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Playing 4 Keeps™ Gaming Newsletter for Winners Celebrating 11 Years!
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™ A Gaming News Letter For Winners April 2006 Volume 8 Issue 4 Copyright ©2006 Michael Vernon
"Luck Has Nothing To Do With It When You Are Playing 4 Keeps!"
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Dice Busters the Experience! On the Coat Tales of a Gambler Dice Setter Precision Shooter's Forum ***************************************************************
*************************************************************** Terms of Endearment…
I received an email letter asking for my definition of stop loss and bankroll protection. Certainly with any study, understanding the terms and being able to apply them in practice makes for a more complete experience.
Stop Loss: A stop loss is a built in limiting factor. When I reference stop loss, it is not always some automatic device constructed in a system that will stop you from losing. It is recognizable and is evident to you the player that it is time for you to put a stop to your losing and quit playing. It is meant to limit your loss, like a line in the sand. When you reach that line in the sand, that is when you stop playing and stop losing.
One sure fire stop loss is going bankrupt. That is not as bad as it sounds. You engage a game with a specified buy-in and you are limited to how much you can lose by the buy-in. Thus, your stop loss is limiting the amount of money you can lose in one session. I like playing a committed buy-in. I know what the down side is. The worse thing that can happen is to lose the entire buy-in. Playing conservatively and appropriately, I am in control of my game knowing my exposure to loss. I am limited to that one buy-in. That is my stop loss. That is all that I can lose in that session. I like knowing that there is a limit to what I can lose. It is comforting to know in advance what the worst case scenario could be.
Another kind of stop loss is limiting play after a certain number of losing hands. For a blackjack game, I usually will stop playing after losing18 units. My expected win playing blackjack is 14 to 18 units. So, it does not make sense to me to lose more in one session than I reasonably expect to win. Accept the loss and preserve the remaining buy-in for another game.
When playing the Don’t Pass in craps, one kind of stop loss is to lose three times against the same shooter. If I lose three times again the same shooter, I stop and wait for the next shooter. First of all, running into three passes while playing the Don’t indicates that this player may break a big hand. Second, the reason I am playing the Don’t Pass is because the table conditions have shown me that no one can hold the dice, no passes. Why get beat up quick grinding out on the Don’t? I play the Don’t when it is evident that I have found a cold table. So, after three consecutive losses, I stop and wait for the next shooter and see if conditions return to a cold game.
Bankroll Protection: This one is a bit more complicated. To protect your bankroll means to play in such a way as to risk as little as possible for maximum results. It also means that the method of play extends your bankroll and provides for more opportunity. As example, I recommend a minimum 30-unit buy-in for craps or blackjack. By playing perfect basic strategy, a blackjack player is not always playing to win. Sometimes, I am playing so as not to lose. By successfully defending the hand, I stretch my opportunity by playing longer in hopes of running into a plus count or a swing of winning hands. Knowing how to play defense, I protect my bankroll and make it last longer.
In a craps game, I play a similar game of defending to get the most out of bets risked. I want to make bets that have the best possible return with the least exposure. Risk a little to win a lot. My “stack’em don’t rack’em” Pass Line strategy is a great example. It is simply going with the probability of a streak of natural winners on the Come Out. (22.222%) Parlay the line bet with the first and second natural and pick up a 7-1 shot after the third win. It does not even have to be a natural. You could end up on a point and have the point roll. Risk one unit to win seven. That is bankroll protection at it best.
When you can have a play that mathematically performs well, you can make the play with minimum exposure, minimum risk and have maximum results. That is Playing 4 Keeps™ at its best! You protect your bankroll with a system of plays that stretches the number of times you can make bets. Thus, you extend the time at the table and provide yourself a greater opportunity of catching a big hand. You make your limited funds go a longer distance and that protects your bankroll. Getting more plays from your limited funds is what bankroll protection is all about.
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler... Part VIISailor continues his story… “Stubby” Turner is another guy from those days in Alabama. He was quite a bit older and from the old school as well. This means he may have finished the eighth grade before hitting the streets. I can’t recall his real name. A lot of those guys all had nicknames. Some had them because they did not want people to know who they really were. Others, like Stubby, came by their nicknames for a reason. He was not all that tall and built like a barrel, but that ain’t the reason. Stubby only played poker, never dice or other gambling like cockfights. He was not a pro, but he was a high roller. He was bigger than Scarpone or any other guy that I came to know back then. He had a lot of dough that he made from the cattle business, feed lots and slaughter house… Turner Cattle Co. He was a damn good pool player too. I saw him a few times winning money on the end of a cue stick. Some of the card games use to happen in the backroom of Berger’s Cigar and Pool Hall back home in Badger, Alabama. It burned down in the late 80’s, kind of funny to think of it. The cigar smoke in that place was like fog over the ocean. Nobody cared about second hand smoke back then, let alone the stench. Some big money card games happen in that little backroom. Stubby lost parts of a few of his fingers while loading a steer into one of those shoots. The steer reared up and was getting wild, probably the smell of blood. One of the guys working with Stubby got anxious and slammed the gate before Stubby could get his hand clear. In those days, there was no such thing as sewing back fingertips. It was his left hand. Stubby was left-handed so it was too bad. As the owner, he had no business down on the killing floor, but Turner was just that kind of guy. Nothing below his dignity, if you know what I mean. He learned to pick up cards with his right hand but he would push his bet out with the stubs...kind of like plowing. He was a sober man, without much humor, set in his ways. He took on the name of Stubby kind of like “Yeah, I f..’ed up and ya’ll are right to remind me”. He took his lumps and he moved on. Stubby was in the war and did a tour with the Marines in Korea. Marine mule fits him. I say that now having been in the Navy, no offence. He was known to have a collection of guns and hunted a lot. Stubby was a generous man at times. He liked to buy the boys a round of drinks now and then. He liked to drink a lot. He was in his 50’s back in the early 70’s. One of those guys that seemed to drink and drink and never get drunk. Almost like the more he drank, the drunker everyone else got. Some how Stubby made that part of his poker game. Almost like a trap. He’d drink Jack Daniels all night while playing cards. He’d get to playing aggressive and sloppy, losing hands. Than bam, he’d blind side’em all with a powerful hand no one figured him for. Raising and re-raising, the other players just figured he was on tilt, so they all kept with him. Just like that, piles of chips and money move from the other players to be all in front of Stubby. I saw that happen a couple of times, I tell you true. Maybe it was just drunk luck… Stubby is probably dead now. He was none too healthy back then. He smoked big Cuban cigars all the time and he drank a lot. I don’t know how he came by the cigars, but guys like Stubby, in business in all, knew people that knew people. He had an in with the cops too and the department of health. It was pretty wide open back then when wages weren’t much and you could buy favors cheap. A side of beef or a few bucks greased palms… that Southern expression, “good o’l boys” ain’t no bull. Part VIII While I was in the service a lot changed… back home and with me. Maybe from just being away I noticed it more. When I’d come home on leave, most of the joints were shut down. Maybe they just relocated. All I know to tell you is, about 1975, I was told the town was cleaned up by a new police chief. But as for the games in the county, they continued into the late 70’s or 80’s… maybe it still goes on today? I left that town in 1970, except for those few times back in the service. I never went looking for any of those places or any of those guys. I was told Scarpone was killed in the 80’s… I forget now just how… in a card or dice game I think, caught cheating, I think. It is fuzzy history now especially the part told to me by others. If it comes to me, I’ll write you about it. I did not make much of an effort to look up any of that bunch. Some got locked up and maybe some got killed. I still had my itch for a game, but staying away from those characters seemed like a better idea to me, being older and having “seen the world”, like the Navy “ad” used to say. Let’s see, I told you about that roadhouse where the wife shot her husband right? Yeah, well being in the service kind of forces you to focus attention differently. I did not gamble much while in the navy, an occasional card game, but those guys were too unskilled. Even as a low limit player, I was to far ahead of them and it would have just been trouble on a ship. Scarpone knew this about young military. He called a few us up for a road trip to Columbus, Georgia. Fort Benning was there and Scarpone would figure to catch the boys on payday and pull their pants down. Columbus was not that big of a town with a naive kind of feeling to it. You could get away with a lot if you were the crooked kind. There were several illegal joints for gambling and they were all within the reaches of the military guys. One place I especially remember was on an island, of all places. The river split around this island. It was covered in old growth sycamore trees. In the middle of the trees, on the high ground, was an old shanty house. It was said that it had been a Confederate look out house during the Civil war with a big gun. One of them ironside boats sunk right there in the Chattahoochee River mud. A boat would ferry people from the Columbus side over to the island. Phenix City, Alabama was just the other side, but there was never any action there. A lot of whore houses though, for a bible-thumping town… I think the soldiers would make it over to unsuspecting Phenix City for the ladies. You could go gambling in Columbus and get your ashes hauled in Phenix City. Although Scarpone was into prostitutes, we never stopped there for some reason. The island house was safe from the authorities, but Scarpone did not like the idea of being trapped by water when the only way out was a boat. Nothing ever happened while we were there, except for separating solders from their money. Lots of liquor takes that pain away. By the time they were working off a hang over, we’d be well on our way back to Badger. It was a long trip on lousy, winding, country roads. We did not get over there too often. I still can recall the smell of boiled peanuts and kerosene from the lamps. No electricity on that island. An old guy ran the game there. Looking just like “Colonel Sanders” with a beard, white coat and all… “Yes sah, pure southern he was”. He had several big thugs there to keep the peace. “No guns,” was his rule. You were supposed to check pistols before getting on the boat. Scarpone never did. He was never without his 38 in a game. I mean, this guy is walking around with twenty, maybe thirty thousand on him. He’s not about to be without some insurance. Most of these guys carried some sort of weapon. I never did, though. My days of legal gambling came after the service when I made my way west to Las Vegas. But before that, I spent some time in Amarillo, Texas. …On the Coat Tales of a Gambler continues next issue with Part IX Well, that’s it for this edition of the Playing 4 Keeps™ Newsletter. See you at the tables Playing 4 Keeps™! Michael Vernon Copyright © 2006
Michael Vernon
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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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