Play craps in internet casinos

Surveying, the lay of the table

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:23:12 +0000

Before you learn how to play craps and start to play, you need to know the landscape. You play craps on a long, narrow, felt-covered table (see Figure 8-2) that has a foot-high ridge running all the way around, making it the perfect mini-arena for tossing dice - or racing hamsters. The standard craps table is large in order to accommodate up to 14 players at a time. Craps is a stand-up game - no chairs for you or the other players. At the top of the ridge is the rail with two grooves (the rail rack) perfectly sized to hold casino chips. But make sure you keep your drinks, purse, cigarettes, and everything else off the rail. A built-in shelf at your knees keeps your personal items safely out of the way of the game.

Going on a dice dig

Dice have been around since the dawn of recorded history. Many Roman emperors were hooked on dice games. Caligula was a notorious cheater-but who was going to argue with a sadistic despot who forced his enemies to commit suicide?
Archaeologists have unearthed loaded dice in Pompeii and ancient India, as well as limestone dice dating from 600 B.C. in Egypt. Another early version of dice was carved from the box-shaped knuckle bones of pigs, which explains why people sometimes refer to both dice and dominoes as bones. As popular as they were for gambling games, dice were also used as tools in rituals to predict the future.

Shooting for the whole table

admin — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:11:11 +0000

The shooter is a key character in craps because she’s the player who’s rolling the dice. In craps, shooting, or dice rolling, is a rotating affair. Each player gets a turn to roll for the entire table, and the honor moves clockwise around the table. When your turn comes around, the stickman pushes five dice toward you, and you select two. The only requirement to shoot is that you have a bet riding.

The founding father of card counting

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:53:52 +0000

Once upon a time, craps was king of all casino games, and blackjack lagged far behind in popularity. That pecking order changed dramatically when Dr. Ed Thorp, a professor from MIT, developed a system for counting cards in 1961. His work showed that blackjack is a game of skill; how you play the cards and vary your bets can dramatically affect the outcome. Thorp’s powerful pen set off a stampede of players eager to make their fortune at the blackjack tables. Unfortunately, very few got rich. The reason they failed was simple: Most of them couldn’t master Thorp’s complicated strategy.
This history lesson should provide one clear insight - players can beat the game of blackjack, but the complex math often proves more than players can comprehend. Far too many

gamblers still don’t know how to correctly play their hands. Therefore, the first step for any budding blackjack pro is to study basic strategy, a computer-simulated model, for the optimal way to play each and every hand of blackjack.
There’s only one way to consistently win at blackjack-by learning to count cards. Anyone with average aptitude can become a card counter - but this skill takes discipline and drive, and most players don’t want to get that serious about their hobby. Counting cards is a strategy a bit advanced for this book. However, if you want to try moving up to the next level, I explain several different counting systems in my book Play Blackjack Like the Pros (HarperCollins).