Feb 25

Practice leads us to believe we need more practice.

Coulter at left 2: 41 rolls made; SRR of 1:4.1.
3 points set and made, 5 front line winners, 5 front line craps, 6 seven-outs

Jay at left 2: 81 rolls made; SRR of 1:5.8.
6 points set and made, 4 front line winners, 3 front line craps, 10 seven-outs

Feb 24

Switched today from the 3-V set to the hardway set. Objective to minimize all sevens overriding the interestin the maximizing the six and eight.

Coulter at left 1: 64 rolls made; SRR of 1:4.9.
6 points set and made, 5 front line winners, 3 front line craps, 10 seven-outs

Jay at left 1: 63 rolls made; SRR of 1:12.6.
5 points set and made, 1 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 4 seven-outs

Feb 23

Short session today. Numbers may very well be irrelevant at this sample size.

Coulter at left 1: 31 rolls made; SRR of 1:4.4.
3 points set and made, 3 front line winners, 2 front line craps, 4 seven-outs

Jay at right 5: 30 rolls made; SRR of 1:10.
3 points set and made, 1 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 3 seven-outs

Feb 20

This must be WTF day.

Coulter at right 5: 65 rolls made; SRR of 1:5.4.
6 points set and made, 5 front line winners, 3 front line craps, 7 seven-outs

Jay at left 1: 69 rolls made; SRR of 1:5.3.
5 points set and made, 8 front line winners, no front line craps, 7 seven-outs

Feb 19

Coulter is trying to make a tower of sevens to heaven, but I was out pacing him with nines.

Today we used a coaching aide: we put cards down on the table to mark off a target area to hit with the dice, and try and get them to stop dead as close to that area as possible. It seems like it could be a good tool for encouraging consistency.

Coulter at left 1: 55 rolls made; SRR of 1:5.
3 points set and made, 6 front line winners, 2 front line craps, 8 seven-outs

Jay at right 5: 64 rolls made; SRR of 1:7.1.
5 points set and made, 5 front line winners, 2 front line craps, 5 seven-outs

Feb 18

That is an unholy amount of Coulter sevens! Makes for a lot of front-line winners, but that's not exactly the point. My SRR is actually decent today, but with no real trend replacing it, except some bonus threes.

Coulter at left 1: 72 rolls made; SRR of 1:4.
5 points set and made, 10 front line winners, 2 front line craps, 10 seven-outs

Jay at right 4: 81 rolls made; SRR of 1:6.8.
6 points set and made, 4 front line winners, 4 front line craps, 11 seven-outs

Feb 17

This is pretty miserable. I was practicing shooting and Coulter was practice betting only, so he could get quicker at the odds multiples. We usually just shoot the dice and log the numbers, but this time we opened the bank and played with chip bets on the table.

This is a lot of sevens, most of which showed up at inopportune times. This was exactly they type of performance that I needed to convince myself to 5-count even on my own shooting. As Christian Bale might say, "This is totally unprofessional." Which is why I'm still at my day job.

Anyway...

Coulter not shooting. Playing stickman and sloppy dealer.

Jay at left 1: 61 rolls made; SRR of 1:4.7.
3 points set and made, 4 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 10 seven-outs

New stat; we're trying to keep up with best practices: SRR = "Sevens-to-rolls ratio." A reduction of the percentages we have been using in the past, to show how many rolls we can expect between appearances of the seven. 1:6 is perfectly average, and a higher number in the second part is preferable, so my 1:4.7 was miserable.

Feb 12

This is a crazy chart. Coulter on fire with the five and nine, and I'm putting up two and twelve like nobody's business. But alas, even though we were both admirably low on sevens, the sequence of our rolls would still have us losing money.

Coulter at left 1: 29 rolls made; 4 sevens rolled - 2.9% lower than expected.
2 points set and made, 1 front line winners, no front line craps, 4 seven-outs

Jay at right 1: 52 rolls made; 6 sevens rolled - 5.1% lower than expected.
1 points set and made, 2 front line winners, 2 front line craps, 5 seven-outs

Side note on my real-world play: up $275 one day; down $80 the next. So it goes.

Feb 10

I'm totally lame today. Should just pass the dice to Coulter.

Coulter at right 7: 54 rolls made; 6 sevens rolled - 5.6% lower than expected.
7 points set and made, no front line winners, 3 front line craps, 5 seven-outs

Jay at left 1: 58 rolls made; 14 sevens rolled - 7.5% higher than expected.
6 points set and made, 6 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 8 seven-outs

Feb 9

We're never eating lunch at CiCi's Pizza again. Lots of fours and eights, but it's no good if we can't minimize the sevens.

Coulter at left 1 : 41 rolls made; 7 sevens rolled; 0.4% higher than expected.
2 points set and made, 3 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 6 seven-outs

Jay at right 6: 45 rolls made; 9 sevens rolled; 3.3% higher than expected.
3 points set and made, 4 front line winners, 4 front line craps, 7 seven-outs

Feb 6

Amazingly low on sevens today! I skewed towards more six and Coulter towards two and three. Any random jerkass making field bets would be pleased with him.

Coulter at left-1: 55 rolls made; 5 sevens rolled; 7.6% lower than expected. 6 points set and made, no front line winners, 3 front line craps, 5 seven-outs

Jay at right-5: 56 rolls made; 4 sevens rolled; 9.5% lower than expected. 5 points set and made, 2 front line winners, 1 front line craps, 4 seven-outs

Drinking the Kool Aid

Here's the thing about gambling and confirmation bias - It's hard to tell if you are getting better or getting lucky. The reason for playing craps is that the goal is to minimize the house edge. On top of that, the shooter has some input to influence, and the theory is that through dice setting and controlled throws, one can tip the odds towards the player's favor.

That's why we practice. And without looking at the results of that practice, you're lying to yourself, so that's why we log our shooting and post them here.

Last night I won $100 in about 30 minutes at a $5 table, almost exclusively on my own shooting. I enjoyed an impressive series (sorry, no graph - the real casinos frown on keeping track in my phone!) including a fair amount of pass line odds and come bet odds at their maximums.

The real question here is: Am I getting better, or did I just get lucky?

Feb 4

Excellent results today. I came out to 10% sevens and Coulter at 11%, versus the average of 16.7%. That's the way you set and make points, which is how you make money.

Jay's Distribution:

6 points set and made, 5 front line winners, no front line craps, 3 seven-outs

Coulter's distribution:

4 points set and made, 2 front line winners, no front line craps, 4 seven-outs

Feb 3

Short session today. Not very exciting results.

Coulter's distribution:

No points set and made, 2 front line winners, no front line craps, 3 seven-outs

Jay's distribution:

2 points set and made, no front line winners, 1 front line craps, 2 seven-outs