The standard practice throwing and receiving stations are great but are obviously lacking the table layout to line up off of. The other day at MS (missed two good friends by a day) Little Debbie was putting on a picture perfect display of what a throw should be. We all should be lucky enough to have little fingers and her grip of the dice I know Bob Convertito's looking on her with a smile. She was killing the hardways and made a lot of numbers but her landings too often ended in the mixing bowl and that dreaded number would appear. It can be a challenge to if you're not over 6' tall. The answer for alignment was starring at me in our basement practice area/my workshop. Having recently checked painting the kitchen/dinning room off my "honey do" list a roll of painter's tape was on the workbench in front of me. Our practice surface is green felt with no markings to line up off of. I took the tape and put a 4" piece above the green pyramids at the back wall just clear of the mixing bowl, then lined up on the throwing station the same distance out from the rail with a laser (a string would do). I lined up across the throwing station a line of tape, and then did the same on our receiving station running the tape to where the pass line would have been at a casino. This simple blue line has made a great improvement in my landings. For me the fact that I lacked a reference point to line up on was allowing me to develop a bad habit of failing to square my shoulders and my landings would not be consistent. Now I make sure that both my shoulders are lined up on the blue line and my dice are landing perfectly. I highly recommend this to everyone add a line of painter's tape to your practice rig today, worst case it pulls right off.

Replies:

Posted by: getagrip on December 6, 2018, 8:38 pm

Great idea MB!

I used to use masking tape with the same idea in mind. My only caution would be to anyone who uses a throwing station that might slide a little while in use (I leaned pretty heavily forward on my tossing station). I also had to put some masking tape on the floor as a guide to where the legs should be. That way I could make sure both stations were lined up correctly and therefore the tape to guide my toss as well. If your stations are anchored down and don't move you wouldn't need to mark the floor at all.

Posted by: Dr Crapology on December 6, 2018, 10:29 pm

MB, what a great idea. We were lucky in that our original throwing station and receiving station had some craps table lines on it. We now have a full craps table. During class, Rose and Doc will sometimes use a piece of string to give us some direction similar lines down the middle of a landing strip for a plane. Especially like the idea of the tape on the back wall. Thanks for sharing your idea. Sharing with friends is what GTC is all about as we want to see everyone succeed.

Rose and Doc

PS--Doc still has a little painting on his honey do list; so anytime you want to come down, we can use the help. Oh, and by the way, we can always take breaks to practice our dice throw. :)
(Just kidding about the painting!)