This is not so much about reporting what happened on my recent Vegas trip as about reporting on what I am learning about the advantage game the more I play. So, it is an observations and lessons learned piece. I’m not arrogant enough for this piece to be considered advice. Just my stuff.

My craps strategy is to go to a table prepared to walk away if luck and skill do not cooperate. Essentially, what that means is that I will try 3 turns with the dice. If none of those turns produces an acceptable profit vs the amount invested, I walk away. So, lesson number one (these are my lessons learned): Become skilled at limiting your losses. No matter how good you are at controlling the dice, you have a good chance of losing unless you have a fair portion of luck to go along with your skill set. Period. My SRR runs between abysmal when I’m making mistakes to something around 10 – 15 when the throw is in the zone. Frank has always stressed that your throw is dynamic, and experience has taught me how true this is.

The good news for this trip: My strategy for limiting losses worked almost perfectly. I never had more than $90 on the board starting out a hand. My strategy at that risk level says that a $50 profit ( + – 50% of the at risk amount ) is a realistic minimum acceptable win. If you make that after three tries, you walk. The upside can be very high, but in my case, if you have 1 out of 3 turns with the dice that is a money maker, that generally means you had a 15+ hand in there somewhere. You may have to do better than 15 throws if you win on the third hand after losing the first two hands. If you only win $15 on that third hand after being down from the first two, you walk. You had a good roll. Sometimes, you’ll roll strong hands back to back, but the odds don’t favor that happening predictably, in my opinion. One other idea on the 50% concept can make you extra money. At the $90 at risk level, if you win more than $100, you bank the $100 and play with the excess on the theory that you just might win some more. Do not go into the $100 you already won, of course. Unfortunately, I never got to do that on this trip.

During the trip, I played 8 sessions. A ‘session’ for me is a 3 game set. Only two of those were winners. The luck this trip was extraordinarily bad for me. As a prime example, on my last session, the first two turns with the dice had left me about even. The third game began with the dice looking beautiful. I had an inside number passline bet with double odds and the other three placed for $10/$12 each. With this method, the idea (very conservative ) is to hit three numbers. On the 4th hit, you begin pressing those inside #s to the $35 payout level. Hit two of the $35 payouts and then cover the 4 & 10 for $10 and get them pressed up also. This method has made me a lot of money in the past. Nothing made me money this trip. Anyway, on this last roll, there was a CF on the corner with his chips right where I needed to land, not an uncommon occurrence. By the way, I did not walk down there and ask him to move his chips…bad GTC form. My target was just to the left of his chips as I’m looking down the stripe. The first two throws were right down the track and on the mark. The dice bounced, kissed the back wall and died where they came down, within a couple of inches of each other. Both hits were 3/2. I was pumped. I was dialed in and I felt it. The next throw was just a little to the right and managed to clip the chip stack rather than hitting next to it. The dice died immediately and became a 6/1. Now, some of you superstitious types are going to say that I made a 7 BECAUSE I hit the chips instead of my target. Strictly speaking that is true. A 7 resulted from what became a random roll. On the other hand, a clean throw might also have been a 7. The point I am making hear is that during this trip, I did not “get the lucky bounces” as they say in Football and Baseball. And, that didn’t change during the whole trip. If Lady Luck had given me a 6/2 instead, I might have gone on to roll a big hand.

Because I did not keep playing and chasing the bad luck, hoping for the next throw to be the big one, I limited my losses to where I won’t need the trip from heaven next time to reverse the downside. I can win back what I lost on this trip with one good roll. Some of you are going to say something like “Yeah, but if you’d kept playing you might have won ultimately.” To that, I say, ‘maybe’. I might have also continued losing. During this trip I played with and around a number of decent, and some very decent, GTC players. I saw some of them keep playing after I took my 3 and out into the observation deck. None of them had winning hands before or after I walked. A couple mentioned something like “I should have quit when you did …” That is not to say that they did not win at other times I was not present, but based on my observations, no one made money. All of those who kept persisting during these bad luck sessions lost much more than I did. On the way home, one guy even texted me that it was “one of the worst trips” he’s been on…results-wise. Point: Lady Luck was nowhere near me during this trip.

So, to recap Lesson One: Develop a disciplined loss control system that you do not violate. We all love to play the game, but unless you want to dig yourself a bottomless hole to climb out of, you must learn to quit when the universe is telling you to quit. If you just want to ‘pay to play’ stay as long as you like. When Lady Luck is in a bad mood, like a Black Widow spider she will lure you into the web and then devour you if you let her. Losing can negatively influence your confidence and belief in your throw. Taking a break and reviewing things can get your perspective back. Lady Luck may be out of her period (don’t nail me for chauvinism here…this is a metaphor) the next time you go back. You’ll hit a chip stack and she’ll give you a box number instead of a 6/1 and you’ll go on to roll a 30+ hand!

Lesson Two: Being a controlled shooter does not mean you can ignore the luck factor. Nor should you doubt your throw if you have a string of bad luck. A random roller has a 1 in 6 sevens to rolls ratio. Even when you are good enough to have a 1:10 SRR at a particular juncture, if you roll your average, meaning you draw a 7 within a 10 roll hand, especially at the wrong time, you will not win money. We all have seen random rollers who go on an unbelievable run and destroy the mathematical house advantage. Why? Luck. Controlled shooters need luck too and when they don’t get it, even a golden throw can turn out badly. I have seen sessions where several tables were jammed with GTC instructors and good ‘civilian’ shooters and EVERYBODY lost money. In fact, I’ve seen good shooters lose far more often than I’ve seen them win. That has been my experience, for what it’s worth. The lesson I am learning is that you must control your losses so that when skill and good luck do meet, you will blow past the losses and irretrievably into the plus column….at which point you will walk away, I hope.

Good luck to all of you people and ‘Keep On Rollin’.

Alamo

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