Those Who Can Do and They Also Teach

4 September 2012

By Jerry Stickman

Generally when we think of Frank Scoblete, we picture him as an author who brings us great original ideas, many from the Captain, and the writer who praises accomplished individuals and players in the craps community such as the Arm, Dominator, Skinny and other great Golden Touch (GTC) shooters. Every instructor who works with him knows that Frank enjoys the acclaim these individuals have achieved and more important through their great performances in the casinos and in teaching.

Frank has said he enjoys writing about great casino players not just in craps but in all the games. He has also helped many writers get book deals, columnist and contributor deals as well.

But most of us tend to forget that Frank is one of the best shooters in the world. Dominator makes a point at the “Meet and Greets” that Frank is the best shooter. Frank disagrees with Dominator’s assessment and names Dominator and me, but we could debate this forever.

So why do we forget his skill? Why aren’t we noticing what he has done for over 22 years?

In our recent visit to AC to celebrate the Goddess and John Skinny’s birthdays, we played for three days. Frank took the dice only seven times in those three days. His rolls were 3, 4, 12, 13, 17, 24 and 30. These are decent numbers for sure but what the numbers don’t tell us is more important.

First, you can see that Frank doesn’t feel he must shoot every session. He shoots when he figures he’ll be good – and he usually is. So many players see him sitting at the table with the Five Horsemen, our craps team, just betting and not shooting. Frank picks his spots and he doesn’t need to shoot a lot to make money. He’s usually the first one to quit a session.

Five of the seven rolls were winners – two were huge winners if you bet just how Frank bet. You see Frank is the ultimate on-axis shooter. He sets the 3V and goes after the 6’s and 8’s. While we all like monster rolls and Frank has had many of these including an 89, it is the “repeating number” rolls which are the long-term money makers and great on-axis shooters are the ones who do this time and again. That’s Frank.

His 24 and 30 rolls were back-to-back. Frank had gotten up at 4AM, called me, and we got to the empty table at 4:44.

Frank took the dice and immediately went on a tear. This was his 30 roll and he hammered the 6 and hit the 8 as well. I am guessing that almost half his numbers were 6 and maybe five were 8’s. He also made five points. The profits grew.

His 24 roll was just as spectacular. In one stretch he had $300 each on the 6 and 8. His point was a 6. Most players would move the $300 or break it up to put some behind the 6 Pass Line bet. Frank put the odds behind the bet but kept the place bet of the 6 at $300. So he had $440 riding on his shooting. (It was a 5X odds game with a $15 line bet allowing $125 in odds on the 6 and 8.)

He immediately made his point of 6 and got paid on both the Pass Line and the Place bet. Then he established another 6 as his point and again immediately made his point of 6 getting paid on the Pass line and the Place bet.

A few rolls later, having made his pass line bet of 4, Frank had another 6 as the Pass Line point and hit it again just as he did above.

We were playing at an empty table but that didn’t mean there weren’t possible distractions. A group of five tipsy kids were hanging over the end of the table by the back wall watching, moving their arms and heads as they talked so that there was a constant movement at that end of the table. That would disrupt many shooters. It didn’t bother Frank one iota. I remember once at a casino in Vegas there were three players at the end of the table with stacks of chips on the line, with stacks behind as odds and each with a Pass Line bet for the dealers with odds on those as well. To hit his spot, Frank had a very small opening in the chips. He rolled a 23 never once hitting a chip.

In my analysis of on-axis throws for “Cutting Edge Craps: Advanced Strategies for Serious Players” the computer simulations and SmartCraps results showed that large numbers of rolls are not the key variable in being a great shooter. If you can hit the numbers you are setting for at an extremely high rate, you will win a lot of money. Rolls in the single digits can bring in the profits.

So Frank took the dice seven times in three days and five of those were medium to immense winners.

That is a valuable lesson to be learned for the rest of us.