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Transition Moves

Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 2:06 pm
by heavy
One of our board members searched and searched for this article on the forum and couldn't find it. I followed suit and had the same result. Hmmm. Well, the search function on the board isn't the greatest, that's for sure. Anyway, I thought I'd go ahead and repost it for you new guys. Honestly, you can get whip-sawed attempting to follow the trend mid-hand at the table, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. If you have to do it then perhaps these ideas will help:

Transition Moves

The transition move is one of the most powerful weapons in the crapshooter’s arsenal. It is also one of the most difficult to master. Simply put, a transition move is your pre-planned strategy to ease your bets from one side of the line to the other, allowing you to capitalize on the table’s ever-shifting trend. It can also be a dangerous move. Read the table correctly and you are positioned to win. Read it wrong and you are chasing your losses.

Most popular craps strategists advocate approaching the table with a pre-determined method of play; playing the pass line with odds plus placing the six and eight, for example. If this were your plan, then you would begin by charting for a table where shooters were making points and throwing sixes and eights, then play that table until you hit your win objective or lost a pre-determined number of bets – say three consecutive seven-outs. While this style of play can be a strong money-management strategy, it can also lead to table-hopping and endless hours of charting with minimal opportunity for play. The transitional player, however, sees opportunity in a shifting trend. Instead of changing tables, he simply changes his strategy and follows the dice to the other side of the line.

Using the above example, let’s assume there have been two consecutive seven-outs. When the next shooter gets the dice the transitional player by-passes the come out roll. Let’s say a point of five is established. The player then places the six and eight for $12 each, and lays $31 against the five. At this point the player has ten ways to win on the six and eight compared to four ways to lose on the five. Thanks to the hedging effect of his bets, exposure to the seven is limited to $4 plus the $1 vig on the lay. It’s a very strong move.

Suppose we’re in that magical place I call the “Ideal Casino” and the six shows next. The player wins two things – a $14 payoff and a regression opportunity. After the bet is paid he simply tells the dealer to “Make my six and eight look like $6 each.” At that point he has a profit locked up for that shooter and the seven can no longer hurt him. He also has a world of options open to him.

Let’s assume the player decides to keep the place action on the six and eight up and working at $6 each – while placing a $5 don’t come bet and continuing his transition to the dark side. He has $17 action exposed to the seven on this roll, but it is well hedged by the lay against the five. For the sake of this example, the nine rolls next and the DC bet travels. The player then has the option to remove the $31 lay bet on the five and lay odds against the nine. Suppose he lays $15 odds. Once again, the seven cannot hurt him. If the six or eight roll next he will collect another $7. Should the seven show he will have a net $3 win on the DC and odds bet.

But what if our player is not satisfied with just the no-nine bet? No problem. By increasing his free odds wager to $21 he can hedge a second $5 Don’t Pass bet. Once again, a hit on the six or eight will kick off a $7 win. This time, if the seven rolls the player will have a net $2 win. Now imagine the next roll is a ten. What next? Well, the Don’t Come bet travels to the ten and again the player has a decision to make. Since ten is a “harder” number to roll than nine, the smarter play would be to remove the lay odds on the nine and lay $20 odds against the ten. At that point the player completes his transition to the don’ts by telling the dealer to “Bring me down on my six and eight.”

He now has a $14 win locked up from the earlier hit on the six. The player also has a $5 flat behind the nine and a $5 flat with $20 odds behind the ten. That’s a net of $16 at risk to win $20, and the seven is working for him instead of against him. He simply sits back and waits for decision on that game.

Let’s assume the shooter sevens out and our player locks up an additional $20 win for that hand. What is his next move? He is now a Don’t bettor and should play his dark-side strategy of choice. With a little luck he may catch a streak seven-out shooters and grind out a nice win. Of course, that’s not always the way it works out.

There are few things more frustrating that sitting on a single Don’t Pass bet while the roll of the day passes you buy. To guard against that, the transitional player is always ready to make his move back to the Do side. How do you manage that? Pretty much by doing the opposite of what we did when transitioning to the Don’ts. Let’s look at an example.

Imagine our player has a $25 Don’t Pass bet established on the 4, and has laid $50 in odds against the point. He has $75 at risk to win $50, and is in a very powerful position. But as the shooter passes the five count, the six count, and the seven count our Don’t player starts to sweat it. Rather than take his Don’t wager down, though, he places the six and eight for $24 each. A hit on the six or eight will kick off a $28 win and afford him another regression opportunity. The seven will pay off as well, with a net $2 win. Once again he is in a very strong position.

Let’s pretend we’re in the Ideal Casino again, and the shooter tosses an eight. Now our transitional player makes a power play. He collects $28 for the hit on the eight. He returns $3 to the dealer and asks for a hard four, while picking up his odds bet on the Don’t Pass. Then tells the dealers to, “Bring my place action down to $22 inside.”

How did his position improve? He is now risking one $25 unit on the Don’t Pass to win one unit – where previously he was risking three units to win two. He has a partial hedge against the four with the $3 hardway bet. And he has $22 in place action working for him – all paid for by the hit on the eight. The seven cannot hurt him, and it only takes one more hit on any inside number to give our player a guaranteed win for the shooter. After that he can begin an up-and-pull press strategy or – if it suits him better – start going through the come and progressively increasing his odds by one unit on every subsequent hit. The Don’t Pass bet, however, should not be taken down. Since the odds favor the player on that bet it should be left up for a decision.

Here are the three keys to the transition move:

(1) Have a pre-planned strategy that incorporates hedges while taking advantage of the three most powerful numbers on the table – the six, seven and eight.
(2) Chart continuously for the current table trend and follow the trend.
(3) Avoid chasing your bets by setting and adhering to a strict loss limit.

Can you master the transition move? Absolutely. Will it help you win more? That depends. One system is about as good as another when facing a choppy table. As far as the mathematics of it goes, it is not better or worse than sticking with the Pass Line or Don’t Pass bet. But if you master the hedge moves, incorporate low vig bets into your strategy, and adhere to your loss limits you will certainly lose less. And losing less keeps you in the game longer – which gives you more opportunities to catch a streak. That ain’t necessarily a bad thing.

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 8:13 am
by memo
Heavy,

I have such a love hate relationship with this post. I have read it over and over throughout the years...It makes such perfect sense. While re reading it, I always ask myself why I am not doing it, or why not consider doing it all the time...Or mere frequently...Just something....That is the hate part (self hate)

I believe it has a great deal to do with 'making a plan and sticking to it'...More likely it has something to do with playing the dark side. It has been a transition for me, just to use OHCM strategy..

Anyway, it is a cool transition, and certainly adds another dimension to craps thinking...(Love part)

Memo

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 8:24 am
by Moe Bettor
Thanks for bringing this back. I use a slightly different betting schedule in transition but this
is probably better. I remove don't bets when they don't pay off in three rolls and will switch to
the right side as inside numbers come and I sense the table changing. I always have the feeling the don'ts will get knocked off
as the transition to right side play is warranted. Two major, powerful,important ideas in the past week,IMO.
Learn to transition and learn to throw sevens.

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 6:29 pm
by wild child
Would you as THE SHOOTER At The Moment

another player makes a Do Not Come Wager

take THAT "TRANSGRESSION" AS A PERSONAL AFRONT?

or
would you BLOW IT OFF
and
maintain your attention to making
THE PERFECT PITCH?

The other side of the TRANSITION Coin

You are playing on the DARK SIDE
at a craps( dice) table said to have been NOTHING OTHER THAN

POLAR BEAR FROSTED ICEBOX
for greater than 3 days

You and several other COMMITED DO NOT Side PLAYERS
are strongly invested in wagering
THE NUMBER 7 will SHOW prior to any BOX NUMBER REPEATING.

What would think of a DO SIDE PLAYER Buying ALL THE BOX NUMBERS
and
TOSSING THE Dice in such a manner that
ALL THE DO NOT NUMBERS
got plucked off

LIKE SO MANY FEATHERS OFF A FAT HEN?

OR
Could you hone your "Future Forecasting Talents"
to a degree that
you have the strength of character to endure the OPPORTUNIST TAG
and
rake in some profit from BOTH Sides of the game?

Just me saying
w c

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 6:45 pm
by heavy
Normally I ignore other players bets as long as they don't come in LATE or end up in my landing zone. In those cases I may ignore them . . . turn my bets off for one toss . . . bounce the dice off the offending player's forehead . . . or just toss the dice off the table and re-set.

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 8:49 pm
by Big O
when i first started playing i took it personally if someone was dont betting against me but that stemmed from my own lack of knowledge about the game. Now i dont care how someone bets and if im tossing i try to ignore everything except what i need to see and focus on to make a good toss. Late bets and guys building a wall of chips in my LZ are still a problem for me, especially if i thought it was intentional.

Im looking forward to seeing some guy get a forehead dice tattoo courtesy of Heavy some day.

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2020 6:41 pm
by DanF
I like the thought of 6&8+lay five.never thought of it. But the I'd clearly go bigger...I like to spread from wins.

Maybe 62 lay 5, 30 each 6&8. Collect first, spread 10 each outside & bring down the lay on second hit.

You invest big, but win potential is great.

Re: Transition Moves

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:39 pm
by wild child


This best applies to a WAGER ONLY -as in PASS THE Dice & ONLY WAGER

Condider the flow of the CUBES as

Clockwise when applied to Right ( Bright ) Side flow
and
Counter Clockwise when applied to Do Not ( DARK ) side

The flow of the results of the CUBES FLOW RESULTS

You can practice the wagers sitting on a couch
and
watching T V just RANDOMINGLY bouncing the pair off a cushion
...or whatever

By "practicing or "MOCK WAGERING"
a person could develop some skill at
WAGERING
BOTH The Do Side and The Do Not Side aka DARK Side
for fun & $$$ Profit $$$
( only equipment needed One Pair of Dice & a score pad )

The actual Dice Tossing will cause the need for FAR MORE FURNITURE
and
THE FULL ATTENTION OF THE DICE TOSSER


Also in real-time casino experience, you may observe and make a mental notation
that perhaps some specific dice tosser
FREQUENTLY
throws a PRE QUIL or TELL in that as the HAND DETERIOATES
THAT SPECIFIC dice tosser may show a specific number
soon followed by THE NUMBER (7) SEVEN as in OUT...

Some folks just ignore hearing you observed such..no need to HARP on it.
So if forwarned You could elect to show an "Opportunist Trait"
and profit from a well-timed DO NOT Side Wager...

Let your Human Dynamics experience guide you.

Just Me Saying
w c