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Playing 4 Keeps™ Gaming Newsletter for Winners Celebrating Ten Years!
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™ A Gaming News Letter For Winners February 2006 Volume 8 Issue 2 Copyright ©2006 Michael Vernon
"Luck Has Nothing To Do With It When You Are Playing 4 Keeps!"
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On The Coat Tales of a Gambler - Part II ***************************************************************
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Michael, I gotta ask you if you truly believe what you were saying about setting the dice? I've watched many a dice setter for the past ten years, and I've yet to see anyone do any better with setting them as not. I agree with you about the energy, it has to be there without a doubt. Focus has to be there as well. I've seen people come up to the table with nothing but intention and walk away winners and never once set the dice. I understand what you are saying, but I would say that being centered and grounded is more effective than worrying about which number to put the dice on. In my mind, it's a question of timing and balance. As I'm sure you are aware, they have a saying at the crap table, "It's bad luck to be superstitious!" I know this to be true. Any way, I was just curious about your thoughts on setting dice. Ross “ The Box Man” Editor’s note: Ross is a box man and former craps dealer. He lives in Las Vegas. He is a long time acquaintance and my reply to Ross follows. Hey Ross, Regarding dice setting: Everything is subject to the thought form. You make important points about intention, energy and focus. As for me, “I ain't superstitious unless I'm at a dice table”. A lot of players these days set the dice, but there is a lot more to it than most realize. There has to be a controlled consistent throw. Each toss is intended to be perfect, just like the previous throw. Personal experience has made me a believer. The two web sites that I recommend are convincing and have lots of graphics and free information. http://www.dicesetter.com and http://www.dicecoach.com I have spent time looking over the information found there. There is purpose and intention behind the theory and I say that there is something to it, seen or unseen by casino personnel, meaning you Ross. It is an edge. We can debate the significance of the edge, and I say, “an edge is an edge is an edge”. It is bundles of small thin wires that hold up the span of the Golden Gate Bridge. You are correct about intention, focus and energy. The longest hands I have ever witnessed came from players just tossing the dice down the layout. What I am saying is that few players use a set and controlled throw and the really good setters mask their play. One thing about those long random hands, they all had a common thread. The shooter was consistent with the toss, not just a get them down the table with a tumble and see what happens. It is that consistency, which is expressed as an energy, that supports my belief in dice setting. Ross, my own game has improved tremendously with the sets and controlled throw. Now, the dice are cubes with sharp edges and pointy corners. When they land, they go all over hell. Slow motion picture bares this out. However, I can feel it at times, without any uncertainty, the times when I am in the grove. The rhythm and toss are on track and locked in. I can feel it, I can sense it when the dice are still in the air that I have made a perfect toss and the dice are going to drop down dead, “Winner-7”, on a come out roll or land on the point that is my goal. It is uncanny, and I kid you not, it happens. I carefully watch the dice while they are in the air. I watch what they are doing from start to finish. I pay attention to the release. I watch for the rotation and speed. I follow how the dice fly together. I notice if they stay true, I notice if they wobble and separate. I watch the landing, the bounce and final destination of the dice. When it is a good toss, I see it, I feel it and I lock it into memory. It is like a golf swing or shooting free throws. It is about repetition, repetition, doing the same movement for positive results. Can I do it every time? No. Do I have at least one good hand per session? Often. My old pattern of shooting usually resulted in a short hand, making a point and sevening out. Basically, my rolls followed probability. Now, I usually make the first point with a string of numbers before the 7, usually I can make box numbers without craps or yos. I still have the occasional quick outs. When I string several of them together in a session, I know it is not going to be my night to shoot. It is the times, when I catch the wind, and roll off six to eight passes that makes me laugh. I have become sensitive enough in a game, that after a turn or two with the dice, I know or I can feel whether I am “on” for that session. If I recognize that I am cold, I'll be passing the dice the rest of the night. If I am on, catching three or four points is typical. Okay, I'm not a hero with that hand, but should a “hero” immerge in the game, well, I have managed to position myself by extending my bankroll long enough to be there for the monster hand. “Money Management 101”! “When the big hand comes along, you have to be at the rail in order to sail”. Playing 4 Keeps, my game, four points in one hand comes close to doubling my bankroll. This is assuming that I am holding my own, about even in the game. If it has been a tough session and I'm near the end of my chips, four points will pull me out of the ditch maybe for a small profit, if not, then I will be close to even. In a game that is supporting one to two points on average, I'll be grinding a small profit. Should I catch the four or five-point hand, I can bail out with 100% profit or more. So, Ross, it is to each his own when rolling the dice. However, remember the "Big If", when using a “Point Set”. "If" the dice stay on the set axis, it eliminates four of the sevens or for a come out cycle, the seven set eliminates all the crap rolls. Expressed as odds, setting the dice is a take-a-way from the house advantage when it works. It is an edge, be it ever so small. Even if they stay on the preferred axis one or two times out of random, setting provides me with an edge. Again, the proof for me has been in my own results. Yes, I have put in the practice time at home and on low minimum, empty casino tables. Not everyone is up to this kind of dedication to perfect the skill. Now, “devils advocate and Dumbo the elephant”. If a guy thinks that setting the dice can make him fly, then, he can fly! If you say you can’t, I am the last one to argue with you to change your belief. We find our way back to, “our thoughts create our reality” and that is a lesson and discussion for another newsletter. I have been in that magic groove. I have experienced that knowing when it was working and I rolled a long hand of six or seven points. Is it the dice set? Is it the energy? Is it the confidence, the intention or the focus, or is just my lucky night? In the end, what does it matter, if the "feather" being used gets the elephant off the ground? In the end, what is the down side to setting dice? How can it hurt? What if setting dice with a controlled toss does give the practiced shooter an edge? I for one will take it and add it to my arsenal of gaming tools. In closing, I have to ask you, "What if this could work?" I, for one, could not bear to ignore that question and wonder what if? Michael Vernon
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler Part II Sailor continues his stories as a youth in the South and life among gamblers. Did you ever hear of a guy named “Scarpone” Roybal? He got himself killed long ago in a poker game. He was a good buddy and a real high roller. In those days, in the sixties, those guys used to walk around with fifty grand on them. They all carried guns… any game, anytime. They would have a dice game on beds in motels. I was just young and dumb, sort of the driver for “Scarpone”. He’d take me around to the action, you know any kind of gambling… dice, poker, cock fights, etc. I am talking about the South where I grew up… mostly in Alabama. Lucky I went west when I did. I could have been killed and maybe lucky that I wasn’t. “Scarpone” was a big guy. He wore size twelve shoes and maybe was six-two. His given name was Jonnie. His father was originally from Spain. One of his running mates, Bennie “Out d’Window” DeMarco, an Italian guy, gave Jonnie Roybal the nickname “Scarpone”… big foot or feet in Italian. Bennie was as bent as a dog’s hind leg, a bit of a burglar he was. He used to say, “I slip in the front door and I take the loot out d’window”. It didn’t make any sense to me. Anyway, “Scarpone” got into a knife fight and he got cut bad on his face in a poker room. Most of the guys figured that “Scarpone” meant Scar Face or something in Spanish… the name stuck…but he had big feet. Between Badger, Alabama and Greenville, there was a bar on the right as you headed east. I guess they called it a roadhouse. In the basement there were two poker tables. That is where I met “Scarpone”. Sometimes I would go there to play a little $2 poker. They had a low limit table and a high limit table. It was on that high limit table that I had seen as much as 15K or 20K during a game. Anyway the guy who owned the place was an old guy probably not as old as I am now…but, he had a beautiful wife. She had been a waitress in that bar before he married her. After being in the navy for a while, I went back home to visit about a year or two later. The place had been shut down. One night his wife came in and saw him boning a woman on the pool table. She killed them both. Most every one of those gamblers carried pistols, especially the high rollers. I guess she did too? I don’t remember whatever happened to her. It was in the early seventies and that is one story you can check out in the Badger news. The poker games at most of these places went on and on 24/7. Sometimes they would stop to sleep for three or four hours after playing straight for two or three days. I usually only played ten to twelve hours at the most. These guys would pop pills to stay a wake. I never did. I never saw any dope sold in those places…whiskey and beer, plenty of that. All over town in the fifties and sixties and before, I guess, there was gambling, hookers and other things going on in the bars. It would be just a regular bar and in the basement, or in a back room or upstairs, it would be wide open. The authorities and cops were paid off in my town. Then, a new sheriff came in during the sixties and cleaned it all up. I was only fourteen years old and I could go into these places with older guys who knew me back when I was in grade school. Not just any kid could get away with it. I watched these guys move about and they knew me. They trusted me to keep my moth shut, you know…. Once I saw “Scarpone” win over 30K with dice on a bed in Columbus, Georgia. There was an army camp there. Lots of “marks” with them young boys and nothing to do with their money. Even in those days “Scarpone” would tip a waitress $100 bucks. I mean with “Scarpone”, money and women were always plentiful. About 1970, I decided to pick up and leave. I never had anything to do with those guys again. I never played in the same games with them either. I just watched. I was a very low roller and everyone seemed okay with that. Out in country, there was a house in a field, and it was a poker house. There were five rooms in the house. In each of the five rooms there would be games going. The money I used to see there was more money than I have ever seen in one place in my life. “Scarpone” would give me a hundred bucks just to tag along with him. Though he never said anything to me, it was understood that I was to watch his back. I was good at keeping a sharp eye to see if anyone was acting differently. “Scarpone” was no stranger to trouble. He owned a scar from a huge cut down one side of his face. There were a couple of different stories about how it happened. One was that he got cut in a game. The other version told was that it was over a woman. Likely either one could be as true as the other. “Scarpone” was certainly one to mix it up if it ever got heavy. He had been shot before too. I was so stupid in those days, to hang out with these guys. I guess my sense of innocence kept me safe. When I think back on some of the stuff that went on… geeze I was a lucky sob. Part III“Scarpone” had married three beautiful young women before he was forty. The oldest of the wives was only twenty-one. Not sure of any others or if he was ever divorced. It wasn’t much longer after he married the last wife when he got himself killed. I think “Scarpone” was about forty-two when he was gunned down in a game. He was a lot older than me. When I moved on… I lost contact. I am told that most of those guys were killed or got so much prison time. The way it was, I’m sure that it is true. When I met “Scarpone” he was on his third wife a real beauty and only twenty-three. She was Miss Myrtle Beach or something once. She was twenty-one when he married her. He told me that he gave her one of his $100 tips and she went out with him that night. He said that she’d be just like all the others (wives). Once she’s got a bunch of his money saved up, she would disappear, just like the other two. “Scarpone”e was not faithful to that young wife either and he said he knew she cheated on him when he was out of town. He always used much stronger words to describe things too, more than I am using. One thing for sure, “Scarpone” liked to dress nice. He always wore a sport coat and “gator shoes”. (alligator) In his right coat pocket always, was a 38 revolver. He said he could easily shoot someone while at the poker table. He said that is how he killed those two guys. Once we went to a cockfight in Georgia. It was a huge barn like building, real big. It was against the law, but they had been doing it there for over a hundred years, I was told. Of course the cops were paid off. I saw a lot of dough that weekend I tell you true, and people were there from all over the world. I never saw anything like the excitement at a cockfight. Many of the people there were from the orient. That was in early 1970’s before I left for the navy. I ran into one of those guys from orient in the Atlanta airport about a year later. I had met him at that cockfight. I was not a gambler. I did not have the stakes like those high rollers had. I was just along for the ride and having a lark. I was green. Funny to remember how those guys were with their money, girls and buddies. Those guys were tight. I remember once a guy told “Scarpone” that he was busted, broke. “Scapone” just handed him 5K and said, “Pay me back when you get on your feet”. About half the guys I rubbed shoulders with had real jobs too. But most of the others just gambled. Some played pool for money but most of the pros I knew just played poker for a living. A few were also burglars. A lot of them had done time in the joint. “Scarpone” had done time too. “Scarpone” was caught cheating in a poker game. He killed the two guys that tried to kill him for cheating. He said it took all the money that he had to pay for a good lawyer to get him off light. Listen, some of the things that I am telling you are things “Scarpone” told me, things that happened before I met him. But the way he told them to me… I know that they happened. He had that kind of cold look that just went right through you. I’d shake my head agreeing with what he had just told me. Part IV“Scarpone” looked after me. He would always buy me a prostitute when we were out of town. The girls were always around the action, by that I mean the money. It was like a magnet for them and a vacation to me. At first, I was working as a city fireman. But often I would get a three-day weekend and four-day weekend. Sometimes I’d call in sick so I could take off with the boys. I knew that I was going to the navy soon, so, six months before my enlistment, I quit my job and that is when I really did a lot of traveling with “Scarpone”. It was never just me and him on these trips. There would always be one or two other gamblers in the car with us. It was just like a tight insider’s club. You got the call for a game and you went. Otherwise, you could be left out. With these guys it was scarier to be on the outs than in on the game. “Scarpone” had an ego for sure and he was into cars. Every two or three years, he would buy himself a new Lincoln. He had one “Caddie” as I remember, early on, when I first met him. Now, as I said, a lot is things he told me, happened before I met him. But the big cars were necessary to fit with his big image. Sorry to get carried away there… But those were some fun days for me, real exciting times… and I was so dumb to be there in the middle of it all. But, it would be always come and go with us, fast and furious, all our expenses paid. I will give up a hundred bucks if this ain’t true. That was my introduction into gambling… all against the law. It wasn’t until 1970, I was thirty years old, before I ever gambled legally and that was in Vegas…but those earlier days were some fun times. Those guys were plumb crazy. I knew it even then, but still I went along for the ride. They would fix dice so they could win, mark cards, and anything else to get away with cheating, and hoping not to get caught. And since most of them carried guns, they knew they that they were playing with fire. Still, to so many guys like “Scarpone”, it was just the game. See you, Sailor On the Coat Tales of a Gambler, to be continued…
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Playing 4 Keeps™ enriches a player's experience to become a consistent winner. My commitment to you is empowerment. Learning to employ discipline creates confidence and strengthens intention through metaphysical lessons. I empower students by showing them how to avoid losing sessions. Most importantly I create metaphors that link the knowledge of casino games to winning ways in "the game of life". Michael Vernon
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