Dealing With the Double-Pitch - Part II

Firstly, you can teach your hand what a perfectly simultaneous release feels like. Glue a pair of dice together and practice tossing these. If you do have a staggered release, the glued pair of dice will show a noticeable wobble in the air. Practices tossing the glued dice until you have successfully eliminated all tendency to wobble. At the same time, pay attention to the way the glued dice feel as they depart your hand in a wobble-free toss. I have seen this simple and inexpensive learning tool work wonders for individuals with a grip-release caused double-pitch problem.

Secondly, consciously press the ring finger into the middle finger during your throws. This will help to maintain the perfectly straight pivot line necessary for a perfect pitch delivery if you are utilizing a three finger front without causing any increase in the amount of pressure you are exerting on the dice themselves. This will give you a conscious reminder to not permit the ring finger to flex more than the index and middle fingers even though the hand is completely relaxed.

The third technique consists of a little mental trick you can play on yourself. Tell yourself to try and release the outside die a fraction of a second before the inside die; kind of a reverse staggered release. You will find this extremely difficult to do; however, the end result is to begin to release the outside die a little bit earlier than before. This is usually just enough of an adjustment to virtually eliminate a staggered release.

The other major cause of double-pitch results is the table – specifically the location of your landing spot relative to the end wall. This is particularly true if you are using the so-called “normal” controlled throw: a back-handed delivery which imparts a small amount of back-spin into the dice.  The requirement of an under-handed toss utilizing forward pitch will be the exact opposite of that described below.

The double-pitch causing culprit is in the angle at which the dice strike the pyramids of the end wall after the initial bounce. If backspin has been used in the toss, it is absolutely critical that the dice impact the end wall in a down-ward direction. This requires that the initial landing area of the dice is far enough out from the end wall that the dice are on the downward part of their second or bounce trajectory. If the dice impact the pyramids in an upward direction, the pyramids will reverse the direction of spin of one or both dice.

However, if the dice are in the downward part of their second trajectory, the pyramids will complement or actually reinforce the direction of rotation. The ideal situation is one in which the dice bounce softly into the end wall in a downward direction, deplete the little remaining kinetic energy through absorption into the end wall and literally drop straight down to the felt. The table induced double-pitch can be minimized or virtually eliminated by adjusting your target area to ensure that the dice’s second trajectory strikes the wall in such a way as to maintain the direction of rotation imparted at release from the hand.

For the underhanded delivery with forward rotation imparted, the ideal end of the second trajectory is for the dice to strike the table right at the wedge at the base of the pyramids, not impacting them at all. Baring this, you would want the dice to strike the pyramids during the upward part of the second trajectory and deflect straight back. While this may be a bit difficult to visualize, if you will follow the direction of dice rotation in your preferred throw into the pyramid points, it will become apparent what we have been discussing here.

In summary, you do want to develop as soft a delivery as possible, but you also want to make sure that you are not causing the dice to leave your hand in a staggered fashion. After you are sure you have mastered the simultaneous release of both dice, and then check the second trajectory of the dice after they have initially bounced on the table to make sure that their contact with the end wall pyramids is maintaining the direction of pitch rotation and not causing one or both dice to change rotational direction. With backspin, the dice should strike the end-wall in a downward direction; and with forward rotation, you want them to either land right on the wedge or to impact the end-wall in an upwards direction. The direction (up or down) which will maintain the direction of rotation you put onto the dice when you tossed them.

With a little careful attention to the knowledge and techniques here-in presented, you will go a long way to eliminating that monster roll killing in-advertent double-pitch.

Good rolling to you!!

Walt Diem

Next Month's Article: Introduction to the Zone

Read more about the contents and future excerpts from  Winning Dice Control Techniques: Shooting Craps from the Zone.