zengrifter
Banned
Book Review - Wong on Dice
By 'Barfarkel'
Las Vegas Tribune | July 21, 2005
------------------
Editor's Note: 'Barfarkel' is the pseudonym of a semi-pro card counter and the Author of 'You've Got Heat, The Continuing Card Counting Adventures of L.V. Pro." Barfarkel will be an a occasional gaming contributor to Las Vegas Tribune
------------------------
Most experienced gamblers know there's nothing as exciting as a hot craps table. Of all the table games, craps is the one in which you can win or lose a ton of cash very fast, while every player is rooting for the same result. Despite its apparent complexity, the game is easily understandable and as such, it's one of the most popular table games in the casino.
But there's a problem with craps. It's a negative expectation endeavor. The casino will exact its tax upon every craps bet you make. The overall house edge of 1.4% seems small, but it continually erodes your chip stacks with every bet you place. To that species of advantage player, such as card-counters who refuse to make a bet unless they have the best of it mathematically, this type of game is anathema. There's no way to structure your bets, or change your playing strategy to be able to get an overall edge at craps. "To hell with fun," the advantage player is saying. "We're here to make money."
So the conventional wisdom up until now has been that you can play a casino table game for fun and eventually and inevitably lose your money. Or you can play another game, such as blackjack, in which by counting cards, you can get the long-term mathematical advantage, and by doing so you can win money over the long haul. But counting cards is work. It takes a lot of practice and discipline - not exactly a recipe for a fun-seeking gambler.
But what if we wanted to do both? Have fun and make money? At craps? Is that even possible? Can one have a mathematically advantageous craps game? Make money long-term at the most exciting table game there is? Have your cake and eat it too?
In his new book Wong on Dice, Stanford Wong assures us that this is possible.
Wong has previously written Professional Blackjack - the definitive book on Hi-Lo - the count system considered the industry standard. He has written the authoritative Casino Tournament Strategy - the book every tournament player considers his Bible. In the research for Sharp Sports Betting, he turned himself from a novice punter into a savvy sports bettor. Stanford Wong's credentials are impeccable. He remains today one of the true gurus of the advantage player scene. So when Wong believes that you can get an edge at craps, many smart players, me included, tend to listen. As far as credibility, Stanford Wong is the E.F. Hutton of the advantage player community.
Gambling at a casino game that he cannot possibly beat would be abhorrent to Wong. He would not have dedicated the last eighteen months of his life to this endeavor unless he was certain he could find a way to beat the game.
Not that it's easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. Just like card counting, there's a lot of practice and study involved. Wong taught himself the physical skill of throwing dice in such a way as to minimize the bad results, and maximize the good ones. Controlling dice requires skill, practice, camouflage, patience and deception. In this new book, Wong teaches you what he's learned over the past year-and-a-half of research. Wong on Dice, now in book form, is the completion of the previously published E-book report by the same name that originally sold for $199.
In these thirteen chapters, Wong explains how to get the edge at the craps table. He explains how to toss the dice so as to legally influence them, how to bet, how to act in the casino, practice tips, and money management. The section on tossing the dice is the meat of the book, describing everything from the grip, to the alignment, to the way the dice should act in flight. Included in Wong on Dice is never-before-published information about the game of craps: how skillful shooters get an edge, how to practice efficiently, how to test yourself to know when you're ready to take on a casino, the four-item checklist Wong uses on every toss of the dice, a logical way to choose which dice set to use, which bets to make, expected win rates, and the mathematics of craps.
Of course this is not the first book to claim that a dedicated player can get an advantage at craps. In Wong on Dice, he references concepts and material from other books written by "Yuri," Frank Scoblete and "Sharpshooter." He has absorbed, synthesized and reorganized some of the most important material and presents it in a simple and highly understandable manner.
You can't learn this stuff solely from books. In his trademark clean and compact writing style Stanford Wong states:
I recommend personal instruction from a pro. If you want to learn to hit a tennis or golf ball properly, the best plan of action is to get coaching from an expert; and the same is true if you want to learn how to throw dice to produce results that differ from random.
In Chapter Six, Wong instructs the reader how to estimate his "Seven-to-Rolls-Ratio" (SRR). An unskilled random dice shooter will throw an average of one seven in every six rolls. This random SRR is expressed as 1:6.0. Wong estimates that the minimum SRR a skilled shooter needs to get an edge is 1:6.4. If the shooter can keep the dice spinning on one axis of rotation (backspin), parallel to the felt and choose dice tables which allow the dice to settle down quickly after lightly hitting the back wall, he should be able to achieve an SRR of 1:6.5. This is the point at which the student can start to take his game to the casinos.
In this chapter, he concludes that there are two ways to get an edge tossing dice: correlation, and dice-stopping-on-axis. Correlation is simply having the dice rotate together on the proper left-right axis as they leave your hand. Dice-stopping-on-axis means each die is more likely to stop on one of its rotating faces than on one of its side faces. Throwing the dice on axis (correlation) is necessary to get an edge at craps. Having the dice stop on axis is not necessary to get an edge.
Also in this chapter, Wong describes the difference between primary hits and double pitches. A primary hit is two rotating faces landing, which started out in identical positions in the shooters hand when he first set them before throwing. For example, if you use the Hardways Set, in which you hold the dice with say the threes up and the fours facing you and the rotating faces are 2, 3, 4, and 5, with the ones and sixes on the side faces, in the final result when the dice land, the primary hits are 2-2, 3-3, 4-4 and 5-5. Using the same Hardways dice set, a double pitch is having the dice land on 2-5, 3-4, 4-3, and 5-2.
In Chapter Seven, entitled Money Management, Wong discusses how to estimate your advantage. Under the sub-heading Estimating Your Edge, he states the following:
You need to express your edge on a per-roll basis to find your optimal bet size. If you keep your rotational axes parallel to the felt and select your tables carefully, you enjoy an edge of several percent on your place and odds bets, and all those bets on average require several rolls to be decided. An SRR of 1:6.5 gives you an edge of about 1.2% per roll on place bets on six and eight, slightly more on odds bets, and less on buying four and ten and placing five and nine.
Chapter Eight is my favorite. In it, Wong describes the Dice Challenge of 2004, in which he and several members of his BJ21.com Green Chip website set up a test. Stanford and a partner, Little Joe Greene, would throw the dice 500 times, with observers recording the results. In 500 rolls, a random shooter should throw 83 sevens. Wong set the over/under number at 79.5 sevens, and booked all the "under" action he could get that he and his partner would throw 79 or less sevens in those 500 rolls. He had six bettors wagering on the "over" from $100 to $1000 per point. A thousand-per-point bettor would owe Wong $2,500 if they threw only 77 sevens - two-and-a-half less sevens than the over/under line. For another example, Wong would owe each of those bettors $3,500 if he rolled 83 sevens, which would be three-and-a-half sevens over the limit.
As it turned out, Wong and Little Joe Greene threw only 74 sevens in those 500 dice throws, winning $15,350. Although only 500 rolls are not mathematically significant, Stanford and his partner put their money where their mouth was, and backed up their claim with action. This had the effect of establishing a great deal of credibility for the concept of controlled dice shooting. When you also factor in Stanford Wong's built-in reliability and integrity, this Dice Challenge served to change many minds about the capability to get an edge at the game of craps.
Wong on Dice is definitely a book that serious craps players should read. Even if they are not willing to put in the time and effort to learn the proper techniques of dice control, betting and casino comportment, the material presented in this book is an eye-opener to anyone considering ways to improve their chances of winning consistently at craps.
By 'Barfarkel'
Las Vegas Tribune | July 21, 2005
------------------
Editor's Note: 'Barfarkel' is the pseudonym of a semi-pro card counter and the Author of 'You've Got Heat, The Continuing Card Counting Adventures of L.V. Pro." Barfarkel will be an a occasional gaming contributor to Las Vegas Tribune
------------------------
Most experienced gamblers know there's nothing as exciting as a hot craps table. Of all the table games, craps is the one in which you can win or lose a ton of cash very fast, while every player is rooting for the same result. Despite its apparent complexity, the game is easily understandable and as such, it's one of the most popular table games in the casino.
But there's a problem with craps. It's a negative expectation endeavor. The casino will exact its tax upon every craps bet you make. The overall house edge of 1.4% seems small, but it continually erodes your chip stacks with every bet you place. To that species of advantage player, such as card-counters who refuse to make a bet unless they have the best of it mathematically, this type of game is anathema. There's no way to structure your bets, or change your playing strategy to be able to get an overall edge at craps. "To hell with fun," the advantage player is saying. "We're here to make money."
So the conventional wisdom up until now has been that you can play a casino table game for fun and eventually and inevitably lose your money. Or you can play another game, such as blackjack, in which by counting cards, you can get the long-term mathematical advantage, and by doing so you can win money over the long haul. But counting cards is work. It takes a lot of practice and discipline - not exactly a recipe for a fun-seeking gambler.
But what if we wanted to do both? Have fun and make money? At craps? Is that even possible? Can one have a mathematically advantageous craps game? Make money long-term at the most exciting table game there is? Have your cake and eat it too?
In his new book Wong on Dice, Stanford Wong assures us that this is possible.
Wong has previously written Professional Blackjack - the definitive book on Hi-Lo - the count system considered the industry standard. He has written the authoritative Casino Tournament Strategy - the book every tournament player considers his Bible. In the research for Sharp Sports Betting, he turned himself from a novice punter into a savvy sports bettor. Stanford Wong's credentials are impeccable. He remains today one of the true gurus of the advantage player scene. So when Wong believes that you can get an edge at craps, many smart players, me included, tend to listen. As far as credibility, Stanford Wong is the E.F. Hutton of the advantage player community.
Gambling at a casino game that he cannot possibly beat would be abhorrent to Wong. He would not have dedicated the last eighteen months of his life to this endeavor unless he was certain he could find a way to beat the game.
Not that it's easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. Just like card counting, there's a lot of practice and study involved. Wong taught himself the physical skill of throwing dice in such a way as to minimize the bad results, and maximize the good ones. Controlling dice requires skill, practice, camouflage, patience and deception. In this new book, Wong teaches you what he's learned over the past year-and-a-half of research. Wong on Dice, now in book form, is the completion of the previously published E-book report by the same name that originally sold for $199.
In these thirteen chapters, Wong explains how to get the edge at the craps table. He explains how to toss the dice so as to legally influence them, how to bet, how to act in the casino, practice tips, and money management. The section on tossing the dice is the meat of the book, describing everything from the grip, to the alignment, to the way the dice should act in flight. Included in Wong on Dice is never-before-published information about the game of craps: how skillful shooters get an edge, how to practice efficiently, how to test yourself to know when you're ready to take on a casino, the four-item checklist Wong uses on every toss of the dice, a logical way to choose which dice set to use, which bets to make, expected win rates, and the mathematics of craps.
Of course this is not the first book to claim that a dedicated player can get an advantage at craps. In Wong on Dice, he references concepts and material from other books written by "Yuri," Frank Scoblete and "Sharpshooter." He has absorbed, synthesized and reorganized some of the most important material and presents it in a simple and highly understandable manner.
You can't learn this stuff solely from books. In his trademark clean and compact writing style Stanford Wong states:
I recommend personal instruction from a pro. If you want to learn to hit a tennis or golf ball properly, the best plan of action is to get coaching from an expert; and the same is true if you want to learn how to throw dice to produce results that differ from random.
In Chapter Six, Wong instructs the reader how to estimate his "Seven-to-Rolls-Ratio" (SRR). An unskilled random dice shooter will throw an average of one seven in every six rolls. This random SRR is expressed as 1:6.0. Wong estimates that the minimum SRR a skilled shooter needs to get an edge is 1:6.4. If the shooter can keep the dice spinning on one axis of rotation (backspin), parallel to the felt and choose dice tables which allow the dice to settle down quickly after lightly hitting the back wall, he should be able to achieve an SRR of 1:6.5. This is the point at which the student can start to take his game to the casinos.
In this chapter, he concludes that there are two ways to get an edge tossing dice: correlation, and dice-stopping-on-axis. Correlation is simply having the dice rotate together on the proper left-right axis as they leave your hand. Dice-stopping-on-axis means each die is more likely to stop on one of its rotating faces than on one of its side faces. Throwing the dice on axis (correlation) is necessary to get an edge at craps. Having the dice stop on axis is not necessary to get an edge.
Also in this chapter, Wong describes the difference between primary hits and double pitches. A primary hit is two rotating faces landing, which started out in identical positions in the shooters hand when he first set them before throwing. For example, if you use the Hardways Set, in which you hold the dice with say the threes up and the fours facing you and the rotating faces are 2, 3, 4, and 5, with the ones and sixes on the side faces, in the final result when the dice land, the primary hits are 2-2, 3-3, 4-4 and 5-5. Using the same Hardways dice set, a double pitch is having the dice land on 2-5, 3-4, 4-3, and 5-2.
In Chapter Seven, entitled Money Management, Wong discusses how to estimate your advantage. Under the sub-heading Estimating Your Edge, he states the following:
You need to express your edge on a per-roll basis to find your optimal bet size. If you keep your rotational axes parallel to the felt and select your tables carefully, you enjoy an edge of several percent on your place and odds bets, and all those bets on average require several rolls to be decided. An SRR of 1:6.5 gives you an edge of about 1.2% per roll on place bets on six and eight, slightly more on odds bets, and less on buying four and ten and placing five and nine.
Chapter Eight is my favorite. In it, Wong describes the Dice Challenge of 2004, in which he and several members of his BJ21.com Green Chip website set up a test. Stanford and a partner, Little Joe Greene, would throw the dice 500 times, with observers recording the results. In 500 rolls, a random shooter should throw 83 sevens. Wong set the over/under number at 79.5 sevens, and booked all the "under" action he could get that he and his partner would throw 79 or less sevens in those 500 rolls. He had six bettors wagering on the "over" from $100 to $1000 per point. A thousand-per-point bettor would owe Wong $2,500 if they threw only 77 sevens - two-and-a-half less sevens than the over/under line. For another example, Wong would owe each of those bettors $3,500 if he rolled 83 sevens, which would be three-and-a-half sevens over the limit.
As it turned out, Wong and Little Joe Greene threw only 74 sevens in those 500 dice throws, winning $15,350. Although only 500 rolls are not mathematically significant, Stanford and his partner put their money where their mouth was, and backed up their claim with action. This had the effect of establishing a great deal of credibility for the concept of controlled dice shooting. When you also factor in Stanford Wong's built-in reliability and integrity, this Dice Challenge served to change many minds about the capability to get an edge at the game of craps.
Wong on Dice is definitely a book that serious craps players should read. Even if they are not willing to put in the time and effort to learn the proper techniques of dice control, betting and casino comportment, the material presented in this book is an eye-opener to anyone considering ways to improve their chances of winning consistently at craps.