Craps To Play

1).....The Investor wants to play at ‘his’ home casino to rack up comp credits even though the tables there may not be to the liking of the skilled-shooters that he is backing.

You would think that would be an easily avoidable pitfall that anyone in their right mind would want to steer clear of; but you'd be surprised at the number of well-heeled backers who care more about maintaining their comp-status than they are in making money.

2).....Semi-secret side deals where some shooters get off-the-book compensation for their travel, accommodation, meals, and/or entertainment expenses, while other shooters on the team do not; is a primary bird-in-a-coal-mine harbinger that feelings and egos won't go unbruised for very long.

Bruised egos = sub-par shooting. Hurt feelings = sub-par shooting. Now obviously it all depends on whose bull is being gored on this one.

I mean, if the Investor is paying for your First Class airline ticket from Chicago; yet he won't refund the cost of a 32-window limo (aka a Greyhound bus) from Denver for one of the other players; then you can expect that a rift will soon develop once the shooters start comparing notes...and sooner or later they invariably do.

Even though you might have come out on the good end of that deal, don't be surprised if a little twinge of guilt starts to creep in to affect your own shooting prowess...especially if your teammates start to look at you with a bit of a jaundiced eye.

If one or more members of the team feels like they are being left out; expect that not only will their future participation will be self-limited, but also that their current enthusiasm for team-success will be similarly limited.

Equally, where there is a certain ethnic or psychographic make-up of most, but not all, of the team-members; and one or more of the minority members feels left out (even when it is totally unintentional on the majority part of the group); expect less-than-stellar shooting results or less-than-enthusiastic response to future requests to participate.

Did you notice that we haven't even gotten to "shooting ability" as one of the reasons for team-failure yet? That's because most teams don't have a general shooting problem. Oh sure, each shooter may have an off-session or two; but it's usually not bad enough in and of itself to cause a major split-up.

Instead, it usually comes down to the way the big-bets are made and the betting-methods by which the money is actually lost, that causes the most rifts and subsequent team break-ups.

So if most team-shooting is generally good (but not wildly outstanding); then how are the big-bets misplayed? Well it's usually a case of either mis-communication or unjustified strategy-deviation that causes most of the problems.

4).....Miscommunication comes from not being specific enough in the precise betting-method that will best take advantage of a given shooter's validated shooting-edge.

If the shooter's advantage is not properly understood by the Big-bettor (or not clearly and succinctly communicated by the shooter beforehand...and demonstrated in fine detail during mock betting sessions until EVERYONE is crystal clear about how various situations will be handled); or those big-bet wagers aren't applied in a way that will optimize that specific shooter's skill; then expect sub-par earnings that may not even be large enough to offset any prior or future losses.

5).....Sub-Optimal Betting Strategies and Unjustified Strategy-Deviation, not only prevent advantage-based bankroll-growth, but it often hastens wildly-accelerated bankroll-erosion.

Gamblers (and especially deep-pocketed investors who are used to losing on their own terms but NOT on the validated strategies that are optimally tailored for each specific skilled-shooter) tend to fall back into their old far-from-ideal betting routines at the first sign of trouble.

If the Big-bettor is the kind of person who gets impatient when things aren’t going as well as they could; then he’s apt to try bet-strategy deviations that attempt to zig and zag a path to profit instead of taking advantage of a given shooter’s overall proven edge.

He might choose right…and want all the credit for his brilliant betting moves; or he may choose wrong and blame the shooter for not being as dead-on balls-accurate as everyone had been hoping.

This invariably leads to friction between shooter, investor, and the rest of the team. The blame-game is never pretty regardless of which side of argument you are on.

6)…Unrealistic Expectations. When you are shooting for someone else and your D-I skills are being staked for large amounts of money; both sides have expectations of what the cooperation may bring.

That’s to be expected. However what shouldn’t be expected is unrealistic earnings.

For example, if an investor is willing to put $10,000 into a one-day D-I venture, you shouldn’t be expecting the group to make $100,000 in that span of time. Instead, a net-gain of perhaps $1,500 to $3,500 for the entire group is much more realistic.

Likewise with a $25,000 three-day investment with 2 to 4 competent shooters; you should be looking at group net-earnings in the neighborhood around $3,000 to $5,000.

Those expectations are based on each of the shooters getting their preferred shooting-position at vacant, or at least uncrowded, hi-buck tables; and the Big-Bettor getting proper proportioned-to-advantage and sized-to-bankroll wagers out on the table.

It is based on the foreknowledge that not every hand will be a winning one, nor that every shooter will be ‘on’ during every session.

It is also based on using a betting-strategy that is custom-tailored to closely match each shooter’s proven overall edge (even if their respective advantage is relatively modest). Both the Investor as well as the shooter(s) have to be mature.

If any of them are hot-heads, or insecure ego-maniacs, or heat-magnets, or so self-absorbed as to be unable to follow the simplest of group-play instructions; then the team is doomed to failure.

There’s a lot more to playing on an investor-backed team than simply using someone else’s money and shooting the dice. In fact, your toss-dynamics often have the less to do with whether or not a team succeeds or fails than many of the other determining traits.

We’ll be exploring those aspects a lot further in Part Four of this series.

Until then,