Muttroxia

Last post we learned the basic pass line bet in craps. Now we’re going to expand into a few other bets.

Don’t Pass:

This is the exact opposite of the Pass Line bet. If it wins, this loses and vice versa. There is one exception so that the house can keep it’s edge. If a 12 is rolled on the come-out roll (buck is OFF) the Pass Line bets loses but this bet doesn’t win. It doesn’t lose either, the money stays out there untouched. Otherwise the rules are perfectly opposite. The comeout roll of 2 or 3 wins, 7 or 11 loses. Any other roll becomes the point and the Don’t Pass bet wants a 7 to come up before the point does.

You can take odds behind the line with a Don’t Pass bet also. Example: A point of 10 is established. The true odds of getting a 10 before a 7 are 2-to-1 against, so you have to put out $20 to win $10.

The Don’t Pass bet is rare. Craps is a very social game. Everyone wants the roller to do well, no one wants them to crap out. The Don’t Pass bet actually has slightly better odds than the Pass Line bet (1.40% to 1.41% against you), but you will be a social pariah if you make this bet.

Field Bet:

This bet only applies to the next roll of the dice. It has nothing to do with comeout rolls and points and all of that. If the next roll is 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12, you win. 2 and 12 pay double, $2 for every $1 bet. The other numbers (5, 6, 7, lose. Pretty simple, eh?

Come Bet:

If you understand how the Pass Line bet works, you understand the Come bet. The only difference is when they start. The Pass Line bet starts when the buck is OFF, on the comeout roll. The Come bet starts at any other time. The Come bet is actually the exact same bet as the Pass Line bet, just shifted in time, so for just that Come bet, the next roll is treated as the comeout roll. It’s like saying to the casino staff, “Hey, I missed the come out roll. Can I put some money out and we’ll all pretend the next roll is the comeout roll? Yeah, just for this bet. C’mon, pretending is fun!”

The Come bet can also have odds behind the line, and there is a Don’t Come bet also. Everything works exactly like their equivalent bets. The only difference is the shift in the sequence of dice rolls, all the rules are the exact same.

Example: It is the comeout roll. No Come bets are allowed. An 8 is rolled. The 8 is the point. You put down a come bet. An 11 is rolled. For your Come bet it was the comeout roll, so this is a win. It has no effect on the pass line bet. You put down another Come bet. A 7 is rolled. Your Come bet won, and all the pass line bets lose.

I love the Come bet. It’s hard to understand initially but once you get it, it’s extremely easy, it’s a good bet, you can make awful sex puns, and you look like a sophisticated player.

In my opinion, you should stop there. Placing on the 6 and 8 is also a very reasonable bet, but everyone who does that starts putting action on the other numbers and those are bad bets.

Congratulations. Now get out there and win some money lose money slower!

Intimidated by craps? It looks like a hard game to learn. There is a lot of yelling and a lot of different bets going on. But the basics of craps are very simple. You can learn them in less than 5 minutes, and I’m going to show you how.

The first thing to learn is that most bets in craps are sucker bets. Most of the yelling going on is people throwing their money away. True, all the bets in craps are losing bets (see the end of this article for the possible exception), but some are worse than others.

The basic bet in craps is called the “Pass Line” bet. You place money down on the playing table in the space marked with “Pass Line”.

The Pass Line bet has two simple rules. Each roll of the dice is governed by one of these rules. To know which one to use, look at the buck. The buck is a large disc. One side is black with the word “Off”, the other side is white with the word “On”.

The Pass Line bet is placed, and begins, when the buck is Off.

1. Rule 1 (Buck is Off): If a 7 or 11 comes up, the pass line bet wins. Every dollar you put down gets another dollar back. If a 2, 3, or 12 comes up, the pass line bet loses. If it’s anything else (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) the number that was rolled is now called “the point”. You haven’t won or lost yet. The buck is flipped to “On”, placed on top of the point, and we move to the Rule 2.
2. Rule 2 (Buck is On): Only two numbers matter, the point and the number seven. If a seven comes up before the point, you lose. If the point comes up before the seven, you win. Nothing else matters for the pass line bet, nothing happens if any other number comes up.

That’s it. You know now the basics of craps. Let’s try an example.

• On the first roll (which is also called “The Comeout roll”), a seven comes up. What happens? (You win.)
• On the first roll, a 3 comes up. What happens? (You lose.)
• On the first roll, a 9 comes up. What happens? (We switch to Rule 2. The buck is flipped to On and placed on top of the number 9. 9 is now the point.)
• The point is a 9. A 6 comes up. What happens? (Nothing.)
• The point is a 9. A 10 comes up. What happens? (Nothing.)
• The point is a 9. A 6 comes up. What happens? (Nothing. As you can see, it can take a while to settle the bet under Rule 2. This is part of the appeal, this effectively makes it cheaper to play craps.)
• The point is a 9. A 3 comes up. What happens? (Nothing. A 3 only loses under Rule 1 and we’re operating under Rule 2.)
• The point is a 9. A 9 comes up. What happens? (We win! The buck goes to Off and you can place a new Pass Line bet.)
• The point is a 9. A 7 comes up. What happens? (We lose. This is called “crapping out”. The dice are moved to a new roller. All the fancy bets that have been going on lose also. The buck is flipped to Off.)

That’s it! Congratulations!

But if you want to know more, read on.

The Pass Line bet has an optional feature, called odds behind the line. Odds behind the line is the best bet in the entire casino. To play them, wait until a point has been established. You can now put more chips down behind your pass line bet. The chips should not go in the pass line area, but should be clearly aligned with your original pass line bet. Casinos vary in how much you’re allowed to put down. It is always a minimum of whatever your pass line bet is, and the maximum can be anywhere from twice that to one hundred times your original bet.

How does it work? This bet pays off at true mathematical odds.
If the point is:

• a 4 or a 10: The odds are 2-to-1 against you, and the odds behind the line pay off at 2-to-1.
• a 5 or a 9: The odds are 3-to-2 against you, and the odds behind the line pay off at 3-to-2.
• a 6 or an 8: The odds are 6-to-5 against you, and the odds behind the line pay off at 6-to-5.

Example: You put down $10 on a pass line bet. The come out roll is a 9. You put an addition $20 down behind the line. After a few meaningless rolls the 9 comes up. You win! How much? Your original $10 pass line bet wins an additional $10. The $20 you put down behind the line pays off at 3-to-2, so you get another $30 there. You won $40, on top of your original $30 bet.

Because these pay off at true odds, neither you nor the casino has an advantage. So the casino will let you do something you can’t do anywhere else – you can change your bet after you’ve placed it. As long as the buck is On, you can keep adding and subtracting money from the odds behind the line bet and they won’t get mad. Just don’t touch the original pass line bet!

Why did I say that odds behind the line are a possible exception to every bet being a losing bet? It depends on your viewpoint. The odds behind the line bet pays off at true odds and is not a losing bet. But you can’t place the odds behind the line until you have made a Pass Line bet. The Pass Line bet is close to even, but the edge is with the house.

Want to learn more? Stay tuned for future blog posts. And another simple guide is here.

I enter my username and password and hit return. What do I get back?

If the site is smart enough to understant I am trying to login, why doesn’t it just log me in?

God covers Beyonce

This movie stars brands. Try it.

Upside down celebrities

Stay classy Canada

Financial Planning

Pirate vs Legal movies.

Found in a 1st graders backpack

Wes Anderson directs Spiderman

Babies with laser eyes.

Ouroborus.

The real America. Sadly.

Supercut of mirror scares

Traffic girls from North Korea are hypnotic

Redundant Clock

A letter from 14-year old Slash, apologizing for talking about his guitar so much.

School uses spycams installed in take-home laptops to monitor students. At home. Unreal.

Antarctica is bleeding.

Understanding the Bush years and Desert Storm.

Networking passive aggressive notes

UPS Update

Bad timing

A brief history of pretty much everything

6 crazy coincidences

It happened

After hours at the airport

Understanding the derivatives market. I’m sure there’s a logic hole somewhere, but I can’t find it.

Atheist 1, Women preacher 0

Americas top 50 franchises

The man who escaped into Auschwitz.

On Catholics and torture. Worth reading in full.

Roger Ebert’s Last Words. And his remembrance of Gene Siskel.

Lighting a cigarette from the Olympic torch – that’s an arrest.

The science of touch.

Triumph of the Cyborg Musician

How Google works.

Joe, we all feel the same way.

P.S. Feel free to upvote this on Reddit.

I just found this. Much better, the show they gave at the press conference.

And because I forgot to put it in before, the best show in recent memory:

Because a rectal exam is just horrifying. It’s not an interesting sensation, it doesn’t make me curious, it just makes me wish I didn’t have to get one every year.

If I were a 20-something who was seeing the Who for the first time, my main reaction would be “Their drummer is pretty good. The singers good for an old guy. I don’t get the guitar player, is he a singer also?”

They needed more practice. They needed it because of all the changes they made to their signature songs, amending them for time. Almost all of the transistions were shaky. These were the worst parts. Invariably, someone in the band was a little unsure if the switch was happening. Pete was often cutting out at these points. When he was playing it was not with his usual confidence.

Whenever they did happen to play 30 seconds or more of a song with no edits, it was great. They looked like a fantastic band. These are the parts I’m going to reply tonight before hitting delete. But just then a chorus would get skipped, Pete wasn’t sure if they were supposed to go to the break so he’d a big sustain note to cover it… sloppy work. And his voice was just horrible. What was going on there?

They did say afterwards that they couldn’t see anything, and it appeared they were having trouble hearing.

These days they say about themselves, “We’re not The Who. But we’re the best damn Who cover band in the world!” Unfortunately last night, they weren’t even that.

Update: Just listened to a second time. I upgrade it to a B-.

I publicly predict that The Who will be mediocre.

The first Calvin & Hobbes interview in 21 years. Boring, but still.

How a corporation became a person: An overzealous court reporter.

Gravity sucks

Unclear on how a dollar store works.

An interactive visual look at bipartisanship in the Senate.

Scale. No, forget that. Here’s scale a hundred times better. Truly mindblowing.
Charlie Brown at 35

Saints, Colts Hoping To Resolve Super Bowl Through Diplomacy

Even though I disagree with the message, this is a very clever ad.

Westboro Church meets it’s match. (If you don’t know who they are, google it. The most despicable human beings on Earth.)

Frog fail

125 rare photos of famous people.

Drunk guy comics

Man saved on frozen sea by webcam spotter

Winter 2010 Olympic Hotties. Here’s my favorite.

Must.. buy.. groceries…

Baby platypuses. Platypi?

The final frontier

Learn about blue whales

Boy calls police to surrender his pacifiers.

Press this in dire situations.

Alzheimers

The origin of evil

What to do if I’m murdered

Why did Sauron attack Middle-Earth? Self-defense against Gondorian aggression!

They’re going to expect more of you

1. Go to google.com. 2. Type “where is Chuck Norris”. 3. Press “I’m feeling lucky”. 4. You are welcome.

How a stray mouseclick cost a bank $150K and chocked the NYSE. Adventures in poor user interface.

The MacGyver multi-tool

Lunch notes from my wife

Cooper Manning, the other Manning brother

Before they were too big to fail.

Using the zero-rupee note to fight corruption in India. When psychology meets corruption.

Dear sailors

The gathering

Priorities

5 Insane Fan Theories that make the movie better

The fake freeway sign that made the roads better

Reddit’s comment of the year

Jesus makes things so hard

Whoa…

Dirty Harry has a problem

Maybe it’s just a phase

Fun with Mormons

The dungeonmaster of the rings

This poor guy – and so funny

Printers are from hell

That’s how it happened, street life

Drumming up business

Fantastic law firm ad

What? You were the Joker, right?

The 4 myths of profile pictures

The band OKGo explains why they can’t allow their YouTube videos to be embedded on any other sites

Google’s new approach to China

He calmly announced his own murder, and almost brought down the president of Guatemala. Then it got weird.

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster: The downfall of John Edwards

My little girl is 20 months old. I just got a call from the wife. She is singing along to Who Are You. I love my kid!

And as usual, for no reason, here’s a bonus track. The very cool demo version of “Athena”. I love the funky guitars.

Wow. That was a fun night, fun people, but boy o boy, the poker is just ridiculous. Plenty of good starting hands, plenty of good flops, and yet I was eliminated in 35 minutes flat. It went so fast I didn’t have time to pay for my Coke, I had to track down a waitress on the way out.

The first hand, A-10. I raise it. The flop is K-Q-x. I raise again on a semi-bluff and I’m called. I raise again on the turn and I’m called. I check the river, he turns over pocket queens.

The third hand I have A-10 suited. Again I raise. The flop is 6-8-J and there are two hearts. I raise again. Still two callers. The turn is a 4. The river is a 5. No hearts. There is a raise. She’s got the 7 for the straight, I can tell. I fold. Yes, she had Q-7. So did the other person. Both fo them stayed in for 3 raises and hit inside straights.

The fifth hand I have to fold my pocket sixes to big raises after a flop with two overcards with 3 players in the hand.

I am now short stacked. I have A-9. I raise preflop and get one caller. The flop is A-8-5. I got all in with my last 300. I am so excited that I knock over my Coke when I’m pushing my chips in. Soda all over the place, but mostly on me. Son of a gun. He calls with pocket 9s, and I double up, though I’m still short-stacked.

(They are supposed to give me bonus chips for ordering something, even if it’s only a Coke. Where’s that lady with the bonus chips, I need them!)

The next hand there are three limpers, and I look down at pocket Aces from the big blind. Yes!! I raise it up to 150, they all stay in. The flop is K-x-x. I slowplay it with a check. I figure one of these three will have a King and raise it. Yep, she puts another 150 in. I go all in, another 520. The first raiser thinks about it. She has a big stack and what the heck, she calls. The second player has no idea what’s going on and randomly throws her chips in. The first player turns over K-Q (yes!), the second player K-6 (yes!). All I have to do is avoid queens and 6s. I am roughly a 75% favorite. The river is a 6. The clueless dumbo wins. Talk about being Hellmuth’d! I have no beef with the first player. Top pair and a queen kicker, of course you call. But the second player had top pair with a weak kicker and two all-in players in front of her. She should have folded, she didn’t, and she tripled up.

At least the second player didn’t have quite enough to cover me, so I have 220 left. Blinds are now at 20-40. I’m in the small blind on the next hand. With two limpers I look down at A-Q. I go all-in. I get knocked out.

I mean, c’mon! This just ain’t right. That’s six hands with good cards. Only two of them connected (you would expect about 50% to), and of those two, one was a monsterous bad beat with pocket aces to a know-nothing. Geez, I just can’t win this year.

That was the most frustratingly unlucky night of poker I’ve ever had. I didn’t whine at all about my lack of cards in the neighborhood Tournament of Champions, but I am now.

Is it possible to go three hours without connecting on one flop? Oh yes it is. Every hand I played, every single bloody hand I played, not one time did I hit the flop. Not only that. I had pocket 8s twice and pocket 9s twice. Every single time I raised pre-flop. Every single time I was called, often by multiple players, and every single time an Ace came on the flop, and every time someone else put in a big bet and I had to fold. It was the kind of night were two players go all-in, so I fold my K-J, and the flop is K-J-x. It was that kind of night.

Here’s really the kind of night it was: Time was running out for rebuys. With a small stack I knew I was going in. I would either double-up to a moderate stack, or rebuy for a moderate stack. But I couldn’t even get playable cards. In two orbits around the table I never saw a card higher than an eight. But what’s this? With time for two hands left, I get a Q! I go all-in and I am knocked out. Hey, that’s okay. That’s fine. I get my new batch of chips and sit down for the last hand before rebuys are over. Two players limp in. I look down at pocket kings. Holy cow, real cards! I go all-in. The guy to my left says what the hell and calls me. He has J-2. I like this guy, I really do. He’s completely unpredictable, impossible to read, and generally a lot of fun. Why did he call? Either as a pure what-the-hell, or he didn’t realize I had just rebought and figured I was going in with anything. At any rate, I have pocket kings vs J-2, so I have an 5:1 edge. The board gets 3,4,5,6, his six high straight knocks me out.

It’s a miracle I lasted as long as I did. I’m pretty sure the only hands I won the whole night were from raising pre-flop and stealing the blinds.

Oh yeah, and I was paying a babysitter to watch the kids the whole time. Ugh!

Can you be a music critic and not know The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life”? I’m a bit of a classic music snob, but I think this is basic knowledge for anyone who makes their living reviewing music. It’s one of the top five songs by the most influential band in rock and roll history. We’re not talking “the name escaped me”, or “oh yeah, that song”, but someone who has never heard the song in their life, and reacts to the orchestral breaks with, “oh, that’s neat.” Can you be a professional music writer and not know this song?

As long as I’m talking about it, here it is. Plus a great live performance of Jeff Beck’s version afterward.

On the other hand Matt thinks I have to know I’ll Follow the Sun, which I think is too obscure.

I started as big stack, with about 20% of the chips in an 8-person table. After an hour that was closer to 25 or 30%. Then it started going bad. I’m still not sure how. Hands like this I suppose.

I have Q-8 as dealer. What the heck, I’ll raise and see what happens. I get a caller, and the flop is J-10-8. He raises. I have an inside straight draw and bottom pair. I have outs, and he may be completely bluffing, ok I call. The turn is the same kind of logic and I lose a bunch by the time I am forced to fold on the river. I suppose I shouldn’t have played the Q-8 in the first place. Another time I go in with K-10. The flop is 4-5-6 and the same guy raise big again. Argh! A few hands like this and I am just one of the players, no longer big stack. (As it turns out he had big hands on both of these so my eventual folds were correct.)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I had A-9. The flop was 10-9-x. I bet, was re-raised and called. The turn was… I don’t know. I forget. Anyhow we got to the river (another 10), he raised big again. I there were a lot of things that could beat me, but the betting pattern didn’t add up. I called, he had a set of 10s. The betting pattern didn’t add up because he changed to slowplaying me in the middle and I fell for it. Dang.

The key hand of the night:
I am big blind. The first person, who is short-stacked. goes all in. Everyone folds to the small blind, who also goes all-in. I have K-Q suited. It’s about a third of my stack. After thinking it through I decide I can afford to go in and see what happens. A win on this hand puts me back in control. I also call.
The flop is Q-x-x. Small blind checks. I am sure I have the best hand. But.

Tournament strategy says that I should check. Tournament strategy says I want me and the small blind in the hand, so the odds are good than one of us knocks out the small stack. In other words, I give up some chips (or expectation of chips) in favor of gaining position. I decide to call. The turn is an Ace. When we show cards at the end, the small blind has jacks (losing), I have queens (losing), and the small blind has A-x. He wins it. I guess it worked as planned, I gave up chips and got tournament position. I guess.

Readers poll!

1) Should I have played the K-Q in the first place, or just let them fight it out?
2) When the queen came up, should I have checked with the top pair, or made a big bet to push out the small blind?

After that, things just didn’t go well. I didn’t get any good hands, didn’t connect on any flops, didn’t have enough chips left to push people around. The end was anti-climactic.

My VP at work knows I’m a big Patriots fan and gave me this sweet mini-helmet, signed by Tom Brady.

Today, the four-year old saw it on the beaureau. Instantly he grabbed at it.
Me: Don’t touch that!
Him: What is it?
Me: It’s a helmet, leave it alone.
Him: I want it! What does it do?
Me: What do you mean, what does it do?
Him: What does it DO!!!?
Me: Do? It doesn’t do anything, it’s just a helmet.
Him: I don’t want it anymore.

It’s a good thing we don’t keep a gun in this house.

For the second year in a row I won our regular season and get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. This is, to put it mildly, very annoying.

I started the season with high hopes. My core of four players was incredible. I had to trade away Wes Welker and Donald Driver, but I got second round picks for them. My draft was unremarkable, but solid.

Or so I thought. It soon came out that dumping Welker was about the dumbest possible move. Terrel Owens sucks. Roy Williams sucks. Greg Jennings is okay. Outisde of my big four, my only good players were Tony Gonzales and Vince Young. And I couldn’t even play Vince Young, we have a 1 quarterback 1 flex league, and both those spots were filled with Drew Brees and Philip Rivers each week.

It was an achievement to win the regular season. I actually finished 8th out of 12 in points scored.

Damnit. I want to at least get to the second round next year.