Hi Lion!

Wow, how we all have experienced the pain and frustration you are feeling at this time. I’m sure you will be bombarded with similar replies.
Hopefully, one of them will apply to your situation.

Come on everyone. Extend a helping hand to the Lion.

Catch you later!

What are the dice doing?

Are they rotating together side by side after they release?

Are you hitting your target on the table?

What do they do after they hit the table? How do they react? Are they going straight back to the pyramids or not?

Are they hitting the pyramids on the bounce up or down?

What are they doing after they hit the back wall?

Do they come straight back together? Do they stop the same relative distance from the back wall? How far from the back wall are they settling?

You should get the idea from that.

Skinny — thanks

Some of the those questions, I can answer positively

But, most of the questions make me think about the reaction of the dice.

I think that I’ve been shooting with too much force/energy and not enough arch. I’ve been very conscious about hitting the back wall because one of the paces we go in AC is REALLY cracking down on it. And, I think my backspin has been faster than it should be. In addition, one of the problems that I had prior to the GTC March refresher is that my shot is too fast (identified by Rand-man). I’m have some difficulty in slowing it down and that can be contributing to the negative results. Not really sure HOW to slow the shot down and have less force, and develop more touch, and still hit that back wall.

We’ve also been playing in AC at a few of the total rewards properties — one place uses heavy/larger sized dice…and another property had small ones that are lighter. So, there is an adjustment period when you go from place to place.

However, I will keep pushing onward …. and practice, practice

I find if I shorten my back swing, I generate less force on the follow through. Works for me, give it a try.

Cmcierra 🙂

My money is on the simple fact that you are opening your hand up at release instead of letting the dice pull out of your hand.

If you open your hand up at release the dice will look like a great shoot but like a wedge shot that has no back spin they will not loose any energy when they hit so the double pitch on axis shot is the norm.

Great point, Bman

I believe that Bman knows what frustration is .If you ever get to meet him he is great at giving GOOD Advise on your shoot and has a great throwing rig that is travel friendly .
Have you tried toothpicks ?
It was frustrating for me when taking class they said 2/5 and 3/4 was good 7 .
It will get better .
Good Rolling. 🙂 🙂

It sounds like you are saying you are rushing your shot as one of your problems. The way to stop that is to be sure you pause after you grip the dice and square them to the table. Once you square up the dice you should turn and look at your target. Do not start your back swing until you have focused on the target. Make a conscious effort to look at where you want to land and stare at the spot for a second. Then start your swing and watch the target to see if you hit it or not and in order to see how your dice are reacting.

At first you will have to force yourself to do this because your tendency will be to go back to the habit of throwing the dice as soon as you have squared them up under your nose. The problem with this is you will be looking up while you are swinging your arm. The movement of your head makes it extremely hard to bring your arm straight back and straight forward. With your arm and head moving at the same time you tend to pull your hand inside because your neck pulls on your arm if you go straight back while moving your head forward to look at the target.

Let me know if this works or not.

Some great observations from the forum. All good suggestions and things you should try.

I feel you are trying to hard and just not letting the dice flow. In others words you are not trusting the GTC shot that we worked on in class …. you are trying to throw softly, you are trying to hit the back wall, you are trying to land on the same spot. All these things are in your mind besides the thought that you were doing better with the shot that you walked into the seminar with.

Trust the shot and let it flow off your fingers. Do what Skinny said, and then what BMan said about opening your hand. Try to stop thinking of everything and just trust your shot.

Dominator

you have gotten a lot of good advice now to truly fix the problem go take a tune up before what eve it is that you are doing becomes a habit and ruins your game.

Thanks so much for the advice, help, and support

Things are looking better now — been able to slow things down, not as long of a backswing, and results on practice rig getting better

I did notice that my left hand comes out slanted — I saw it at the end of follow-through; Slanted where the index finger is higher than my ring finger …. but, when I really get up over the practice rig and using my box, my arm is completely straight down (like a golf club) and my hand comes through straight and at the end of the shot, my fingers are even

Such a learning experience and journey this is …. I think that’s why I get so annoyed when dealers tell me to just pick ’em up and throw ’em !!

My shot is going "live" this weekend in AC at our normal places of play…… wish me luck

I will provide a report next week

THE LION

Keep the C-grip, hold on to the hook into the follow-thur and be sure to get square to the table and up over the dice. Keep your whole arm relaxed and let it flow as Dom has recommended. Think Heisman Trophy follow through. I have the same problem as you have mentioned when I don’t practice regularly and have to go through the checklist of recommendations I made above. Also beware of being tired when you practice. Starting fresh improves the physical and mental part of the game.

The thing that Brothelman mentioned about the dice ‘pulling’ out of your hand is so very critical. It sounds so simple yet your grip has to have just the right tension at the apex of your target arc. In other words, that point in the arc of your motion where the dice are released from your possession. I worked for thousands of throws trying to get that ‘feel’ and now I sometimes get it. Believe me, having an open hand when the dice come out is frustrating as hell, but you can fix it.

As you know, there is a point in the arc of the swing at which the dice have to come out of your hand so they’ll hit your selected target. That ‘point’ in the arc is where the centrifugal force must be allowed to gently pull the cubes out of your fingers. When a baseball pitcher executes a pitch, his arm follows through, but the ball comes out on its own at the point of max power directed at the spot where he knows it will hit the catcher’s target in the mit. On dice, not too much thumb and not too much fingers. You are gently clamping the little buggers in a C clamp made of your thumb and fingers, ideally with equal gentle pressure. When the arc reaches the target release spot, the point where you’ll create that 45 degree arc to the landing zone, that is when the grip has to be just a little too weak to keep the dice in your hand. We talk about ‘throwing’ and ‘tossing’ the dice. We don’t do any of that. They come out of our fingers like they would from an old fashioned David and Goliath slingshot ( not with that kind of force, of course )…or one of those Lacrosse kind of things you throw a ball to your dog with.

My mental trick is to undergrip the dice just a bit–enough to keep them in my fingers– and then, right as they reach the apex of your shot arc, tighten the grip ever so slightly…I mean SLIGHTLY, so that you actually feel the centrifugal force remove the dice from your grip. You’ve got to feel like you’ve got nothing to do with them coming out. Is that making sense? It works for me. The rotation on the dice then becomes an automatic function of what the physics of the shot is doing. Shorter backswing means less force, but it can also mean a short shot, because your backswing has to be just enough to get the dice to the target landing area ON THEIR OWN MOMENTUM…never helped by you at either the beginning or end of the swing through. If you’ve ever pitched horseshoes, its a lot like that action..or pitching a softball in slow pitch. Just enough.

The other problem most of us have is alignment. What I’ve discovered is that you can’t count on the felt lines to be true all the time. They can be helpful, but not necessarily square with the two surfaces where it matters. The relevant surfaces for us are the flat surface of the table and the flat part of the back wall. Here’s a tip that might help with alignment, especially if you hold the dice at a slight angle like I do. I cannot comfortably curl the dice back so that the dice are exactly flat looking up at me like in the books. To try this idea, set a HW set with the 10s on top. The 4s will be facing you. Have the 6 farthest from you. Once you grip the dice and put them into position to align them, look at the pips. Mentally try to draw a straight line through the two outside pips of the 4 farthest from you and the two outside pips of the 5 farthest from you, with the line through the dice pointing at the back wall. All the outside pips should be in a line with each other. You must be over the dice and have them under your nose more or less so your arm dangles loosely. If you tilt the dice toward you too much, you’ll begin to see the the rails of the 6 that is facing away from you. If you tilt them too far away from you, you’ll start to see the 1 that is nearest your belly. Those three alignments, which you can quickly cross check against each other will tell you if you are truly square for the way you hold the dice. Now, mentally, if you draw back on your backswing, keep the backswing on an imaginary line with the one you just drew through the pips and then bring the dice forward along that same mental line. When you get it right, you’ll find that you stop spraying them to the left and right so much. For all but the very tallest among us, your landing zone is just outside the point where the back wall begins to curve. Ideally, the dice should end up in a small spot 10" square or less down in that corner if they hit the back wall square. I’m talking about a shot from SL here, because I’m a righty. If either or both of these tricks don’t work for you, don’t use them.

Much of this game is mental, and for me, I have set up and delivery mental tricks that work for me. Just like with a golf swing. If you’re not square, most likely, your dice will wander off to your left toward the farthest corner. Not that many of us hook our shot. Slicing happens most often for most of us. You really can’t ‘aim’ for the center of the back wall unless you’re 8 feet tall and can get out over the Come box. When you first get to a table, while every body else is bullshitting, look down the runway and try to see where the wash tub ends and the back wall becomes flat. Then pick something on the layout that will line you up with that spot on the back wall and square up for that target. Sounds easy, but it ain’t. First off some douche will have a stack of chips exactly where you want your shot to go! Main thing is….HAVE FUN. At least with the GTC method you have a better chance of winning.

I’ve had all your problems, along with some others, and still struggle with my shot. We all do, except those of us who post about being unbeatable and never losing and crap like that. Like golf controlled shooting is a way we play the game, but we will never MASTER it. Some days you’ll be unbeatable and other days you’ll be in the dugout early because you stink. Keep practicing every single day, not just throwing the dice but continually trying to improve your game. I hate to admit it, but I think about dice all the time. The betting, the technique…all of it. Imaging the shot in your head before you go to sleep at night even. (Unless your squeeze is doing something else to you! Don’t think about your dice game then!) The beauty of this website is that you can pick up a ton of good stuff that will help. Practice like mad, but on game day do like Dom said and go out and let your shot happen. Hope this helps. If it doesn’t, hit the delete button.

Keep On Rollin bro!

Alamo

AlamoTx; It helps a lot. I just got back from Reno and I am finally able to remain present enough to really look at what the dice are doing in my hand when I release them. I bet accordingly. I had a couple of good rolls but more importantly I got a real good look at what my dice were doing and I know pretty well when they are on. I am not far enough along to feel confident in the heat of battle but I have come a long way in the last two years. Your detailed advice is something I am able to "hear" now. Thanks for your generosity. DoughBoy

Alamotx, What a great post you made here. The only thing I could not visualize were the three alignments. I am sure there isn’t another way of writing about them without illustrations but I really want to understand what you were saying. I am missing something since I do not understand where all the lines are going. As I said you probably can’t write it any more clearly than you did so I know I am the problem. But thank you I will keep on trying to get what you were saying. Professor

If you look at the illustrations in the craps books that GTC publish, you’ll see that the suggested starting spot for the backswing is with the dice looking straight up at you. For example, if you set the 5s up when you grip the dice, the traditional starting position suggested for beginners in the classes will have the 4s looking up at you. The way I set them, the six is facing away from me on one end and the one is facing my belt buckle. Theoretically, if you can hold that position of the dice throughout your throw, the dice remain square from start to finish and they generate backspin on release. I have discovered through tens of thousands of throws that I do best with the dice at a 45 degree angle to the table at the start. That makes it a little more problematic to ‘square’ them visually. So…my dice tilt at about a 45 degree angle so I can see along the ridgeline part of a 4 and part of a 5 as I line things up. If you move the dice around, you’ll see that if you tilt the axle ( the imaginary line for the dice to turn on as they rotate) toward you, dipping the dice down toward your belt, the 6 becomes visible. The other way, the 1 becomes visible. With your head over the dice, so that your arm is loose and dangling, you should not really be able to see the six or the one when you’re ready to start your swing. Your eyes and your dice should also be in line…but that’s not the issue here. Unless your head position is really skewed or your not up over the dice, keeping the 6 and 1 not visible means the dice are square on one plane with the surface of the table. But are they square with the back wall? Critical. If you now draw an imaginary line through the outside pips of the 4 and the 5 on the two dice you are holding, so that the pips line up pointing toward the back wall, all the while being sure you can’t see too much 6 or 1, you have a pretty well aligned start. Take the dice back along the imaginary line through the backswing and follow them through along the imaginary line on the foreward swing and then let centrifugal force pull them from the light pressure of your fingers and thumb and you should have a good shot. This would be much easier to show in person, obviously, but I’ve never had it taught to me. I just discovered that it works well for my throw.

When I played golf, I would walk to the tee and face the fairway and decide where I wanted the ball to end up. There was usually some sort of landmark between the tee and the target that I could draw a line through from the tee to the target area. So I would set up so that the club would drive the ball down that imaginary line between points to the spot where I wanted the ball to end up. Not exactly the same thing with dice, but there are similarities. If you have bowled, you know there are little guide marks on the alley. When making your bowling shot, you go from ball to mark on the alley to spot where you want the ball to strike the pins. You can also do this with dice, but that as well is not the issue here.

The reason my set up grip is not flat like in the books and videos is because I get too much wrist drift and excess spin with that set up. My set up allows my arm and hand to remain a rigid unit, like a golf club, from backswing to release. If you tilt the dice back and forth to where you can see the 6 and then see the 1 and back and forth like that, you’ll see that the pips on the outside of the dice are out of line with each other when you can see too much 6 or 1. So if you can’t see the 6 or the 1 and the pips on the dice farthest from you make a nice straight alignment with each other, your beginning position is square. You’re going to be looking at your target as you create your back and forward arc, so you have to imagine that arc (your clubhead in golf) staying on that little line you just created in your mind, all the way to the time the dice come out of your hand at the best part of the arc for them to make a 45 degree track to the landing zone. All of this has to be smooth and gentle and relaxed.

With all that said. This works for me, and I’m sure it may not meet with everyone’s approval, since it is a bit unorthodox. And, I reserve the right to change all of this for myself as I improve…or not. And, like all of it, you have to practice. If you don’t practice with almost an obsession, all the knowledge in the world won’t open the casino’s coffers. And, you have to learn how to bet…and when not to play…and what to do with heat…and all the other stuff. But, still, I would love to hear if these tips end up making any difference in anyone’s shot. Of course, that will need to be about 5000 throws from now!

Keep On Rollin’

Alamo

Well you did it Alamotx. You wrote it in a way my pea brain could understand. It really was an articulate and well written explanation. I get it. And I appreciate all the time and effort you put into it. Were you a teacher at any point in your life. A good teacher never gives up on their students and you did not give up on me. Thank you. By the way I do the same golf manuever on the tee and I was an avid bowler for 40 years so I get it.
I will put all of this together and let you know 5000 shots from now how it works. I put in a lot of practice time every single day and want to be the best I can be. I think you have helped me move toward that goal. Professor

Professor –

One word of admonition…and I’m sure you get it. The ‘techniques’ I described have to be ‘executed’, and for my game, they are mental tricks that help me execute the throw properly. So, nothing that anybody teaches in any enterprise is a secret key of some sort, but if we do things correctly rather than incorrectly, we get better results and that’s where the tips come in. I’ve read dozens of tips on this website and some of them I’ve adopted and others just don’t suit my personality or my game or my body mechanics or whatever. I would love it if some little aspect of what I shared changed your game. Nothing feels better in a casino than getting on a roll where first you see that you’ve hit enough numbers that you’ve gotten your table bets covered…then you keep hitting numbers and then pressing…and when you quit the table cheers and a few tips from other bettors float over to you. Great feeling. I made several hundred dollars off of my last decent roll from black and green chips handed to me by other players at the table! Maybe being a GTC shooter is like being a good server at a restaurant! Serve the table well and you get a good tip! A little tongue in cheek there.

I just saw this post and it resonated with me. You could look back on this board a couple of years and you’d see a post from me lamenting many of the same frustrations. While I whined and moaned about my game, I didn’t quit. My solution was to get a video tune up. That was a monumental decision for my game and it changed everything. Per the video, I simply was not in alignment during my set up, so the throw was always slicing. It was incredibly easy to see on video once the guys started analyzing it. I fixed it…well, we never completely fix anything in this sport…and now I guess I’ve kind of become obsessed with the alignment part of the shot. Now, if I could do the rest of it right, I’d have a shot!

Happy shooting and Keep On Rollin’

Alamo

Alamotx I really think you are short changing the importance of what you wrote here in these posts. Yes they are technics that work for you but in the scheme of things you are imparting your knowledge–teaching– to anyone who wants to listen and learn. Of the thousands of people on this site, some of them, including me, have been given a guide or starting point from your technics to come up with their own twists to them. I eat, drink and sleep this phenomenon of dice throwing and I love it with a passion and I want to beat it even though the odds are against that happening. But what you have imparted to me and all the others reading your posts is the incentive to keep going when all does not look great. I have tried a great many of the tips given on this site and none were as helpful as Skinny’s and yours. I was a teacher for 37years and the greatest excitment of all was seeing the glint in the eye of a student who "got it." It was very obvious when it happens for there is a new confidence in that student that was not there before. Well I have a new confidence in what I am doing as I am trying to have your technics fit me. If they don’t then I will tweek them to fit. If you have been reading my posts you will notice I have mentioned being on the right side but I started out left however over time lost confidence in my shot. However after reading your posts and giving the left side another try, well, the glint was in my eye. So what you are doing is teaching by imparting knowledge in ways that people can understad and use even though they have read it in many books (I have them all). That in and of itself is a skill. So again thank you and Skinny for the giving me the spark back to the left side shot. Professor

Try this simple solution it might work.Change from the hardway set to the 3v or 2v set.One of Frank book says that in the 3v set if you trow 3,9,11, instead of 6 and 8 your toss is close but a little off. 😀 😀

One thing that has helped my throw is that just prior to shooting, I look straight down on my dice making sure they are flat to the table and square to the back wall. In practice I use one of those long mirrors behind my shooting hand, have it angled so you can see the dice and if they are truly flat to the table top. It doesn’t take much to be off. Next pick out your spot on the table where you want the dice to hit and stare at it and think about hitting it. Also I use a short back swing and sometimes no back swing at all. Shooting with no back swing, coming right off the table top eliminates a lot of errors in the back swing. If you practice this and the dice look good, then some of your problems are definitely in your back swing. One of the most important aspects of shooting from my point of view is that when you shoot, the dice have to roll off of your fingers. This is very important. If they don’t roll off the fingers the shot usually will be no good.

Hope this helps some.
Doug

JimmyNeutron, I find when I can feel the dice come off my fingers the rotation is very high and I can not stop it. I also believe you have to feel them come off your fingers so I have put up with the high rotation. I have tried everything I have read in Frank’s books and on line sites to stop the high rotation but just can’t. Do you or anyone for that matter have a good way to stop the high rotation or is this much ado about nothing and high rotation is ok. Professor

"professor" wrote: Do you or anyone for that matter have a good way to stop the high rotation or is this much ado about nothing and high rotation is ok. Professor

Read what I wrote about thumb position in your other post. But as I said in that post, I would not worry about it unless it is harming your shot. If the dice land softly, gently kiss the back wall and settle a few inches from the back wall then, “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

Professor, Slow your shot down, you will see results. Also try coming directly off the table with no back swing this also helps to slow everything down. For less rotation move the thumb higher, for more rotation move the thumb lower. Once the toss is slowed down the rotation should also slow.
Hope this helps.
Doug

The revolutions in the toss are vital to keeping the dice on AXIS, this helps keep them together in the air. Thumb position in the back can increase or slow down the number of revolutions. A shooter must work this out, how many rev’s they need.
This is one of the things we look at in a refresher class, where we get into more detail and perfecting your toss.