5/5/2006
Now that my last big writing project is done and in the hands of my editor, I have more time for one of my favorite pastimes, reading.
Of course, there are some things I read no matter how busy I get. I thoroughly scour the local Las Vegas newspaper, the Review-Journal, because I like to keep up on the local, national, and international news on both gambling and non-gambling subjects. I also keep up with the postings on several gambling Internet forums, so I have up-to-the-minute information on the best playing opportunities.
But stacks of books and magazines await my attention. Thank goodness I speed read! In today’s column and periodically in future columns, I’ll take off my teacher’s hat and write book reports instead of grading them, as I did for so many years when I taught high-school English.
Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! is by Frank Scoblete and Dominator. I’ll be honest. I’d been a skeptic of dice systems since 1984 when I became a knowledgeable casino gambler. About three years ago I saw the Golden Touch dice-control technique in action in a casino. I squeezed into a crowded dice table where Scoblete and the Dominator, plus many of the GTC instructors, were playing. Although I’d heard glowing testimonials about Golden Touch, even from other one-time skeptics, I was still dubious. So I cautiously made small $5 bets while I watched the controlled shooters roll the dice.
No, not every one of these experts had long “miracle” rolls, although I recollect a few had some decent long rolls without the seven showing. And yes, some of these “experts” sevened out before I made a dollar on them. But at the end of the two-hour session, I was up almost $300, even though I never made a bet over $5 (just think of what I would have won if I bet a little more!). What I saw was a textbook lesson of the Golden Touch (GT) technique of dice control. You’re not going to hit every number, even if you’re a skilled dice controller, but if you’re successful in controlling the dice at least some of the time, you’ll be able to gain an edge over the casino. The really good dice-control shooters can have edges greater than blackjack card counters or skilled video poker players.
In More Frugal Gambling I wrote about charlatan gambling systems, saying that the first characteristic to look for in a bogus system is the boast that it’s easy. Fact is, there’s no way to beat casinos that’s easy –- never has been, never will be. If you read Scoblete’s and Dominator’s book, you’ll see that dice control isn’t instant oats, but the old-fashioned slow-cooked variety. In Chapter 16, GTC instructors answer the question: “What’s the average learning curve of someone trying to learn how to control the dice?” Answers range from six to 18 months, depending on your natural skill, but all stress that you must practice almost every day. That means just reading this book and knowing all the theory won’t cut it. You’ve got to practice the physical skill of setting, gripping, and tossing the dice in a certain manner. The book helps you understand these physical skills with 95 photographs, but when it’s all said and done, you’ve got to buy or build a small practice table and religiously practice your throws. Unlike card counting in blackjack or playing strategy for video poker, which are mental skills, dice control is a physical skill that you must master by steady practice.
Golden Touch Dice Control Revolution! covers all the information you need to get started learning about dice control: the physical elements of how to set, grip, and throw the dice; betting strategies for a controlled shooter and for a random shooter; money management; comps; team play; and tips from the GTC instructors, including the legendary Captain. The appendix is full of resources, including personal instruction that’s available in the Golden Touch Craps course and how to purchase a practice throwing table.
5/11/2006
It looks like I need to write again about losing at video poker. Here’s the post that was the catalyst this time.
Jean —
I’m in dire need of your sage advice and counsel. I’m about to throw in the tear-soaked towel on my video poker play out of utter frustration with my inability to see any monetary gains. And to add insult to injury, my good friends, who refuse to believe that “perfect play” is real and who pay no heed to the pay tables posted on the machines because that’s just “hogwash,” keep winning, and winning, and winning. While I, who have read cover-to-cover your and Bob Dancer’s books, religiously follow the advice therein and have spent countless hours perfecting my play on my games of choice (9/6 JoB and 8/5 Bonus Poker) through computer training, I CAN’T WIN.
In the past two years – I have yet to come out ahead. Yet my friends’ slapdash playing style nets them thousands of dollars. OK, I know there’s still the element of luck. But come on! Doesn’t skill count for anything?
And don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for my friends (sob, choke), but holy cow, can’t I get just a little break in two years of video poker play?
(Come to think of it, a black cat did cross my path a couple years ago. Do you think that’s it?)
So, any words of wisdom for this big loser? Or maybe I should just find a new hobby. I hear knitting is popular.
Cindy
I feel your pain, Cindy. Right now Brad and I are suffering in a long losing spell ourselves — and it’s not easy!
So I started thinking about what we’ve done over the 16 years we’ve been playing VP to cope with losing streaks, whether we’re playing quarters, as we did for many of our early years, or whether we’re attacking the “big nickels,” the $5 machines where we’re most often found these days. I realized that whether you’re a low roller or a high roller, many of the basic concepts of successful skilled play are the same.
Most important is that you must accept the fact that to win in the long run at VP, you must be an advantage player, which means simply that you must ALWAYS be playing when you have the advantage, the mathematical edge, over the casino. If you’re playing 9/6 JoB or 8/5 Bonus Poker, you must also have lots of benefits — like cashback, bounce-back, tournament and drawings equity — to get an edge over the casino. If you don’t have extra value benefits, you’re playing a negative game and shouldn’t expect to win.
You must understand and accept the difference between the short term and the long term. Your skill will only show up in the long term. Luck is the boss in the short term, mainly because so much of the value in a VP game is in the rare royal hand and you can get a royal on a good or a bad game. The long term isn’t an exact number of hours. However, the longer you play in a negative situation, the more you’ll lose in the long term; the more you play in a positive situation, the more you’ll move toward the theoretical 100+% return and winning.
You must have an adequate bankroll so you can ride out the bad times. Even the most expert VP player will average losing two sessions out of three, and those losing sessions may clump together for a long stretch even though the fewer, but bigger winning sessions will eventually win out.
Playing winning VP takes lots of discipline, patience, and continued study.
I may lose some of you right here. Maybe you don’t play very much, a few hours here and there. Maybe you don’t have the means to gather up an adequate bankroll, so you limit yourself to what you can take out of your budget for recreation. Maybe you don’t really want to study and practice. That’s fine; not everyone wants to be an advantage player. Having fun and hoping to get lucky satisfies many people completely.
But many of you, including Cindy, are really serious about being an advantage VP player. You’re willing to study and practice. So stayed tuned, because next week I’m going to get down to the nitty-gritty
5/18/2006
Last week I shared with you a letter from Cindy, a frugal follower frustrated because her friends seemed to win so much more than she did, although they ignored all the “rules” to which she so religiously adhered.
The first thing I want to tell you, Cindy, is that I never take much stock in what most gamblers tell me about their gambling results. I don’t say they’re lying, but most gamblers have the common disease called “selective memory.” They remember their winning sessions so much more clearly than their losing ones. One thing that marks most advantage players is that they’re more likely to complain about their long losing streaks. I guess it’s natural to be in shock when this happens to us, even though we’re skilled. We know that this isn’t unusual –- and if we’ve been playing for a long time, we’ve had plenty of “practice” at dealing with losing streaks. But no matter how many times we’ve survived them and come out on top in the long run, it seems that when you’re in a big hole, you feel like you might never again see the light of day.
So here are some things Brad and I do when we’re waiting for the winning light at the end of the long dark tunnel of losing.
We check every play we’re making to ensure it meets our standards. When you’re in a winning streak, it’s easy to rationalize lower-EV (expected value) plays. I know this, because we — who should know better — have fallen into this trap more than once. The greater your edge, the sooner you get to the long term and your bankroll will be better protected. I like to use an Old Testament story here about Joseph’s dream: You must store up the riches from seven fat years so you won’t starve in the seven lean ones. You need all the profit you can get when you’re winning to make up for the losing streaks that are bound to come.
We also check our plays in relationship to our bankroll. In terms of our financial bankroll, we ask ourselves, How much money can we afford to lose and not impact our lifestyle negatively? In terms of our psychological bankroll, the question is, How much can we lose until we want to quit because it isn’t fun anymore? One is always more brutally honest during a losing spell!
I think the concept of per-hour profit is one of the most dangerous traps for skilled players, especially at the higher denominations. I see people playing at high denominations with a tiny edge, maybe just .2%, where you need a half-million-dollar bankroll or more to have any reasonable confidence of not going broke. Maybe they have that big of a bankroll. But I’m afraid many skilled players, at all levels, haven’t figured out the bankroll requirements of the plays they’re making. Or if they have, they’re hoping that they get lucky and never fall down the wrong side of the bell curve for too long. Many an advantage player has gone broke, not because of a lack of skill, but because of playing above his bankroll. The “ruin” in “risk of ruin” means going broke!
We like to play way beneath our bankroll. Are we conservative? Yep, and that’s the way we plan to stay. We like to be able to sleep soundly at night and be worry-free in the daytime!
Next week: “The Comp Trap.”
5/25/2006
This week we’re continuing our series about things we’ve done to cope during VP losing streaks.
We evaluate our play to see that we aren’t falling into the comp trap, especially now that most of us skilled players are playing negative games (in Las Vegas). The truth is that it’s tempting to count the value of comps (airfare, gift cards, show tickets, etc.) when figuring the total EV of a play. Now, if we use comp items for things we would be buying for the same price anyway, this method works great. But there’s always the temptation to use comps to raise our standard of living.
I wrote this in a Strictly Slots article five years ago: “”Decide whether you want to count comps in the total return of your play. Brad and I did count comps when we first started and many casual recreational gamblers may want to always do this. And if you were going to take money out of your pocket in the same amount for the rooms, food, shows, and other non-cash
perks you get comped, it’s quite correct to count them in your total return. I know many gamblers who stay in the big Las Vegas Strip resorts where the best game with the cashback still don’t quite come to 100%. But with all the non-cash perks and comps, they’re playing well over 100%.
”However, you must be careful in your calculations here. We didn’t count comps in our total return for very long, because we were soon getting so many comps that we were increasing the number of our casino vacations and the luxury of our casino lifestyle to a level that we could never have afforded on our own budget. So we started counting comps as gravy and chose playing opportunities that were over 100% in cash (or cash equivalents) return. If you want to count comps, figure the average amount you’ll lose over the long term by playing at a percentage below 100% in actual cash return. If you can’t
afford that loss, you can’t ‘afford’ all those luxury freebies.””
Some people plan to use the profit they make by playing skillfully at lower-denomination casino games like BJ or VP to go up in denomination and make bigger profits. However, you can’t build your gambling bankroll with shows, airline tickets, cruises, gourmet meals, spa visits, or fancy hotel suites. The casino won’t let you use any of them as legal tender for betting.
Unless you have a bankroll that’s way more than adequate for the level at which you’re playing or want to play, you should be very careful how you figure the EV of a play. To be safe, we count only the base EV of the game and the added cash and cash equivalents. If we count gift cards, we value them only for the amount that we would actually spend on the same items; we don’t think: “”we can buy this because it’s free.”” If it’s a food or room comp, we value them only for the amount we would actually spend for the same hotel stay or meal if we were paying for it out of our pocket. If it’s a cruise or some other vacation trip, we wouldn’t count it in the EV of the play if we wouldn’t spend “”real money”” for it.
Adhering to these strict rules through the years have allowed us to build up our bankroll so we can play at higher levels — and thus get even more lavish comps. Casino comps are great. They’ve made our life more luxurious than we could have ever dreamed. But we still have to watch that we can continue to “”afford”” this wonderful life and that means being brutally honest to ourselves about the real EV of any gambling we do.