Bigdaddy-Revs, I grip the dice the same way you do. But I am able to tell when my grip is off by the way they feel because I have built my muscle memory to be able to tell when the grip is correct.

When trying to get the proper feel I would put the dice in the gripper, grip them with my fingers and take them out of the gripper. Then I would look at my fingers to see how they were straight across and at my thumb to be sure I had equal pressure on both die. Next I would put the dice back in the gripper, making sure that my fingers had not moved and my fingers and thumb were in the right place. I would do this over and over several times for multiple sessions over many days and weeks.

I would practice this over and over until it felt awkward when my fingers were not in the correct position.

Once I was satisfied that I had the feel of the dice down taking them out of the gripper, I would then put the dice on the table without the gripper. I would grip them with my normal routine of thumb and middle fingers first, outside fingers pushing the dice together and then setting them lightly next to the middle finger. I would then put the dice in the gripper to make sure that I had the correct finger position. I would do this over and over several times as well for multiple sessions over many days as well.

I am at the point now that the dice do not feel right in my fingers when my grip is off. You can not spend enough time working on your grip. You need to get to the point where only the correct grip feels right in your fingers.

Thank you Skinny.

If it doesn’t feel normal it probably isn’t.

Well I have to strongly agree with Dom and Mr Finesse on the grip. I now have a feel for the grip. What a difference it makes. I record myself on each shot with my iPhone 6 which has 240 fps. And I can see how the dice rotate in slow-motion. When my dice are not rotating in sync then I look at my grip and sure enough it’s my finger placement and I sometimes tend to rotate my hand slightly to the right. But that’s just my case. I’m sure there are other people that MIGHT just have other issues. So, If that was me I would record myself not only the grip but the technique as well.
PS. Thanks to my iPhone for recording in 240 fps. Otherwise I wouldn’t have caught my issues.

BDR, Good timing! 😉

All so true, BDR and Skinny, thanks for reinforcement, I’ve so messed with my grip that I’m just not consistent. So in the last couple of weeks, I’ve gone to trying the "C" as it just hasn’t been comfortable for me in the past. I’ve recalled the way some of the instructors tap the table and I’ve played with the angles that I set my fingers and bring them up on the dice. It’s tightening up for me as to consistently getting the same grip. Last week, wasn’t quite there, yesterday, tried again and although a losing session, I believe that I had a good session where I was able to make adjustments and get some consistency going. On my second hand, I had worked the come bets up and the hits were about to put me solidly in the black when my hand had a brain fart. Net for the hand was -5 and that was due to a handful of craps with Come Bets up…. argh… the guy next to me was loving it as he was raking in $50+ per. I asked if he’d fund my come if I kept going! (He didn’t). Anyway, felt good about the session and made another adjustment in today’s practice and it’s solid with only one sub-10 hand, six hands, 85 rolls, up $1,291 practicing on a $15 table with 3x4x5x for those persnickity PA houses when I’m out that way.

FYI on cameras, I’m not an iSnob (FourTen, you and BDR should get along swimmingly with your iPhone 6’s! 😀 ), and really don’t want to buy a new phone even if I was, so I just picked up a Casio EX-ZR850 which shoots up to 1000FPS although it’s really dark even with a single work lamp going (Costco has a Snapon 2000 lumen LED lamp). The camera also shoots 480fps, 240fps, etc. There are a couple of good camera options in $200-$300 range now. I’m at least trying to look at my throw prior to my video elite in SBC.

Looking forward to joining east coast folks soon, happy shooting! See some of you in SBC!

I have brought this question over from another topic heading of "Math Question" because it concerns GRIP. I will continue below.

Re: math question

Postby SevenTimesSeven » 15 Jul 2015 17:49

Mr Finesse wrote:
…
… Now remember one more thing, this all begins with the GRIP and if you want to achieve an Edge work on your grip. Please !!!!

Mr Finesse,

Before you practice your grip, must you not to be very certain that the grip you will be
repeating in your grip-alone practice is exactly correct?
I would think that you deem your grip to be your correct one only after it is working in
your successful practice throws.

But if you are in a learning curve wherein your grip is the cause of 90% of your faulty throws
don’t you have to first develop your correct grip as part of your good throws as you work
on all aspects of your throws to improve to an ‘advantage” level?
If you have not yet perfected your throw because of a faulty grip,
you have not yet found this correct grip which you would like to repeat in your grip practice.
So you can practice your grip, as a stand-alone’ exercise, only after achieving an ‘advantage’
level of throw.

I therefore cannot practice my grip to have an edge,
but only after reaching a skill level where I already have an edge
should I then practice my grip so as not to lose my grip and my edge.

Am I saying this right? Hope I’m not making this confusing.
Your quote is wise and I’m just trying to internalize it in a way that
I can make it useful to me. What do you think?

7×7

The GRIP is the most important part of the toss we teach and it is probably the component of the toss that is worked on the least. I have arrived at this conclusion because I always ask students when they take a refresher or a tune up how many hours per week or day do they practice their grip WITH OUT tossing the dice ( go ahead answer the question now) and most time it is, they don’t.

My answer to 7 x 7’s question is going to include a long winded story that begins when I took my second dice control class back in March 2000.

My career as a dice controller began 1999 when I read a few newsletters that were issued Jerry Patterson who was the first to offer a class on Dice Control with his main instructor and the man who was the first person to combine math and science into the toss and grip we have today. This persons name was Sharpshooter and he was the person who taught Dom, Bill Burton, BTK, NFF, Pit Boss(I believe) and myself. He was Dom’s and my mentor, we were very lucky to be his friend and playing partner. Back to my story.

March of 2001 when I took my 2nd class from Sharpshooter (BTW this is when I met Dom for the 1st time) he told me I was an excellent shooter now but if I wanted to take my skill to the next level I had to perfect the 3-finger front grip as opposed to the 4 finger I was using at the time. This is the grip that Sharpshooter perfected and used in his scientific analysis of the GTC toss we teach. Well I went home from this class and I was determined to get this grip down because it was not easy to do. I practiced this grip for 3 months, March, April & May. I did not play at all and just practiced my grip and only threw the dice on Sunday’s.

Once I felt I had the Grip down I went to Foxwoods and Dom and Bill Burton were with me. I told them to take it easy because I was going to use my new grip for the first time. I proceeded to have a 50 toss hand right out of the gate and that was when I realized how important the Grip is.

The 3 finger front grip is what we teach and this is best grip to use if you want to master dice control. Some can not use it because of a physical handicap but the bottom line is this is the way to go. Everyone is so interested in tossing the dice but it begins with the grip.

In class we only mention grip a few times because this is the one part of the game that is up to you. We can not teach grip but we can tell you when it is incorrect. What we do in class is correct your toss, we can show you the things you need to do to correct or improve your toss, but the grip is on you.

Invest in a gripper(we did not have them when we started) it is a great tool. GTC will also start offering our gripper pad in September, this is a small square with felt on it so you get the proper feel when you are working on your dice pick-up.

I am going to work on an email that I will start to send out to all new Primer students to give them the basic’s of the Grip so hopefully they will start practicing this before they attend their first class.

So you can practice your grip, as a stand-alone’ exercise, only after achieving an ‘advantage’
level of throw.

I disagree with this, I think you can perfect your grip before achieving and advantage level throw.

I hope this helps and the best part is I intend to help Primers work on their grip before they attend their first class.

Again we see GTC evolving and becoming better at what we do.

"SevenTimesSeven" wrote:
If you have not yet perfected your throw because of a faulty grip,
you have not yet found this correct grip which you would like to repeat in your grip practice.
So you can practice your grip, as a stand-alone’ exercise, only after achieving an ‘advantage’
level of throw.

7×7

I completely agree with Mr. Finesse, especially when he says, "I think you can perfect your grip before achieving an advantage level throw."

Furthermore, I quoted that portion of 7X7’s question with which I disagree completely. In his premise SevenTimesSeven, seems to be implying one can correct a faulty grip by developing a proper throw. Nothing is further from the truth. There is nothing one can do in the throw that can improve a faulty grip.

But the converse is certainly true. A faulty grip can only result in a poor throw and it is imperative to have a good grip in order to be able to have a good throw. If your throw is off because of a bad grip, fixing the grip could possibly correct your improper throw.

Practicing your throw with a faulty grip is a waste of time and can develop bad habits that need to be unlearned once your get your grip corrected.

If you do not have a proper grip, you can not get the right "feel" of the dice "rolling" off the fingers. You can not see the dice rotating side by side in the air together. The dice will not land together, bounce once to the back wall and settle "together" close to the back wall if one has a faulty grip. None of those things can be corrected by the throw.

You can not possibly know what a good throw is if you have a faulty grip. How can you tell you have a good throw when the dice do not react properly?

I think it is vital to develop a good grip before attempting to develop a good throw. If you do not know what a good grip looks and feels like you have a bigger problem that can not be corrected by throwing the dice. If you know what a proper grip is then practicing it until it becomes automatic is essential before working on one’s throw.

Great post as usual Mr. Finesse!! One question I had about this is how you avoid the "Garbage In Garbage Out" aspect of working on your grip. What I mean is that I know how to evaluate what is wrong with my grip from the way the dice are performing in the air but is that the ONLY way I can evaluate my grip so basically if I practice my grip all week without tossing, feel pretty good about it, and then my dice are going every which way when I start tossing, is it back to the drawing board time?

As you are practicing the grip Jim, take a mirror and look at your fingers and such to make sure all is OK

Dominator

Jim T,

Who ever thought that I would like your question?
I like it.

7×7