Re: $199 dice book, I need some helps to answer a legit question...

Dear righteous posters,

With all due respect to Stanford Wong, I'm confused and need some helps from you guys to answer my simple skeptical question:

How can a person become a dice expert within a year, writes a dice book, and sells it for $199? It's like saying a person can become a Kung Fu expert within a year, writes a Kung Fu book, and sells it for $199. Or it's like saying a person can become an expert card counter, writes a card counting book, and sells it for $199. Or so on & on...

Best regards
Samoht

Craps is beatable because customers are allowed to toss the dice, and skillful crapshooters generate results that differ from random enough so that customers have the edge over the casino on some bets.

I�ve been studying craps for about a year. I�ve read much of what has been written about beating the game, have taken Frank Scoblete�s �Golden Touch Craps� course, and have benefitted from advice from dice coach Beau Parker. I�ve practiced enough so that I personally can hold my frequency of sevens down to 1:6.5 or better, compared to 1:6 for random rolls. 1:6.5 is good enough for me to enjoy about the same edge over the casinos as casinos enjoy over random shooters. I put in a couple of hundred hours as a customer at crap tables during 2004, and have several thousand dollars of winnings to show for it. Various green chippers who joined me at the tables and bet on my rolls have won thousands more.

I am not particularly coordinated. There are skilled crapshooters who are much more coordinated than me, and whose SRRs (sevens to rolls ratios) are much better than mine, and who thus are capable of winning money much faster than me.

While I am happily surprised that Stanford Wong has seen that craps is indeed beatable through physical means, and I also know many people who have gotten surprisingly good in one year through just practicing every single day, I don't think he can add a whole lot to the dice control literature, and especially not for two hundred bucks. But there always the public library, so we'll have to check it and see if indeed it's worth forking over some c-notes.

Samoht ,
Soambody has indeed become a martial arts expert and worte a book about it, in just slightly over one year.

It is an excellent read: Angry white pyjamas ( sorry I dont have the authors name to hand ).

Before you spend $199, or discard the posibility of dice settng why not check out dicesetter.com and practice the dice setting moves he has on his site. I checked it out yesterday and am going to invest a little time practicing.

I don't yet know if it is possible or profitable but I would like to find out and possibly give it a go before there is an explosion in dice setting and all the good opp's have gone.

All the best

B.E.S

While I am happily surprised that Stanford Wong has seen that craps is indeed beatable through physical means, and I also know many people who have gotten surprisingly good in one year through just practicing every single day, I don�t think he can add a whole lot to the dice control literature, and especially not for two hundred bucks. But there always the public library, so we�ll have to check it and see if indeed it�s worth forking over some c-notes.

Here are three questions that are answered in Wong on Dice that are not answered elsewhere in the dice-control literature. This list is not exhaustive; it merely shows that there is material in Wong on Dice that you won�t find in the public library.

1. How can you test yourself in just a few minutes to determine whether your dice-control skill is sufficient to give you an edge in a casino?

2. How exactly do you figure out whether the hardways set or the 3-V is better for you?

3. For each $10,000 of your bankroll, what is your optimal bet size, and what bets should you make to get that amount of money in action?

Stanford Wong

Stanford,

With all due respect, if the 500-roll challenge you reference is the same one described in wizardofodds.com, then you personally rolled 45 sevens in 278 total rolls. Random is 46.33. Book price is $199.

Greetings Samurai,

Happy New Year!

Thanks for your enlightenment. It seems it's possible for a prodigy to become an expert in anything within a short time. Since Stanford Wong is a gambling prodigy who invents the Hi-Lo, wonging, etc.... it's really possible that he can come up with a winning strategy in beating the game of craps.

Speaking of prodigy, you should see how another prodigy (James Grosjean) beats the casino in court for $320,000. His main strategy in winning the case is brilliant...he gets to be another prodigy like Wong. Here are some excerpts from the trial:

Jury Selection...Las Vegas, October 19, 2004. District Court #8, the Honorable Judge Lee Gates presiding. It�s time for voir dire, the jury selection process. Mike and I had considered hiring a jury-selection consultant to help, but in the end decided that Bob, Thea, and I could exercise sufficient insight and wisdom. Thirty or so people are sitting in the jury pool. Eight are randomly selected to come forward. We will alternate with the IP in exercising up to four rejections of jury candidates. We might be able to reject a candidate "for cause," without having to use one of our four precious challenges. Some would argue that the case will be won or lost right here. Let�s get it on...(60 some pages later...near the end of the trial)...........Question 1. Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant named below or either of them violated the constitutional rights of the plaintiff James Grosjean, to be free of unlawful search or of unlawful seizure or both under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution? Defendant Imperial Palace, yes. Defendant Donnie Espensen, yes. .......Question 2. What amount of money damages do you find should be awarded to the plaintiff, James Grosjean, from the defendants found liable in Question 1? Defendant Imperial Palace, $99,990. Defendant Donnie Espensen, nine dollars....Do you find that any defendant for whom you marked yes in Question 1 liable to plaintiff James Grosjean for punitive damages? Imperial Palace, yes. Donnie Espensen, no. ............The Punitive-Damages Hearing.....On November 1, we met again in court in front of the same jury to determine the amount of punitive damages to be awarded. A CPA testified regarding the IP�s financial position. Some exhibits were entered into evidence. Bob made a statement. The IP made an unrepentant statement, the highlight of which was: "We bring that out only because the corporate mob mentality � this is much more of a mom and pop situation. This is not Mandalay Bay; this is not Park Place; this is not Caesars Palace. This is a much smaller situation that a family built. They bought a small hotel, they built it up here." By the CPA�s testimony, the Imperial Palace�s hotel, casino, and land is owned free and clear � on the Las Vegas Strip. "Mom and pop"?.........Six of the eight jurors agreed on a punitive-damage award of $500,000, reduced under Nevada statute to $300,000, and reduced to $150,000 by Judge Gates, who felt the award was "excessive." With the compensatory damages, the punitives, the interest, and attorneys� fees, we hope to collect around $320,000, to be chopped threeways (Mike, me, and BobThea). When we rejected the arrogant and stingy offers from the IP, it�s not because we expected this pecuniary result. Like I said, I don�t care about money, but if money is the only way to get the IP�s attention, then I want as much of it as possible.

To read the full 69 pages of his trial, click on this link

http://blackjackforumonline.com/content/IPBJFO1.htm

Best regards
Samoht

Wong can hardly be given credit for that. Credit goes to Harvey Dubner and Julian Braun.

Most of the dice-setting community focus on reducing the number of sevens appearing in a given string of rolls. I would be more inclined to believe that it's the ability to repeat specific numbers consistently that has the most telling effect upon whether the shooter really does wield an advantage. Also it would provide one with immediate feedback about his performance. Not requiring a large sample base to determine your proficiency saves a lot of time and eliminates the frustration.

It seems the promoters become more famous than the inventors. Most people associate Wong with HI-LO in PROFESSIONAL BLACKJACK (I mistook the wonging Stanley as the inventor of Hi-Lo), and Bill Gates with WINDOWS in PERSONAL COMPUTER. Ironically both are famous but not the inventors of Hi-Lo or PC, and unfortunately not many people know the real inventors of the important stuff. That's fact of life!

Stanford didn't invent the Wonging style of play either, although he became famous for his use and promotion of that style of play. SW never took credit for inventing either hi-lo or Wonging, by the way. What he did do was write and publish the best book on hi-lo ever written.

Gates never claimed he invented the PC. As a matter of fact, the term "PC" was IBM's.

...You know IBM? It's the company that refused to buy off Gates his OS and chose instead to offer him a royalty for every computer that would carry it. Who made Gates then?

The name escapes me at the moment, and yes, you are correct that IBM made one of the all time screwups in the history of the world, vis a vie, cornering a market, really owning the computer kingdom, building a company so the government would have to create a new name, as the word monoply wouldn't fit, and becoming the richest company in the world.

So, yes, IBM is mostly responsible for all that Gates has become. What's ironic, is the reason IBM didn't buy the OS from Gates. 1)It didn't work. At least in the way IBM wanted it too, by production time. 2) And here's where I can't remember the guys name, but both IBM and Gates were feverishly trying to find him before IBM's time limit ran out. IBM, so they wouldn't have to buy Gate's version of DOS, and Gates, so he COULD buy the version -- that this man wrote -- that DID work. In fact we all have come to love (and loathe) the DOS that eventually was licensed by Gates (another error by IBM, this one of contract wording.... the dumbshits) to IBM, and the rest is history.

How much did Billy buy DOS from this man for? A mere $50,000. But we obviously don't have to weep for IBM. But what a life changing moment that was for the man who really helped Gates win the biggest lottery on earth.

And as Paul Harvey used to say that's the rest of the story.

And one final note: Both Jobs and Wozniak, along with the techies from Xerox, might have an issue with the "microsoft did invent windows comment." But....who the hell cares now, hey? It's all billions in the bank now.

cheers
bfb

Xerox did this before there _was_ a PC. There were others including Sun's "suntools" to name just one...

Gates doesn't get credit for that, although he does get credit for a lot of things related to the PC...

Gary was the writer of CP/M, Control Program/Microcomputer, and the head of Digital Research, the company that sold it. CP/M was an OS written for the eight bit processors. There were more than three dozen versions to accomidate all the eight-bit environments. The world waited for CP/M-16 which was the OS Gary was supposed to be preparing for the new Intel 16 bit 8086. But he didn't have it ready and refused to speak with IBM representatives who came to see him in Northern California to negotiate.

Tim Paterson, a Seattle engineer, couldn't wait for CP/M-16 either. He began to write QDOS, Quick and Dirty Operating System, mimicing UNIX commands for command sets. Gates learned of it and bought the OS, incomplete, for a reported $50,000 from his employer, Seattle Computer. QDOS became PC-DOS and MS-DOS, version 1, in the business deal of the century.

The story of Gary Kildahl is very sad. Remember DR-DOS 5? Gary was one of many Gates crushed. But that's another story.

Thanks for filling the blanks. I'm guessing you know that the days leading up to IBM's attempt to go around Gates was intense.

Of course, those stories, and some are really, really sad, are why so many are anti-microsoft. Some think its about jealousy and envy, and there is a little of that. But the truth is Gates never really was that talented. This is not to say he's not bright, and all that goes with success, but there's a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time.

And then there's the utter and sheer ruthlessness that permeates everything he (MS) does, most of which is fueled by his recognition of how bumbling (lucky) IBM was that IBM screwed the purchase contract up, and there is no doubt that he would never let that happen to him and Allen. And so he just destroyed (when possible) everything in his path, and that's why Ellison, McNealy, Jobs, et al despise him. The number of people and small software companies that came into contact with MS......and are now just dust with the wind...It's a shame.

cheers
bfb

First off I didn't mean to sound like a prick in the subject of the message, but it is my opinion that those questions should not be difficult for a semi-knowledgable player to answer. Are my answers completely off base????

1. Video tape your throws and watch for any glaring mistakes. I know what a good toss looks like and can fairly quickly pick out good ones and bad ones, and see what problems my throw has. Aside from that, I can't imagine a "fast" way to test yourself in just a few minutes and if your answer to this one is radically different from this one, I may very well fork over $200 to see it.

2. I can see if I have any consistant turns in the axis which would cause specific things to happen and therefore pick the best of the two. If I hit my primes most times, I may choose the 3V and place the six and eight. If I seem to have an extra rotation, I may opt for the pass and come with the hardways set. Both sets are designed to make it so one die has to have two turns either one or both ways for a seven to show--the furthest possible length. So for a good shooter, both should have good SSRs, but one may be more favorable based on a consistant throw.

3. Give me a calculator and a record of tosses so I can see what the frequency of the numbers are and I can give you that one or something I would believe to be damned close. Obviously I know not to place the four and ten, and I'm sure not going to bet the any seven, but given the house payout and your records, I think the optimal bets can be found, and as far as optimal bet size, well, even controlled craps is still an independant trial event, and all the same forumlas apply, though I might have to change a few of the numbers.

If you tell me that my answers are way off base and you have some secret new thing for each of those, I will glady get $200 to spend and hail you as not only a blackjack master, but a craps one as well! But even if your answers aren't very different, I'll still pick it up when the price comes down and I am still glad you have seen controlled shooting in action--your opinio alone has stopped the majority of the **** craps throwers have gotten from the AP community, and despite what people say, I think it will really help craps make a comeback.