How many times have you had a decent roll of ten to twelve numbers, only to seven out and leave all your profit on the table? Sometimes good hands even turn out to be losing hands. How does that happen? Where’d all the money go? Well, the simple fact is, you never took it off the table. It all comes down to money management.
Here’s a play that has a bit of forced money management involved. I call it the Grand Slam. In baseball, if you load the bases up and hit a home-run everybody scores. This strategy is based on the same principles.
Let’s assume we’re playing down at my favorite haunt, the Perfect World Casino. We’re playing a $5 game with a $750 buy-in. For the sake of this example, we’ll use some “standard” numbers. As most of you probably know, the average craps “hand” is just over eight rolls, and the average number of rolls to a decision once a point is established is just over three rolls. Sometimes the decision is a pass line winner. Sometimes the seven beats us. It’s that three-roll minimum we’re looking to beat, locking up a profit and hopefully hitting a grand slam by bringing the point back afterward.
As with any new play, if you want to try this in the casino, practice it at home first to make sure you have it down pat.
Since we’re going to be “working” our bets on the Come Out in this play, we’re going to use a point-cycle set when tossing the dice. For the sake of this example, we’ll use the one that gives us the most shots at the six and eight – the V-3 arrangement.
First off, hand the dealer $64 and tell him to spread it across the board – working on the Come-Out. That gives us two units on each of the box numbers. Since it’s our turn to toss the dice, go ahead and make a $5 Pass Line bet as well.
Now let’s run through some possible scenarios. The six and eight dominate the V-3, so let’s assume one of them rolls on the Come Out. We’ll call it the six. Since you were “working” on the Come Out, the dealer will pay you $14. Tell the dealer to bring you down off the six. Take $10 of it and play double odds behind your Pass Line bet. You now have $69 on the table and $4 of your initial win in the rack. You have a net $65 at risk.
The dice come back to you and on the second toss an easy-four rolls. Your ten dollar wager pays $18. Lock it up. Your “first batter” just scored. You now have $22 in the rack and a net $47 at risk.
Next up, the eight hard rolls. You collect another $14 from the dealer, bringing your rack total up to $34. Your “second batter” just crossed home plate. Your net at risk is now $33.
The dice go out again and you roll the nine. You collect another $14, bringing your rack total up to $48. Three “men” are home.
Now here’s where you hit the Grand Slam. Tell the dealer to “bring down all of my place action, please.” At this point you have a guaranteed win of $33 locked up, even if the devil shows up. Repeat your point and win an additional $17, bringing the total for the series to $50.
Of course, the reason why this play fails is that too many players decide to leave that place action out for one more hit. After all, there’s only $54 plus your Pass Line bet out there and you’ve locked up $48. Two more hits and ALL of your action is paid for. Then you can press to the moon, right? Oh yeah. How many times has that happened?
Of course, there is another option. You could lock up a guaranteed win and regress your action to $16 inside and continue to play. Just remember, once it’s in the rack they can’t take it back – unless you give it to them. The smart play is to always lock up an early win. Get in, get it done, and get gone.
