Craps is the casino game that everybody is curious about. It's big and looks complicated, and when people are winning, it's the loudest place in the casino. Like any casino game some luck is involved in winning, but the flexibility and choices that craps players have allows them to position themselves to play aggressively when the dice get hot.
One of the things that makes craps so interesting is that you can interact with the game according to your own strategy. You can set goals that might be completely different from the player next to you but you both can be winning. Once you understand the basics of play, you can become like a gymnast, who can move backward and forward on the balance beam. If you choose, you can put all your moves together and devise a routine.
An avid sect of players employs the power pressing craps system. Power pressing is the general term to describe playing craps in an aggressive manner that steadily increases the size of bets. House money (money generated by winning bets at the casino) is the preferred source of money for fattening the bets. It is classic reinvestment of profits. The "power" in the term power pressing refers to the determination with which bets are increased. The player will rarely receive any change after a number has won because all the winnings are reinvested in the bet. Some power presses even require that the player chip in a few more bucks in order to achieve the next desired betting level. Power presses can be done to one number or multiple numbers at the same time.
To distinguish between regular old pressing and power pressing, think of pressing as speeding a bit on the highway when you are late for work. Power pressing is more like automobile racing. You want to draft behind the car in front of you and build as much momentum into your system as possible before swinging out ahead and making the big win.
In order to begin power pressing, you need to have one or more place bets. Place bets are the most suited to power pressing because they win the first time the number rolls, unlike come bets, and the player has the option to reclaim the entire bet. Now that you have some place bets in action, you can begin power pressing. The following scenario will serve as an example of the power pressing technique.
Basic Six and Eight Power Press
The six and the eight are the m
Tracy Falbe is the author of Get Dicey: Play Craps and Have Fun published in 2005 under the pen name Tracy Michigan. Falbe worked as a craps dealer in Las Vegas in the mid 1990s and based her how to play craps book on thousands of hours of live game experience. Get Dicey is available from Falbe Publishing and other booksellers. An excerpt from Get Dicey can also be read online.