Foreword
This book is a store of wisdom bought and paid at a very high price. I've been a gambler all my life and learned my lessons at the table, unlike most of you idiots who play and play and play and never learn a damn thing. All my losses over the years have added up to one thing: I know the rules. I know every in and every out, every banker and every sinkhole on the table: I've lost a fortune, a wife or a pint of blood on every last one of them, and from it all this book is all that's left. If you want to keep that shirt you're wearing by the end of the night, then read it and learn my lessons. You won't, I know, but at least I tried.
~1~
The Dragon Bones are the most wonderful, terrible, hypnotic and deadly game in all the gaming halls, back-alleys and dockside bars of the West of this land. But if you picked this book up you probably know that already. What you don't know is how to play. Yeah, you might think you do, but you don't. I've seen you standing there at the table, throwing your silvers on a 2/12 spread or betting your wife's best garters on the Lair thinking "this is the one, it's due now." There are bad bets on the table and there are worse bets on the table, and you bet the worst of the worst, feeding the Maw to make some high-roller lick his lips and think about the Master.
See, that right there is the heart of the matter. There are no good bets on the table. There are bad ones, worse ones and terrible ones, and if you want to learn the only lesson worth learning, here it is: you find the best of the bad bets, and you stick with it. That's all there is to it.
~2~
The Basics
Okay, here's what you need to know about the Bones. The game revolves around the number seven. Ever wondered why that is? It's because seven is the most common result when you toss two dice. That means there are more possible combinations of pips adding up to seven than any other number. The further you get from the seven, the fewer possible combinations, the less likely the result. Remember that magic number seven as you read these lessons.
~3~
There are three kinds of bets: those laid on a single toss, those that carry over multiple rolls and the Dragon bets which are a beast of a different color entirely. Before I go into betting, here's another lesson: the Bank always wins in the end. There're two sets of odds at play: the money you'll get if your bet wins, and the actual chances of your bet hitting. When you win they always pay you odds less than was the actual chance of you winning, so if you play long enough you'll always lose in the end. But since no game lasts forever, over the space of a few hours a clever gambler can limit the Bank's edge to boost his chances of coming out on top.
~4~
You do this by buying value with your bets. Not all bets are created equal, you follow? It all comes down to those pips on the dice. The closer the odds paid out on a bet are to the chances of it actually winning, the more value you buy.
I'll be explaining value in the next section based on how fast you'll lose your money compared to someone who knows what they're doing. Like me.
~5~
Single Roll Bets
You can place a bet on any single number on the table from two to twelve, and you'll win if the Bones bring up that number on the next roll.
Don't.
No really, don't.
Stop staring at those odds...
I know you're going to do it anyway, but don't. These are the worst value going, they get worse the further you get from the seven and spreading it just makes it worse. The odds paid may be high, but the difference between the odds paid and the odds of it happening get wider the further out you go. If you stick with a little high-low action (that means betting the limit on 2 and 12 every roll), you're going to lose money about thirteen times faster than that clever looking man over there buying value bets, so get the stars out of your eyes and pay attention. I learned all this the hard way, and I'm not writing this for my benefit.
~6~
A few of these bets look more tempting, so I'll mention them in turn. They look more tempting because they pay out on more than one result. Any Dragon Bite pays out on a 2, 3 or a 12, so it looks like it triples your chances of winning compared with the other single bets. Maybe it does, but they're still furthest from the seven and therefore the three most unlikely results on the Bones with only four possible pip combinations able to produce a win. So compared to the high-low spread, you're more than three times more likely to win for a payout more than four times lower. That doesn't sound smart, does it?
In fact if you play the Bite all night you'll only lose money eleven times faster than the clever man, making it a slightly better value bet than the high-low was. But go ahead and tell that to your wife when you get home. See if she thinks it was a good idea.
~7~
Probably the most popular bet out there is the Dragon's Lair. It pays out on a 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 or 12.
What?
Seven different results make you a winner!
Only four results make you a loser!
Sounds like a banker, right?
Wrong.
~8~
The four losing results for a Lair bet are all clustered around that magic number seven, meaning they're still more likely to come up than the seven winners. Most of the winners on this bet are out at the extreme edges. For an even-money bet, over the course of a night at the table you're going to see an average four winners in the Lair and five losers for every nine rolls of the Bones. I watched, I counted, for over forty years and then I never bet the Lair again: its only an even-money bet, so even when it hits -- and it will -- the payout against the true odds means it was never worth the time it took to play it. I know that's not going to stop you, but at least now when you count your silvers at the end of the night you'll remember this book and you'll know why you're crying.
To be fair, it is the best value of the single roll bets. Play it all night, and you'll only lose your money five times faster than the clever man.
~9~
Carry Bets
These are bets that stay on the table until they win or lose. Each bet will have a "win" criteria and a "lose" criteria: if neither result comes up, the bet carries over to the next roll. I'm sure I don't need to explain why this is a good thing: you're buying value by getting multiple chances to win, provided it doesn't lose first. Or to put it another way, while there's still only one (or two) results that make you a winner, there's only one (or two, or three) results that make you a loser. And you might think that Rule #1 is "Win", but it isn't. That's Rule #2. Rule #1 is "Don't Lose".
Assuming you're going to stick around at the table for a while, (and let's be honest most of us have to get dragged away from it kicking and screaming) then carrying bets give you the most control over the Bank's advantage.
~10~
Carry Bets
These are bets that stay on the table until they win or lose. Each bet will have a "win" criteria and a "lose" criteria: if neither result comes up, the bet carries over to the next roll. I'm sure I don't need to explain why this is a good thing: you're buying value by getting multiple chances to win, provided it doesn't lose first. Or to put it another way, while there's still only one (or two) results that make you a winner, there's only one (or two, or three) results that make you a loser. And you might think that Rule #1 is "Win", but it isn't. That's Rule #2. Rule #1 is "Don't Lose".
Assuming you're going to stick around at the table for a while, (and let's be honest most of us have to get dragged away from it kicking and screaming) then carrying bets give you the most control over the Bank's advantage.
~11~
Scaly Bets
I'll mention these quickly, and then get on to the important topic. A "Scaly" bet depends on the difference between the two different ways of rolling an even-numbered result. 2 and 12 don't count, so that's: 4, 6, 8, 10. Each one of these can be rolled Scaly or Soft. A 'Scaly' roll is where the two dice show the same number of pips: so 'Scaly 4' comes up when both dice show a 2.
2 and 2 make a Scaly 4.
4 and 4 make a Scaly 8
And so on.
~12~
The roll is 'Softway' if the two dice show a different number of pips. So a soft 4 would be two dice showing a 1 and a 3, a soft 8 could be a 5 and 3 or a 6 and a 2, and so on. When you bet a Scaly, your bet will win if that number comes up scaly before it comes up soft. And any other result that comes up will see your bet carry over until one of those two things happens.
Scaly bets don't buy good value, in fact they're almost as bad as those single roll sinkholes I warned you about, but they are slow to lose so they won't eat up your money too fast making them a decent bet to run on the side.
The 6 and 8, even though they're less likely to hit, are actually better value bets than the 4 and 10. I won't try and explain why, just trust me.
~13~
The Belly and the Spine
Remember that clever man I told you about? This is where he plays the game. Forget those long-odds bets with the big payouts, if you value your silvers then these are the bets for you.
In simple terms, if you play the Spine you are betting "for" the Slayer, and if you play the Belly you are betting "against" him. Some people don't seem to get this, so I'm going to lay it out as easy as I can. The best way of understanding the structure of a round of Bones is to say that the Slayer is trying to "win" the round. If he wins, a bet on the Spine wins. If he loses, a bet on the Belly wins.
If he hasn't won or lost yet, then your bet carries over to the next roll.
How does he win?
~14~
The Fly-Out
The round starts with a Fly-Out roll. If the Fly-Out is a 7 or 11, the Slayer wins. If its a 2, 3 or a 12 he loses. So on the Fly-Out, a 7 or 11 is a winning roll for a bet on the Spine, and a 2, 3 or 12 is a winning role for a bet on the Belly.
Remember the magic number seven? The single most likely outcome of this roll produces a winner for the Spine, while three of the four most unlikely outcomes produce a loser, giving the edge to the Spine. But the most common result of a Fly-Out is a Quarry.
What's a Quarry? If he rolls something other than the winning or losing outcomes, whatever number he rolled becomes the Quarry. Every Spine or Belly bet placed carries over and we go into the second stage of play.
~15~
The Quarry
The Slayer continues to roll, but his goal has changed. Now he's trying to "catch the Quarry": he wins the round by rolling the Quarry number a second time before rolling a seven. He "loses" by rolling a seven before catching the Quarry.
So in the second stage, catching the Quarry is a winning roll for a bet on the Spine. Rolling a seven is a winning roll for a bet on the Belly. In the second stage, any roll that does not hit a seven or catch the Quarry will see all Spine and Belly bets carry over to the next roll. Your bet will survive until either it loses or is paid out.
~16~
The most likely outcome of any one of these rolls, the magic number seven, produces a winner for the Belly. The prospect of a winner for the Spine depends on the Quarry that was set up in the Fly-Out, but it will always be a less likely result than that seven. That means the Belly is the more likely winner in the second stage, which just about balances out the edge the Spine had in the first round. They're about an even chance either way, and the payout odds are a close reflection of the odds of the bet winning: there's a very narrow edge to the Bank, which means if you played forever you'd lose very slowly. If you played for a couple hours, you've got a very good chance of coming out on top. But if you're really smart, that narrow edge is still too much: this is where the Odds come into play.
~17~
Odds
This is the big one. The least-understood and the most-important play you can make. This is how a really clever player takes control, tilts the edge away from the Bank and towards his own pocket.
So. What is it?
Odds bets come into play after a Quarry has been established. Once the Fly-Out has produced a Quarry, any player with a bet on either the Spine or the Belly can bet up to TWICE the value of his initial bet in the form of Odds - even if that makes your bet higher than the table limit. What you're doing is doubling up on your bet that the Slayer will "win" or "lose" the round, and increasing your payout. Since the pay-out for odds is dependent on the Quarry that was established, the further the Quarry is from the seven, the longer the odds.
~18~
The important thing though is this: there is no edge to the Bank on an Odds bet. So by consistently doubling up a Spine or Belly bet on tight Quarries, you can effectively eliminate the natural advantage that causes you -- and everyone else -- to lose money at the table. If you consistently played a limit bet on either Spine or Belly with a maximum Odds bet on every Quarry, you could play for a hundred years and just about not lose a single silver coin. In the course of a two hour game, you've got by far the best chance of walking away a winner every time you hit the table.
~19~
So go on chasing the big win if you want, throw another million or two in the Maw in the hope that this time the Bones will treat you right. I'll be off in the corner riding the Belly-Odds all the way home. The big 30-1 splash is a dream, we've all had it, and maybe yours will come next time out. But smart, slow and steady play makes a winner every time.
~20~
This book is a store of wisdom bought and paid at a very high price. I've been a gambler all my life and learned my lessons at the table, unlike most of you idiots who play and play and play and never learn a damn thing. All my losses over the years have added up to one thing: I know the rules. I know every in and every out, every banker and every sinkhole on the table: I've lost a fortune, a wife or a pint of blood on every last one of them, and from it all this book is all that's left. If you want to keep that shirt you're wearing by the end of the night, then read it and learn my lessons. You won't, I know, but at least I tried.
~1~
The Dragon Bones are the most wonderful, terrible, hypnotic and deadly game in all the gaming halls, back-alleys and dockside bars of the West of this land. But if you picked this book up you probably know that already. What you don't know is how to play. Yeah, you might think you do, but you don't. I've seen you standing there at the table, throwing your silvers on a 2/12 spread or betting your wife's best garters on the Lair thinking "this is the one, it's due now." There are bad bets on the table and there are worse bets on the table, and you bet the worst of the worst, feeding the Maw to make some high-roller lick his lips and think about the Master.
See, that right there is the heart of the matter. There are no good bets on the table. There are bad ones, worse ones and terrible ones, and if you want to learn the only lesson worth learning, here it is: you find the best of the bad bets, and you stick with it. That's all there is to it.
~2~
The Basics
Okay, here's what you need to know about the Bones. The game revolves around the number seven. Ever wondered why that is? It's because seven is the most common result when you toss two dice. That means there are more possible combinations of pips adding up to seven than any other number. The further you get from the seven, the fewer possible combinations, the less likely the result. Remember that magic number seven as you read these lessons.
~3~
There are three kinds of bets: those laid on a single toss, those that carry over multiple rolls and the Dragon bets which are a beast of a different color entirely. Before I go into betting, here's another lesson: the Bank always wins in the end. There're two sets of odds at play: the money you'll get if your bet wins, and the actual chances of your bet hitting. When you win they always pay you odds less than was the actual chance of you winning, so if you play long enough you'll always lose in the end. But since no game lasts forever, over the space of a few hours a clever gambler can limit the Bank's edge to boost his chances of coming out on top.
~4~
You do this by buying value with your bets. Not all bets are created equal, you follow? It all comes down to those pips on the dice. The closer the odds paid out on a bet are to the chances of it actually winning, the more value you buy.
I'll be explaining value in the next section based on how fast you'll lose your money compared to someone who knows what they're doing. Like me.
~5~
Single Roll Bets
You can place a bet on any single number on the table from two to twelve, and you'll win if the Bones bring up that number on the next roll.
Don't.
No really, don't.
Stop staring at those odds...
I know you're going to do it anyway, but don't. These are the worst value going, they get worse the further you get from the seven and spreading it just makes it worse. The odds paid may be high, but the difference between the odds paid and the odds of it happening get wider the further out you go. If you stick with a little high-low action (that means betting the limit on 2 and 12 every roll), you're going to lose money about thirteen times faster than that clever looking man over there buying value bets, so get the stars out of your eyes and pay attention. I learned all this the hard way, and I'm not writing this for my benefit.
~6~
A few of these bets look more tempting, so I'll mention them in turn. They look more tempting because they pay out on more than one result. Any Dragon Bite pays out on a 2, 3 or a 12, so it looks like it triples your chances of winning compared with the other single bets. Maybe it does, but they're still furthest from the seven and therefore the three most unlikely results on the Bones with only four possible pip combinations able to produce a win. So compared to the high-low spread, you're more than three times more likely to win for a payout more than four times lower. That doesn't sound smart, does it?
In fact if you play the Bite all night you'll only lose money eleven times faster than the clever man, making it a slightly better value bet than the high-low was. But go ahead and tell that to your wife when you get home. See if she thinks it was a good idea.
~7~
Probably the most popular bet out there is the Dragon's Lair. It pays out on a 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 or 12.
What?
Seven different results make you a winner!
Only four results make you a loser!
Sounds like a banker, right?
Wrong.
~8~
The four losing results for a Lair bet are all clustered around that magic number seven, meaning they're still more likely to come up than the seven winners. Most of the winners on this bet are out at the extreme edges. For an even-money bet, over the course of a night at the table you're going to see an average four winners in the Lair and five losers for every nine rolls of the Bones. I watched, I counted, for over forty years and then I never bet the Lair again: its only an even-money bet, so even when it hits -- and it will -- the payout against the true odds means it was never worth the time it took to play it. I know that's not going to stop you, but at least now when you count your silvers at the end of the night you'll remember this book and you'll know why you're crying.
To be fair, it is the best value of the single roll bets. Play it all night, and you'll only lose your money five times faster than the clever man.
~9~
Carry Bets
These are bets that stay on the table until they win or lose. Each bet will have a "win" criteria and a "lose" criteria: if neither result comes up, the bet carries over to the next roll. I'm sure I don't need to explain why this is a good thing: you're buying value by getting multiple chances to win, provided it doesn't lose first. Or to put it another way, while there's still only one (or two) results that make you a winner, there's only one (or two, or three) results that make you a loser. And you might think that Rule #1 is "Win", but it isn't. That's Rule #2. Rule #1 is "Don't Lose".
Assuming you're going to stick around at the table for a while, (and let's be honest most of us have to get dragged away from it kicking and screaming) then carrying bets give you the most control over the Bank's advantage.
~10~
Carry Bets
These are bets that stay on the table until they win or lose. Each bet will have a "win" criteria and a "lose" criteria: if neither result comes up, the bet carries over to the next roll. I'm sure I don't need to explain why this is a good thing: you're buying value by getting multiple chances to win, provided it doesn't lose first. Or to put it another way, while there's still only one (or two) results that make you a winner, there's only one (or two, or three) results that make you a loser. And you might think that Rule #1 is "Win", but it isn't. That's Rule #2. Rule #1 is "Don't Lose".
Assuming you're going to stick around at the table for a while, (and let's be honest most of us have to get dragged away from it kicking and screaming) then carrying bets give you the most control over the Bank's advantage.
~11~
Scaly Bets
I'll mention these quickly, and then get on to the important topic. A "Scaly" bet depends on the difference between the two different ways of rolling an even-numbered result. 2 and 12 don't count, so that's: 4, 6, 8, 10. Each one of these can be rolled Scaly or Soft. A 'Scaly' roll is where the two dice show the same number of pips: so 'Scaly 4' comes up when both dice show a 2.
2 and 2 make a Scaly 4.
4 and 4 make a Scaly 8
And so on.
~12~
The roll is 'Softway' if the two dice show a different number of pips. So a soft 4 would be two dice showing a 1 and a 3, a soft 8 could be a 5 and 3 or a 6 and a 2, and so on. When you bet a Scaly, your bet will win if that number comes up scaly before it comes up soft. And any other result that comes up will see your bet carry over until one of those two things happens.
Scaly bets don't buy good value, in fact they're almost as bad as those single roll sinkholes I warned you about, but they are slow to lose so they won't eat up your money too fast making them a decent bet to run on the side.
The 6 and 8, even though they're less likely to hit, are actually better value bets than the 4 and 10. I won't try and explain why, just trust me.
~13~
The Belly and the Spine
Remember that clever man I told you about? This is where he plays the game. Forget those long-odds bets with the big payouts, if you value your silvers then these are the bets for you.
In simple terms, if you play the Spine you are betting "for" the Slayer, and if you play the Belly you are betting "against" him. Some people don't seem to get this, so I'm going to lay it out as easy as I can. The best way of understanding the structure of a round of Bones is to say that the Slayer is trying to "win" the round. If he wins, a bet on the Spine wins. If he loses, a bet on the Belly wins.
If he hasn't won or lost yet, then your bet carries over to the next roll.
How does he win?
~14~
The Fly-Out
The round starts with a Fly-Out roll. If the Fly-Out is a 7 or 11, the Slayer wins. If its a 2, 3 or a 12 he loses. So on the Fly-Out, a 7 or 11 is a winning roll for a bet on the Spine, and a 2, 3 or 12 is a winning role for a bet on the Belly.
Remember the magic number seven? The single most likely outcome of this roll produces a winner for the Spine, while three of the four most unlikely outcomes produce a loser, giving the edge to the Spine. But the most common result of a Fly-Out is a Quarry.
What's a Quarry? If he rolls something other than the winning or losing outcomes, whatever number he rolled becomes the Quarry. Every Spine or Belly bet placed carries over and we go into the second stage of play.
~15~
The Quarry
The Slayer continues to roll, but his goal has changed. Now he's trying to "catch the Quarry": he wins the round by rolling the Quarry number a second time before rolling a seven. He "loses" by rolling a seven before catching the Quarry.
So in the second stage, catching the Quarry is a winning roll for a bet on the Spine. Rolling a seven is a winning roll for a bet on the Belly. In the second stage, any roll that does not hit a seven or catch the Quarry will see all Spine and Belly bets carry over to the next roll. Your bet will survive until either it loses or is paid out.
~16~
The most likely outcome of any one of these rolls, the magic number seven, produces a winner for the Belly. The prospect of a winner for the Spine depends on the Quarry that was set up in the Fly-Out, but it will always be a less likely result than that seven. That means the Belly is the more likely winner in the second stage, which just about balances out the edge the Spine had in the first round. They're about an even chance either way, and the payout odds are a close reflection of the odds of the bet winning: there's a very narrow edge to the Bank, which means if you played forever you'd lose very slowly. If you played for a couple hours, you've got a very good chance of coming out on top. But if you're really smart, that narrow edge is still too much: this is where the Odds come into play.
~17~
Odds
This is the big one. The least-understood and the most-important play you can make. This is how a really clever player takes control, tilts the edge away from the Bank and towards his own pocket.
So. What is it?
Odds bets come into play after a Quarry has been established. Once the Fly-Out has produced a Quarry, any player with a bet on either the Spine or the Belly can bet up to TWICE the value of his initial bet in the form of Odds - even if that makes your bet higher than the table limit. What you're doing is doubling up on your bet that the Slayer will "win" or "lose" the round, and increasing your payout. Since the pay-out for odds is dependent on the Quarry that was established, the further the Quarry is from the seven, the longer the odds.
~18~
The important thing though is this: there is no edge to the Bank on an Odds bet. So by consistently doubling up a Spine or Belly bet on tight Quarries, you can effectively eliminate the natural advantage that causes you -- and everyone else -- to lose money at the table. If you consistently played a limit bet on either Spine or Belly with a maximum Odds bet on every Quarry, you could play for a hundred years and just about not lose a single silver coin. In the course of a two hour game, you've got by far the best chance of walking away a winner every time you hit the table.
~19~
So go on chasing the big win if you want, throw another million or two in the Maw in the hope that this time the Bones will treat you right. I'll be off in the corner riding the Belly-Odds all the way home. The big 30-1 splash is a dream, we've all had it, and maybe yours will come next time out. But smart, slow and steady play makes a winner every time.
~20~