. It was in my opinion a waste of money and it turned me off to the whole dice control thing.

I then took GTC eight years later. I really thought oh what the hell why don’t I give this dice control another try? I had read Frank’s latest books and I saw the show about Dom and Frank on the History Channel so what the hell.

It was a great class and as someone said totally professional. Great teachers and speakers and excellent instruction and advice. Everyone who took the class raved about it. I give GTC credit for really doing it right. There is no comparison in my two experiences with controlled shooting. I am a solid GTC supporter. I had such great personal instruction! I got way more than my money’s worth.

My 2 cents.

Abbot,
The Dice Doctor was written by Sam Grafstein.

"Lois and Clark" wrote: This is a very interesting post. I have talked in depth to members of the first few craps classes taught by GTC. I personally know Heavy and Beau. I know many many people from all the different dice camps.

Heavy and Beau are not vindictive anymore than Frank and Dom. Everyone I have ever talked to tells the same history.

Don’t put John Patrick down. Although he believes in trends, one can indeed win following his advice because he really advocates regression in his betting technique. I followed his teachings for many years before I took the GTC class. I feel that through GTC I am more successful than with John Patrick.

As for Steve Nelli, I know him personally also. I never saw any direct solicitation by him on the board. I don’t know, but think he had many individuals personal e-mails and he went after business that way.

Clark of Lois and Clark

The three things above bother me

Are you saying that I am vindictive? If so, you are wrong. I have nothing to be vindictive about with these two guys. First I consider Beau a friend. Next, Definition of vindictive : vin·dic·tive (vn-dktv)
adj.
1. Disposed to seek revenge; revengeful.
2. Marked by or resulting from a desire to hurt; spiteful.

I don’t have any revenge to seek. All the nasty things that are said don’t hurt me or our business.

John Patrick does believe in trends and trend betting just doesn’t work. As far as regression betting that Patrick talks about, well maybe for a random roller this might work on any given day, but for a controlled shooter who has an edge, (let me say that again … someone that has calculated and KNOWS they have an edge) regression betting will cost you money at the tables. Why would you ever regress your bets if you are throwing with an edge against the casinos.

Nelli … unless you are the owner of this website then you don’t know all the things that have happened through out the years. Why, because unlike other websites we don’t post these things.

Dominator

Dom: You have misinterpreted my post. It did not say that you were vindictive. I was trying to say that none of the four of you are vindictive. I also said that I used to follow John Patrick before I became part of the GTC family.

Now, in reference to Steve Nelli. He was recognized on the GTC web site for his higer rolls before he went off on his own journey. Quite right I don’t know the exact inside story as to the e-mail. As I stated it was conjecture on my part. Many of the GTC people I have talked to about receiving Nelli e-mails do not know how Steve Nelli got their e-mail address. None thought it was through the web crossing sight. I personally have access to dozens of personal email addresses from many on this site. I would always guard these closely and not divulge them to others. E-mail addresses are treated by me just as I treated employee telephone numbers of my hired help. When asked about a person’s telephone number my answer was "I will give them your information and that person can contact you if they feel the need."

Just because I say Nelli is a nice guy, doesn’t mean I am promoting Steve Nelli on the GTC web site.
Clark

I can’t agree. Vindictive is what and how you write and how many lies you tell — knowing they are lies. I have to say that the "critics" spread lies like Trader Joe’s peanut butter (the poisonous ones).

So here, again: I wrote this before but I stand by it:

Answering My Critics About Dice Control History
by fscobe » Fri Sep 14, 2012 6:26 am

I shouldn’t do this. I know I shouldn’t do this but once in awhile I will do what I shouldn’t do.

I will answer some of the attacks by my critics…just don’t tell my wife, the beautiful AP that I am doing this, okay?

I just finished reading an 11-part “non-fiction fiction” about the history of dice control (something CIII wanted us to write about on this web site – see my reply to his “Jump to Judgment!” post for definition of “non-fiction fiction”).

It was filled with interesting stuff. I won’t be able to handle everything but here goes on a few points:

Criticism: I will never allow anyone to have longer rolls than I have at the tables – even Dominator can’t. This contention was also leveled by a former staff member of GTC who has a strong dislike for Dom. In short, the rolls are all fictitious since I have such control over everyone I work with and in GTC.

Answer: Just go to the World Records page at http://www.goldentouchcraps.com/worldrecords.php4 and see how many GTCers and instructors have had better rolls than me. Yes, I did roll an 89 but between that and my second best roll Dominator, Stickman, Skinny and other GTCers have eclipsed me substantially. Indeed, the greatest roll by any GTCer wasn’t mine. It was Sandtrap’s 90!

Criticism: I stole money from the first Golden Touch Casino Craps Tournament.

Answer: This has been making the rounds for years. Not so. I think we charged $199 (?) (someone help me out here) and we had a decent turnout – maybe 100 paid? The net was divided up and given out as prizes. Now, these prizes were not huge – they were in the hundreds or less but there were dozens of them – and I was criticized for this. So I decided, foolishly, to send all the bills we paid for the banquet rooms, food, trophies, publicity, tables, movers, stage – what have you – to one of the individuals to show him that I did everything I said I would do. That individual, even after I sent all this proof, continued to claim I stole money – maybe because he was another guy we let go from our teaching staff? Oh, and that is why as soon as the nonsense started about our 10th Anniversary Celebration I pulled the plug on making this a general party for everyone in GTC and kept it just for the instructors and invited friends.

Criticism: The Captain had nothing to do with dice control.

Answer: If you look at this page http://www.goldentouchcraps.com/captain_summary.shtml you’ll see that the Captain was the first to tackle dice control in the modern casino. I never said he invented it in world history – he figured it out in the modern game where the pyramids exist on the back wall.

Criticism: Dom and I were not banned from Mississippi casinos – or if we were it was because of blackjack.

Answer: True, we were banned from individual casinos because of blackjack but the monster banning week came from craps. Indeed, one of the memorable moments was at The Grand (now Harrah’s) in Tunica when about eight suits came down to stop Dom and me from shooting on a Monday morning. Recall that Stickman had gone on a tear that Friday and Dom and I were also hot that weekend. From then on casino after casino banned us – casinos we had never played blackjack in! (The entire story is told in my book The Virgin Kiss.)

Some of you on this site had to take the buses from Tunica to Memphis when Dom and I were threatened with arrest a couple of years ago. These are real stories with real witnesses, not products of my imagination.

Criticism: The Mississippi Casino Control Commission doesn’t have us on their “black book” of criminals.

Answer: Obviously, we have committed no crimes so why would we be listed on such a list? The casinos have their own black books and these have card counters, dice controllers as well as criminals on them.

Criticism: We ruined dice control for Tunica.

Answer: Maybe. But the heat started with Dom and my pictures being sent to the casinos from some anonymous source just before we arrived for our class. That was the first shot. So who sent those pictures? A letter also came, supposedly written by me, that claimed I had said we were going to kick the casinos’ asses while we were there.

A point of fact, during our second Casino Tournament in Vegas someone called the Gaming Commission to tell them we were doing illegal gambling at the hotel where we were holding the tournament. Inspectors came, saw what we were actually doing and jokingly said they’d like to participate. So who called the Commission and told them we were gambling illegally? We know someone called them because the inspectors told us so.

Criticism: All my books use the “rule of three” in my stories.

Answer: See “Jump to Judgment” response by me about this rule of three.

Criticism: I use many sock puppets.

Answer: Those are fake individuals that I pretend are writing things. The criticism lists many sock puppets as me – some of you, by the way, are me. I did this several times (and I am so sorry for that stupidity as I probably will be for writing this post) but some of the sock puppets mentioned were sock puppets of the former GTC instructor who is now one of our critics and some of our other critics! The owner of the web site was caught as a sock puppet on someone else’s web site. I guess I could go on but you get the picture. Let he who be without sin.

My wife just dropped into my office, read over my shoulder and told me to “stop this, you can’t convince anyone of anything if they don’t want to believe it. Those who know you know you; those who are attacking don’t know you or they have an agenda.”

Okay. Okay…She just walked out. I’m posting this. I pray it doesn’t diminish me in your eyes. There’s more but I think I’ll stop thinking about it.fscobe

————————————————–

Here’s my post in "Rush to Judgement":
Re: Jump to Judgement!
by fscobe » Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:14 am

Jeez, over-the-top. I know the board CubeMan is referring to and it is not some porno board. The owner of the board is someone who views himself as a GTC competitor and gambling expert. In fact, the guy loved the cartoons[note] and wrote just that recently. Also the guy posts just about everywhere on the web to push his classes and himself as an expert but he also strangely claims he is "under the radar." I am sure almost all of you know who he is.

How do I know all this?

CIII, because of your desire to learn the history of dice control from GTC’s angle, one of our members was kind enough to send me an 11 part series from that web site where the owner gloats about those cartoons as he creates a dice control history with him twirling about its center. (I’d like to thank that GTC member for sending those pages to me.) This web site owner seems to have a giant bug about me, a strong dislike, at least it seems so based on what I just read. Even one of his members, a former GTC instructor who was removed from our staff, said that everything I wrote about our adventures in The Craps Underground was true and happened exactly how I wrote it. Such a statement was ignored as the heated attacks continued.

Norman Mailer created a category of writing that he called "non-fiction fiction" where you take the real world, for example Mailer’s Marilyn Monroe book, and twist it to make your story – maybe putting yourself in it more prominently. This web site owner thinks I have done that. Now, one of this guy’s "non-fiction fictions" was that all my stories with my friends always begin with us getting beaten and then us returning to conquer the casinos. He called this a "rule of three." You get your head handed to you twice but on the third go-round you triumph. Of course, if you have read my books some trips started out good and got bad; some started bad and got good; some stayed good and some stayed bad (for example my 74 turns with the dice in Tunica where I lost on every roll!). Some went up and down.

The television show where Dom, Sharphooter and I defeated the casinos while another team of three dice controllers lost (playing the same tables at the same times) was categorized as a part of that rule of three. Sadly, we did lose at the first casino and then won at the other two. Not only were the television crews witnesses but Dave "Da Porker," his lovely wife and one of his friends along with our limo driver were witnesses to the contests. Oh, and the casinos! That’s a lot of eye witnesses! Dom and I had great rolls at the second casino (Sam’s Town) and Sharpshooter had a great roll at the third casino, Sunset Station. Why did we win money and the other team didn’t? We used the 5-Count on them and when they went down we lost little or no money.

There were so many non-fiction fictions in that 11-part history that I could probably write a book about them. In fact, I am signing a new book contract with my publisher and, guess what?, there will be a history of dice control in it — at least what I know about it.

When you take a real event and write about it, the mere fact that it is presented in an appealing way makes the story have a dimension such a story would not have if you shared it over a couple of drinks. For example, when the writer from "Playboy" magazine played with the Five Horsemen for a week and followed us around Vegas, there is an intensity to it. But the story really isn’t grand. We had one of our great suites that impressed the writer (anyone who gambles relatively large sums can get a great suite); we ate gourmet every night (many players do that), we had ups and downs at the tables but finished up (uh-oh, the notorious "rule of three" even though we had many, many sessions that were wins as well). But that story reads like we were Damon Runyan characters. You get the picture.

In real life you’d say, "We had a great suite overlooking the fountains in a private area of the hotel. We went up and down at the tables but won in the end. Dinners were great. We had fun." That’s the story. But once that story is written by a good writer, as the "Playboy" writer was, then the story becomes larger than life. No, it’s just life magnified by art.

The critics and those who say these critics are not vindictive can’t say these critics are not jealous and it is their jealousy that makes them write what they write and say what they say.

Frank I think that you would never say that you would never allow any one have a longer roll then you but you should not allow any one to have a longer roll then you you just need to practice more and roll more before you get to OLD to let that happen .Your goal should be to double your age in a roll .
As far as your books they are great.
A gal holds the record so we all should be trying to beat that.
Like when was the last time you were in a casino by yourself rolling the bones ? Give yourself a break you are a busy man.
Again I say to you that what matters is what AP THINKS PERIOD.
Good Rolling. 😀 😀

Thanks, Finisher.

The Nelli Method was discussed in depth at the forum URL below (instead of summarizing read it thyself if so desired):

https://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v= … LH4&page=1

–lylastar (if I can dig up full method implementation instructions I will post that too..I am still looking)

NELLI SYSTEM (Official name "The Aggressive Craps Strategy" costing $3000):

1. Purchase page website: http://www.aggressivecraps.com/

2. Cautionary YouTube video found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oGUmh-TZV0

3. Basis for efficacy: mystical extensions of scientific phenomena, such as: Law of Attraction, Polarity, Resonance, Cause and Effect, a law equivalent to karma, etc.

4. Operation: Long term duration of craps game exact dice values for selected location and prior to entry into the game, so that cyclic patterns that are expected to repeat themselves can be identified. When method user enters game, he employs temporary place betting, dark-side Don’t Comes and Lay bets on identified patterns in progress. He or she carries a small card summarizing the action to take under various scenarios. A defined loss limit and win limit are not permitted to become exceeded without necessitating ending game play for that session. (Some of these practices are really good…tis sad that pattern recognitions cannot work within random series…it would make life so easy!).

5. No mentions of the 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy and chaos) that is the ultimate winner for any system under consideration in THIS universe…

Thus my opinion is that Nelli system is a $3000 scam with some good ideas thrown in. I found a picture of one of the scenario cards, but it was photographed at low enough resolution that the dice values and betting amounts were illegible blur when enlarged. I did not find an operations manual, although the Loss limit probably equals 3 losers and the win limit 5 winning units with permission to continue beyond 5, but stop at the first loss thereafter (prevents house from winning back your profit goal proceeds).

All good scams have some good ideas. That’s what makes them appealing to suckers. "Oh, yeah, that is right so the idiotic stuff must be right too."

Nelli has proven himself to be a scammer. He abused the GTC web pages by phoning members and emailing them to buy his bogus trend betting system. He also used attacks on GTC as a selling point for his phoney system. I got one of those emails about four years ago. I did not get a phone call but the email was enough. Big promises about income for life and that kind of stuff.

If I recall Frank and Dom offered Nelli $10K to have his system analyzed by professional mathematician Dom Caitlin but Nelli said part of the system was psychic or intuitive. Yeah, right!

The gambling world is full of these scammers. How can you tell that GTC is the true way to go? Two reasons: You can prove mathematically that you have an edge and you can see the quality of the instructors —— all major successes in their lives and in their advantage play. You can’t hide from the facts when you deal with GTC.

With GTC you can prove it all. That’s my humble opinion.