Hello fellow GTC’ers. Just wanted to give you an update on a recent outing. My bride, Lady Luck, and I have been struggling a bit at the tables both in practice and play. But, even with a downward slope to our equity curve, we never lost faith in the skill we are learning. We continue to practice on each part of the throw and, most importantly, believe in the throw and our ability to execute it.
Last weekend we went to one of our local casinos and tried our skills out. Our typical session is a $500 buy-in each. We play at 2 casinos primarily and they allow either 10X odds or, in one case, 25X odds at a $5 table. We use a slightly modified version of the Big Skinny, I think it is Goldfinger’s modification with a twist. We do 3-4-5X odds to begin and go up on the PL and 2 come bets initially. Since we play as a team, one of us is the shooter and plays only the PL while the other plays all the come bets. We don’t go up an the 3rd come bet until we have 2 hits or paydays. Then we go up one more come bet on each new hit.
After 8 hits (sometimes we wait for the 10th hit because Lady Luck is more conservative than I am) then we double the odds portion after each hit with the goal of getting all our bets to 10X odds. At the 25X odds casino, after 4 hits at 10X odds we will then begin pressing the odds by a quarter with each hit again with the goal of getting to the full 25X odds. For the record, that hasn’t happened yet.
Anyway, back to last Friday night, we played for about 2 hours with each of us having our share of quick outs but the dice were looking good. Both of us had at least one good roll (my best was either 37 or 42, I had it as 42 but I might have gotten off a bit in my counting). Our final tally for the night was a buy in of $1000 total and cash out of $1708. A nice 70.8% return on investment. The next morning (we had a comped night) we went at it again. Only played through 3 sessions each. Didn’t have it quite as good as the night before but we did manage to take another $427 in profits for a 2 day total of $1135 profit on our $1000 at risk.
The dealers were pulling for us as they always do because we bet for them on each throw. I had one gentleman next to me that was betting a lot bigger and making a killing on my big roll and he tipped the dealers at least $300 on that roll alone. They were quite happy.
In our practice sessions since last weekend, we have continued to have the dice behave as they should and are recording winning sessions in each practice (we always end practice with a simulated session with betting).
My thanks to all who have spent their time to teach us at the training courses and who have encouraged us since on this forum. Also, thanks to Skinny for telling us all about a great betting method. I really look forward to the time that we have the confidence and the 401g to go up to full odds from the beginning and play TBS for real.
I look forward to seeing everyone in Vegas in September. Happy 4th of July and God Bless America!
Jawbones
Replies:
Posted by: Dr Crapology on July 5, 2015, 11:14 am
Was especially glad to see that after several not so good rolls you continued to bet the way we teach so that you were good to go when the big hand occurred. Remember we are .300 hitters. We will have the inevitable short rolls but the long hands bring us back to profit. We simply have to stay within what our 401g allows. Always remember what No Field Says—"always trust your throw." We had a similar story concerning "hanging in there" when things don’t go so good while in Vegas during the recent class weekend and came out winners. Will post on that as a later date as time permits.
Look forward to seeing you and Lady Luck later this summer.
Rose and Doc
Posted by: Dominator on July 5, 2015, 2:17 pm
Dominator
Posted by: JawBones on July 21, 2015, 11:53 am
Frustrating is not adequate to describe the feelings. We practice every day and spend time on each part of the toss. We watch each other and make suggestions but we just can’t seem to get anything going. In addition to our own losses, we 5-count or more every other shooter (sometimes 8 and 9 count or just don’t play at all if we don’t like what we see) and have no more than a handful of winning bets. The good news is we only bet a $5 come bet with single odds on random shooters so the damage is not much.
At this point we are probably going to decrease our odds portion to double odds to conserve capital but I hate to do this since it is hard to come back from these losses if we significantly cut our bets. We realize that all of the frustration would be erased with one good outing like we had in the post above but it is hard to go back with our confidence taking such a blow.
I realize this is probably a normal downcycle in the overall game of Craps but it is making it harder to feel good about going out and playing when we are doing so poorly. Not really looking for advice here just providing an update but any words of wisdom would be appreciated.
jb
Posted by: Dr Crapology on July 21, 2015, 1:29 pm
So bottom line, been there, done that. Trust your throw. Your bank roll will carry your through–remember the odds are not at risk in the long run since it is an even money bet. The loss of odds is simply temporary hit against your bank roll which is the reason we stress a good bankroll in class.
Rose and Doc
PS—here is an idea that Rose and Doc use as a variation to the Big Skinny. The first 8 rolls when you don’t increase your odds, we vary it by adding one unit ( $5 on the 4,6, 8, 10 and $6 on the 5 and 9). That way the number you hit is covered or almost covered with the win (even with the very minor press in odds) but when the 8 paydays are complete, you are good to go with the wins being a little larger. A couple of repeaters will put a little more in the rack. Then we begin a press and pull routine. It works for us.
Posted by: JawBones on July 22, 2015, 2:37 am
Thanks
Dennis "Jawbones"
