Darn those odds

I've played Craps three weekends in a row down at the local Indian Casino and it has been nothing but brutal. Been placing the numbers and playing the passline and have maybe seen double digit rolls a couple times. Looks like the probability for the 7 coming up on average has been tried and true so far unfortunately.

Last weekend I was playing and one guy was playing all no-come bets and was making money hand over fist while his buddy who was playing the passline and field, plus quite a few sucker bets which weren't too bright, was losing his rear end at the same time. Thankfully the no-come better was friendly and laid back so he didn't rub anyone the wrong way.

I started out with $200, and cashed in $100 for reds playing $5 a hand BJ to let the buzz from my Long Island wear off and hung around my starting amount plus maybe $5 or $10. I went over to the Craps table and lost $50 bucks on ice cold rolls in about 15 minutes. I went back to the BJ table and won $50 bucks and went back to Craps. Lost $100 in around 20 minutes. Went back to BJ with $100, played $5 hands that I bumped up to $10 and then $25 because the table was hot and won $300 after maybe an hour of play, so I doubled my money. It was a good night but I'm almost to the point of giving the Craps table a wide berth and sticking with BJ.

I'm not superstitious in the least, which has been reinforced thanks to the WOO site and all the BJ/Craps info. and basic strategy, but it hasn't been any fun playing the game so far. I know there are people that can get hot and roll epic hands but banking on that happening is a hunch and flies in the face of playing probabilities and being smart about how you play.

Guess I'll stick with BJ for the moment until it turns cold since I've won close to $400 over the three times I've played using the WOO basic strategy with a little insight from Stanford Wong's Pro BJ book.

Craps can be a rough game, but there are equally brutal shoes in Blackjack. 50% of my gambling loss last weekend was attributed to a bad 15 minutes at a $25 Blackjack table where I got the Griswold shoe. "18. Dealer has 19! 20! Dealer has at 14. There's a 7. 21!!!" You get stubborn and you think it will turn around and it never did. The other 50% was attributed to various play over the other 35 hours of gambling that I did. And I count, and the count for that shoe never got worse than -1.

The cool thing about craps is that you can switch sides and alter bets at will. A cold table is only defined by the bet that you make. While it is bad stigma to be a dark-sider, if you are winning, who cares? In blackjack, you can't bet on the dealer.

Quote: boymimbo

Craps can be a rough game, but there are equally brutal shoes in Blackjack. 50% of my gambling loss last weekend was attributed to a bad 15 minutes at a $25 Blackjack table where I got the Griswold shoe. "18. Dealer has 19! 20! Dealer has at 14. There's a 7. 21!!!" You get stubborn and you think it will turn around and it never did. The other 50% was attributed to various play over the other 35 hours of gambling that I did. And I count, and the count for that shoe never got worse than -1.

The cool thing about craps is that you can switch sides and alter bets at will. A cold table is only defined by the bet that you make. While it is bad stigma to be a dark-sider, if you are winning, who cares? In blackjack, you can't bet on the dealer.

Did he offer you the option of giving him half your bankroll and going out back to kick you in the nuts? :)

My first few times playing BJ were at Vegas and Reno and I did fine until I started chasing my losses because of annoyance and just made a bad situaton worse. The only time I ever got lucky is when I was playing at Zone 21 at Harrah's in Reno just after I'd eaten a huge meal at Ichiban. The girls are doing their dance number between dealing and the speakers were right by me with the thumping bass assaulting my digestive system. I was losing a few hands in a row when I had to make a dash to the restroom. I came back out feeling like a million bucks and put all of my money on one hand and hit 21. I got all my bankroll back plus enough to cover the meal. I told my friend that I must have flushed away all the bad luck, lol.

Reality be damned, this is how my entire gambling experience is. I can feel a cold table and I tend to get out of there quickly. Tables and games are up and down for everyone depending on the day and time, I don't go back to the craps table for a couple hours if I lose a few hundred that quickly. Honestly though, stay with craps. It lasts longer, more camaraderie, and when the dice are hot it's ridiculous. For me, hot streaks in blackjack tend to be over very quickly because of how many hands you get dealt per hour. Hot dice can last an hour or two, and it's an amazing time. Your mind will change the next time you hit some hot dice, trust me.

Quote: ahiromu

Reality be damned, this is how my entire gambling experience is. I can feel a cold table and I tend to get out of there quickly. Tables and games are up and down for everyone depending on the day and time, I don't go back to the craps table for a couple hours if I lose a few hundred that quickly. Honestly though, stay with craps. It lasts longer, more camaraderie, and when the dice are hot it's ridiculous. For me, hot streaks in blackjack tend to be over very quickly because of how many hands you get dealt per hour. Hot dice can last an hour or two, and it's an amazing time. Your mind will change the next time you hit some hot dice, trust me.

I certainly hope so. I would be happy if someone at the table could hit 20+ rolls a couple times, just so I have living proof that it does happen, lol. The table last time I went was vacant before it even hit midnight. Everyone was losing and the guys working the table had to sit around for a couple hours before I went over to get a hard dose of reality. Given the area I live has a really high senior citizen population, since retirees tend to flock here, especially over the past 10 years, they have quarters night Monday through Thursday, so the minimum bet is a quarter so people can play for a long time and not have to worry about losing a bunch of money. Even the old timers who had 50 bucks worth of quarters were getting wiped out in no time. Part of this is due to them playing all the sucker bets since they aren't risking a lot of money, but even if they were just playing the passline, hard 6 and hard 8 and maybe the come or the field, they were toast.

Long rolls do happen. So do short ones. I've been to tables where the dealers will shake their heads at me and say "bad table... keep walking", but I'll play anyway and found that sometimes it remains that way, and sometimes, it turns around. I don't believe that dice have any memory and that streaks are just that... streaks. You don't know you've had one until it's over.

But it's true. Once in a while, the ridiculous roll does happen, and I've run a $5 table (pass/odds, come/odds) for $1,000+. But you've got to be patient. Lots of times you might go seven, eight, even ten shooters without a point. Then you run into a shooter who throws six, seven, even ten points. It just depends on luck.

Blackjack is the same but it goes alot faster because of the decisions made. I played a blackjack shoe last week where the dealer just kept on letting me win as well as the Griswold shoe (different night). It's just luck (and basic strategy).