I read Heavy's "Why Johnny can't win"...

[dork]

I dunno if this post is more appropriate for the "Trip Report" forum or here, but I chose Betting Systems & Strategies because it's accessible to non-members who don't login... you know me, this is gonna be LOOONGG.

As you may know, I've been away from the serious side of the game for a couple years now. A couple things influenced my decision to stay away... significant home modification expenses and yo-yo like results at the tables caused me to back off and "lick my wounds". I didn't ever lose heavily, I just didn't win consistently enough to think it made sense to continue. Sooo.. I spent the time practicing a lot. I'd also come to the conclusion that I wasn't comfortable with consistent larger (to me) bets. I tossed on an empty practice rig; then I lined the table with hypothetical bets; then I placed bets and made payoffs to get used to the numbers and the tosses around "action bets" on the table. I charted my results enough to be fairly comfortable with my toss, and somewhat comfortable with the betting numbers--appropriate parlays, payoffs, etc.

During this time, I saved dutifully. The old "if you can't afford to lose it, don't bring it" mentality. Normally, I'd bring maybe $700-1500 to the casino; most often, I'd hover around a HeatSeeker betting scheme, maybe dabble with a $44 Inside scheme, and even experimented with MP's $204 WOTCO scheme. But I was never consistent; $204 WOTCO took 'way too much guts for my taste so I only did it when that Zen-out moment seemed to engulf me and I felt REAL good about the table.

I went to IP yesterday; again it wasn't planned or I'da posted up in the "Hook-Up" forum to meet with some of ya'll. Anyway, for the first time ever, I felt TRULY prepared. I'd read "Why Johnny can't win" 3-4x; it reinforced the conclusions I'd come to two years ago about my betting practices, and gave me a lot of faith in my own logistical self-critique.

Sooo... this was my plan:
I saved up $3500 and marked it solely for craps play. No guilt or "budget-mindedness" over the money whatsoever... my whole psychological devotion was "let's make this (entire) 'self-made' plan work". If I lose 50%, I won't/wouldn't care so long as my play reflected a sole devotion to betting well.

Here's how it went: Arrived at IP at ~3:45p. Hit the tables around 5pm. Mikey says, "Ugly, ugly ugly. Don't play. Neither side is makin' any money." But the $5 game is packed like an SRO theater performance, and this $10 table only has 4 other shooters. I'ma tip-toe in, HeatSeeker "style" but not the true HS betting scheme. Since I'm the shooter and only betting on myself, $10 PL, $10 Odds, w/ at least 6/8 covered for $18 each. "Tip-toeing" means that's my budget while I find out how I'm handling the dice... can I string a long group of tosses together... I play for about an hour, and won about $150 with this ploy, but I never felt comfortable laying out my ISR bet and just played this cheap scheme requiring at most, an initial bet of ~$56 to play a hand. All that home practice over 2 years couldn't find the guts to put the big ISR bet down. I cashed out my first session up $150.

I went back for more at ~ 10pm. First, I went to my favorite casino, the Palace. Man, it's SOOO much nicer there for the non-smoking. Haven't ever been there after 7pm; a whole different crew of strangers. Much friendlier (even if I didn't know them) but the table was MUCH bouncier than I remember. Strangely, they now have a $5 table (where I played with 3 others) while the $3 table was like IP's $5 table-- ~11 players on it. It didn't matter; 8 consecutive hands (starting with me) didn't last longer than PPPSO--that is, I went PPSO, PSO, then PPPSO in 3 tries. I lost $72 and drove back to IP, happy that I never broke out too much past the $6-6/8 $5 PL stage.

At IP, I bounced between the $5 table and the $10 table "HeatSeeking" for an hour. Mostly, it was smokers that made me leave (I can't stand it). Cigarettes ain't so bad but one guy stank so much I was chewing peppermints to stand next to him and gave up after he lit up some Cuban dog turd. He HAD to choose the hook right next to me. I packed up about even and went to the $10 table. A drunk stalling the $10 table (of 5 of us) with bullshit talk (throwing the dice about once every 3-1/2 to 4 minutes) made waiting excruciating. I got my turn and without testing the table, I made my first ISR bet of the day.... Here we go: this is what I hatched after two years' of practice...

CO roll with $10 PL. MP's 204 WOTCO is a "past memory". It just never worked for me statistically (and "Why Johnny can't win" reinforced my conclusion against it; I never understood until Heavy outlined Mean vs. Median" [or as he called it verbatim, 'Average vs Mean'] expectations) So.

CO $10PL. When I made a point, $220 Inside ($50 5/9, $60 6/8), $25 4/10 and $50 Odds; if one of the Inside numbers is the point, subtract $50 or $60 from the $220 Inside bet and the maximum total outlay is either $270/280 on the line for a single roll. A 4/10 point has $25 Odds. At least I'm not facing repeater 7s and having to "re-fund" the WOTCO bet.

Win or lose, it's ~270-280 on the line. If I hit an Inside number, I get paid $70. On the theory that I will not bullfrog, take down that Place bet and add it together makes a total of $120--use $90 of that to add $30 each to the remaining Inside numbers (making the 5/9 $80 bets, the 6/8 $90) excepting the Point. Add the remaining money to the Point's Odds if it's an Inside number. On the next hit, regress to $34/44 Inside, $10 Odds, and "same bet" 3x before parlays start. How'd I do? I got hammered. First ISR of the day, PSO. Yup. 7'd on the first roll after my big bet. Then comes, "next shooter is the last shooter. We're gonna close this table and ya'll will have to move over to the $5 table." I didn't wanna go back there to Mr. Tiparillo and suck up his stank. One more hand... the shooter had had some luck earlier so I took a psychological flyer, "double or nuffin". $270 on the line... 7-OUT!! Shit. I'm down about $420 and go to bed. I'm through. F it. The aggregate of my experience between Palace and IP; if I'da bet that "$270 ISR" at Palace, I'd be through the bottom of my loss limit. Pack it up and go to bed.

5AM. A thought wakes me. Palace isn't a true test. The dice were behaving at IP just like I'd hoped. Not so at Palace. At the Palace, psychologically I had no confidence in my tosses' behavior; at IP, for most of my chickenshit betting schemes, I'da made money ifn I'da had the nerve. In my first excursion I held the dice for 40 minutes, then 20, then 30; but I only had $150 to show for it... Too much timidness. F it. Remember your pledge; $3500 "to bet the way I should". I go down and find a spot at the table. I'm the 4th "shooter"; I replace a guy who's just given up at SO. I buy in with $800 as usual for the trip. Tip-toe to see how my toss is performing. Three urban yoofes at the other end are trash-talkin' me... they're betting the DC and never wanna shoot. Box on my end says, "don't listen to them; they nailed the last shooter like that and he got flustered and pissed and left." I said, "they don't bother me. I'm betting on me. I *want* the dice."

This is getting long, so I'll cut it "short". (My version of 'short') I tiptoe with $5PL & $10 Odds, and $18 6/8 and short stroke it to be down about $175 at one point. My 3/6-3/2 dice set is killin' me. I can't get past 6-7 rolls. I change to 5/4-5/4 which seems to be my other "preference" if BoneTracker is to be believed. Still with the ~$51 betting scheme, my hands seem to settle down; I'm not counting, but they musta gone from 6-8 roll hands to 14-20 rolls. Da yoofes are still talkin' shit; they're still rakin' it in on the DC but don't notice two things... regular occurrence of 7s on the CO roll (instead of previous Aces and 1-2s or Yo's and 12s [which they made money on once they spotted my trend]), and they made money early on because in the three consecutively improving hands, I couldn't hit my point of 4, 10, and 10. I was down ~$100 at 5:45am when I jumped in with my $270 ISR. They kept passing the dice when I 7'd out. I probably tossed 5 hands between then and 7:47am. I finished up $877 for that session. My goal was to get up $500 for the trip, and I bailed at what I calculated to be up $457. Good enough of a recovery from last night's down ~$420 for me. Better yet, I'd played almost two hours on a table of no more than 4 other shooters and held the dice for multiple 15-30 tosses. In that last 30 minutes, I couldn't break through the $770-870 mark, so I quit.

OH. Even better... when I was down that $175 searching for my toss with a 3/6-3/2 set and hearing all that ghetto trash shit about anything from the baseball cap I was wearing to the action of my setting the dice, from the 3 stooges on the other side, I was calm. Surprised myself. I thought, "murder/suicide" ain't happening this time; just think "murder" only... Search it up here using my login. I busted another obnoxious shooter once for ~$2,000+ as I recall. But I lost $140 that time tossing 4s against his DC. Somebody aptly pointed out that that amounted to murder/suicide... This time, I busted out all three bros; the least one guy lost was probably $500. Middle jerk lost ~12" of green, and the boy on the right lost what I thought was an easy 16-17" of green chips. Dunno how much that is in "cash munnie". They went from $25 DC w $100-400 Lay Odds to $15DC w $50 Lay while still holding $3-700 in chips. It got quiet over there. and then silent when they got down to $5DC w $10 Odds. Yazzum. Stick and boxman on my side both high-fived me when they left; they didn't head to the cage, they went straight fo' da doe. Seems the crew really didn't like them either; surmising that they didn't have any chips to cash in... a "highlight" in their morning. I guess I couldn't hear all their trash talk- from his smile, and the way they paused the game to watch, the boxman nearest them and Stick really enjoyed watching them walk out.

The great part was, I did it with a toss I was confident in; funny, the dice kept together fairly well, but I couldn't ever see what they did. I tracked the target spot and only ever saw the dice come into view and couldn't "untrack" quickly enough to see them actually bounce. I'd see the direction they went off in, but hell, I dunno what they did; probably only 30% rolled "straight" straight and true and stopped within 2" of the back wall. A lot stopped rolling behind the PL bets (all day long); I was pleased with that. Early on I got heat for shorting the wall consecutively (twice in my first 3 rolls), but after about (the next) 4 rolls, I got it down so's I prolly shorted it only 5% of the time--which is WAY less than home practice.

Fortunate to avoid regular PSOs, and starting with a profit, I'm confident again in a betting scheme without being cocky. I know there'll come a time, but this time, I've added to money I "don't care about". Finally- to get to that psychological approach is comforting. The moral is, bet "correctly" with the correct bankroll for psychological comfort and intent. Follow the rules you set for yourself. Dunno what John Patrick says... but "Why Johnny can't win" worked for me. Thanks, Heavy.

[Dicepops]

racist much?

He calling out the jerks, maybe???

[House of Orange]

Cuban dog turd. Can’t find this at any other site. Great post Dork. But I do prefer playing with a few young brothers as opposed to a few que tips who can’t shoot.

[heavy]

I'd prefer we not get deep into racial stereotypes. "Urban" players say enough. Even my occasional "shooters from the hood" borders on the insensitive side. I would say "finger snappers" does as well if it weren't for the fact that the world's self-proclaimed greatest dice controller is one. At least you didn't lapse back into the early 1900's with a rendition of Dark Town Strutter's Ball - a song I used to listen to Eubie Blake play occasionally in a bar in Morristown, New Jersey back in the 1970's. Eubie was in his 80's at the time and in the last 10 - 12 years of his life. I never told him I preferred Leadbelly's version on the 12 string guitar with those strong Louisiana blues vocals and Leadbelly' unique lyrics. But alas, I'm waxing nostalgic.

The offensive line to me was "cuban dog turd." I spent around $150 on Cuban dog turds while on my last cruise. Odds are I'll do it again next cruise. It's a casino, for shit's sake. There was ONE non-smoking casino in Vegas once. It went bankrupt.

Glad you got it together and had a win, though. Congrats.

[dork]

Hmmm... obviously I triggered the PC-sensitivity kumbaya folk... Shit. I'm from Berkeley. Ya might as well read that Oakland, too, since I lived there for half my growin' up. LOTS of black friends. You know, Af-Ams, Haitians, coupla Jamaicans, even a one true African. Dated an Afro-American (in those days), Margaret Bennett fo a short time. I guess I got used to referring to n***as with the same prejudice as most black folks; in the day, we called them "Negro"--like, "yo, Negro, you gwan da sto' ?". (put on your best Samuel L. Jackson impression) We didn't believe in "PC" then, and I don't now.

Lemme "quote" a coupla 'spokesmen' on the subject of "PC" relating to "black" people:

the more generally 'acceptable' Chris Rock


or my main man, Eddie Griffin...



It never even occurred to me that my instinctive Ebonics would badge me not as one of them, but a racist one of "you", in need of 'calling out'. No offense meant, Heavy. I take your directive; I just thought I'd respond to Irish's post. From here out, I'll type like I went through a proper English composition class and have taken the sensitivity class to go with it. Hell, I added the 'e' at the end of "fo' da doe" for LondonShooter's benefit so he could say phonetically what the sound of 'door' sounds like when "abbreviated" (since I din't know if he's heard the pronunciation). "footnote"--LS, "do' " is the proper Ebonics of 'door', not "doe".

Heavy, if you don't like my response or the original content, edit them or squash them as you think best... but I'd prefer the essence of the post be left alone; I think that as testimony to following your "Why Johnny can't win" it is a great example of second-source experience backing up "classroom postulates".

I was just about to hit the 'submit' button when I had a mental flash... Mr. Tiparillo and the guy who busted me out on my second $270 ISR bet were both poorer guys from a neighborhood like E. 14th and 98th (comparable to the 9th Ward in New Orleans) but I knew that from their speech patterns. On the other hand, they weren't ummm... ns, so I didn't even mention they weren't white, brown, or yellow. It wasn't a motive in my attempt to bust them when I was tiptoeing early against them with my DC $30 bets in comp chips. And by the way... I ain't one of "you". That is... I'm not a 'cracka' (can I say that?) though I'm in Missi'ppi. I know what racism is from the minority side.

[Moe Bettor]

Here's the deal. If "ebonics" is your natural mode of speech, then so be it. If you, as a white person, are speaking ebonic style to white people, but that isn't your actual mode of speech, what's that all about? And as for PC..what is PC? It is a catch phrase engendered by a certain media savvy group who dislike respecting the boundaries of other people , but get all up in arms when their boundaries aren't respected. Get to the craps table. The truth of life faces you on the layout.

[dork]

I forgot... "Cuban dog turd". That guy wasn't smokin' a Cuban. His was some warehouse cutrate bulk turd. STANK period. Even without him smoking the guys at SR1 and 2 moved to the other hook and SO and from the sniffing they animated, the reason was obvious. I couldn't move from my SO in time to beat SR1-SO. Hell, later in the early morning I shared elbow space with "My First" who was smoking a Black and Mild. I liked it enough to ask him what it was. Kindly, he switched hands, thinking I was uncomfortable. But he laughed, and said, "black and mild like me." I eased his mind, asking, "No, I actually like the aroma. But no offense meant--is that the brand name or are you saying that because you're black?" and we were just fine with no allowances made whatsoever for him smoking for the time I was there. But dog turds are different.

Thnick, it's kinda funny... like curbing swearing, it's sometimes kind of tough to restrain and speak publicly like I ain't ghetto. I get "better" when in I'm the minority (by a white/non-white ratio); it's easier to type like a an English school book but not by much.

[heavy]

Don't take the article personally. It was not meant to single anyone out. It applies to virtually every player here'.

[slowdriver]

Nice trip report Dork and nice recovery, I don't think any of us like to play with obnoxious don't betters and Ive seen the ones you described on my table at the IP in the past. they passed the dice to us... we passed them back then we refused to shoot, the box closed the game they walked away then we shot again.