In this Learn to Play
Craps lesson, we
explore Craps Don't Strategies.
The enemy of the Craps Don’t or Darkside
player is
the
shooter who gets hot.
A shooter hitting point after point,
number after number,
can drown a Darkside player.
What makes Rightside bettors cheer with
abandon
will make a Darkside player groan.
While the math of craps
shows that there is very little
difference in the long-term expectation between the Rightside and the
Darkside
of craps, the math also shows that the pattern of how a Darksider wins
contrasted with how a Rightsider wins is markedly different.
On the Darkside, for example, a Craps Don’t Pass
or Craps Don’t
Come bet
will face a strong losing potential when it is first placed because of
the
deadly effect of the 7 and 11.
That duo can appear eight
times, all losers, for every three
wins (the 2 or 3) on the initial placement of the bet. Once up on the
number,
of course, the Darksider has the best of it since he is favored to win
on every
number.
Most Darkside Don’t Pass and Don’t Come players like
to do the
mathematically correct thing by laying odds on their bets once they are
up on
the numbers.
Of course, a single loss on the number requires
two wins to
make up for it, whereas on the Rightside a player taking
the odds needs
only to win one bet to make up for one loss and show a profit.
That’s
because
he is not the favorite to win an equal number of bets in the long run.
Thus,
his taking of the odds means he wins more than even-money when he does
win.
The
Darksider loses the whole bet but only wins a fraction of his odds when
he does
win.
But there is a relatively simple way to avoid all hot
shooters.
Don’t bet on the Don’t Pass!
Do bet on the Don’t Come!
These simple rules will avoid all hot rolls by an individual
shooter and, just as important, if there are any controlled shooters at
the
table, these rules will help you avoid them as well – at least when
they are
deliberately setting and shooting against your interests.
Some Darksiders have fallen for the logical fallacy that a
shooter can’t make enough “points” to hurt you if you keep escalating
your bets
in a Martingale (i.e., a double up as you lose progression) in order to
recoup
in one win what you lost in all those losses.
This is not
so. A shooter need only make seven points to put
you at the table maximums in most casinos if you are starting with $10
Don’t
Pass bets and backing them with full odds.
Even though this
will not happen
that often, it will happen on occasion and those occasions will be
enough to
wipe out all the little wins you accumulated over time with your
Martingale.
The way you avoid betting on hot shooters is to figure that
anyone who has burned you once is just as likely to burn you twice.
The
Don’t
Pass line, where the 7 and 11 come up with annoying regularity, is just
asking
for the same shooter to burn you once, twice, thrice and even more.
Why?
Because a controlled shooter will often be looking to hit that 7 and
will
therefore be setting for the 7.
The Don’t Come, while
mathematically the exact same bet as
the Don’t Pass, has certain features that make it a more attractive bet
for the
Darksider looking to minimize his exposure to hot shooters or dice
controllers.
First of all, while the bet loses on a 7 or 11 in its initial
placement, the 7, which will occur three-fourths of the time on a
loser, knocks
off the shooter; he sevens out.
This shooter will therefore
only be able to
hurt you once on a 7, unlike the Craps Don’t Pass shooter who can roll
many
7s in a
row to frustrate and aggravate you. My advice, if the 11 shows, is to
take it
as a warning and not bet against this particular shooter again.
Now,
if the shooter is a controlled shooter, when your Don’t
Come bet is out there, it is highly likely that the dice controller is
looking
to hit any number but the 7.
If he has skill, it is much
more likely that he will be
reducing the appearance of the 7 and increasing the appearance of the
other
numbers.
Thus, you face reduced chances of being burned on
the initial
placement. Once up on a number, you still have to worry that a dice
controller
will bang you out but at least you made it to the point in the game
where you
have the math with you. If a shooter should hit the number you’re on,
that’s it
for him. He beat you; accept it. Wait for another shooter.
By
playing this way, any one shooter can only hurt you once,
whether he rolls for a minute or until the end of time.
To
take a beating on
the initial placement of the Don’t Pass can happen over and over.
To
take a
beating on the initial placement of the Don’t Come rarely happens
because
three-fourths of the time it is a seven out.
If
you have been playing craps for any sustained length of
time, you know that it is rare that any shooter has an epic roll; rarer
still
that two or three will have them back to back to back.
Playing Craps Don’t in such a conservative fashion will not
win you buckets of chips but it will prevent you from losing barrels
full of
them to a shooter who is hot.
Craps Don’t Strategies is followed by Aggressive
Craps
OR
Return
to Learn
to Play Craps Program
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