The Quotable Captain: Dice control

28 August 2018

By Frank Scoblete

(The late Captain was my mentor in gambling. I’ve written six books about him. This series contains some of his quotes, ideas and advice. This particular article concerns the ability of some players to control the dice when they throw.)

The Captain: “I know that some people have trained themselves either privately or at the tables to control the fall of the dice.” — The Captain’s Craps Revolution (1993)

Probably the biggest debate in the world of craps play is the question of whether some shooters can actually control the dice. The skill is often called dice influence and the Captain called it rhythmic rolling. A skill by any other name is still that skill.

The Captain would occasionally state that he didn’t have much of that skill when the evidence contradicted that him. I saw him roll the dice hundreds of time; the evidence was right before my eyes. He was an excellent shooter. In fact, the dice throw I use is strictly modeled on the Captain’s throw.

Now the Captain was good but the best shooter I ever saw was a woman known as the Arm. She had an eccentric throw – in fact, that is an understatement. I have never seen anyone with any throw close to how she did it.

Dice controllers set their dice in certain ways before they loft them. Some use sets to avoid the seven; some use sets to hit certain numbers. I set my dice in a 3-V in order to hit sixes and eights. The Captain usually set the 3-V as well.

I have no idea how the Arm set her dice because her hand covered the dice completely and in those days I was too timid to ask her to show me. She could shoot on either side of the stickman, up to two places away. She rarely shot the dice from the end of the table; her skill did not reach that far. Indeed, very few dice controllers have great control the further they are from the back wall because you have to use more arm force to get those dice all the way to the other side of the table.

Here is the Captain analysis of rhythmic rolling:

“When we talk about fixing and controlling the dice, we aren’t looking for perfection. Pitchers don’t pitch perfect games every time out. In fact each separate roll of the dice to a player who can control them is like a pitch in a game. The good pitchers will consistently throw strikes and have good games, not ever time out, but enough that you cab say this isn’t just randomness or luck.

“Also you have to define what you mean by a good roll. My definition is simple; a good roll is one where the seven doesn’t show long enough to make me money or one where I can make a good profit because there is a rapid succession of repeating numbers.

“Fixing and controlling the dice has more to do with certain numbers being repeated than it does with monster rolls. You don’t have to have monster rolls to win. I’ve seen rolls by the Arm where the four has come up four or five times in a row, followed by some other numbers, then another string of fours before sevening out.

“People who can control the dice will tend to have certain faces of the dice appear more often than these faces would otherwise by chance.” (The Captain’s Craps Revolution, 1993)

How easy is it to learn how to control the dice? It took me three years to get fairly good at it – and I had the best models playing next to me.

Visit Frank’s website at www.frankscoblete.com . Frank’s latest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.