Introduction to the PARR Zone

Foreword by Jerry Patterson

With the development of the PARR Zone, Dr. Heller (now deceased) left an incredible legacy to craps dice controllers.

This article, an introduction, is the first of manyJerry Patterson is an internationally known gaming author, player, and instructor and has written five gambling books. The two most popular are 'Casino Gambling: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Baccarat and Casino Poker 'and 'Blackjack: A Winner’s Handbook.'  Jerry's website is www.sharpshootercraps.com  which will be incorporated, with acknowledgement, into the new book – Winning Dice Control Techniques: Shooting Craps from the Zone by Jerry Patterson and Sharpshooter.

What Role does the Zone play in Dice Control? The Zone’s role is just as important as the muscle memory skills of setting, gripping, picking up and throwing the dice with control. The objective of dice control is to avoid the losing 7 in the point cycle. With the Zone, you can maintain muscle memory consistency and keep on rolling the same way every time you pick up the dice. It’s this consistency that leads to the long hands with stacks of chips pushed your way on roll after roll.

Dr. Heller’s Background Statement on the Zone

When Jerry asked me to develop a mental readiness support method for his PARR method, he said it should be about focus. I told him I wanted to make the program about what professional athletes called The Zone. From my work with athletes spanning nearly thirty years, I have learned how powerful The Zone can be for those who desire to increase performance in any activity.

Top performers from all professions have discovered how to create The Zone. I would bet that most people who read this manual have also found themselves in The Zone during times of outstanding achievement. The challenge is to be able to create The Zone on demand and that is what this manual is all about.

Here is how The American Heritage® Dictionary defines Zone: An area or region distinguished from adjacent parts by a distinctive feature or characteristic. To me, this means The Zone is a mental state that enables us to separate from distractions. We arrive at a state of mental being during which our skills and abilities come together in a powerful and synergistic combination. We feel like winners, we act like winners and we perform like winners! 

The Zone includes focus but focus doesn’t necessarily include The Zone. If you look up Focus in The American Heritage® Dictionary, you will read: A center of interest or activity. Close or narrow attention and concentration. Focused – To direct toward a particular point of purpose.

I want you to think about The Zone as your destination. Now, consider focus as the vehicle or mode of transportation that enables you to get there. The PARR Zone will show you how to create the kind of focus that leads you to The Zone. When you have mastered The PARR Zone, you will have developed:

Muscle Memory, combined with a psychological state of confidence and a sense of calm purpose.

The purpose of this training manual is to teach you the exact steps that enable you to enter The Zone on demand and with consistency. Specifically, you will learn how to enter The Zone within seconds while putting Jerry Patterson’s PARR method into action at the craps tables.

You may even find yourself using The Zone in many areas of your life. I have taught hundreds of individuals the secrets of being able to create The Zone on command. These people have used The Zone to become more successful in their business and personal lives, too.

This manual will not encourage nor instruct you in how to make everything more complicated and confusing. One sage said, “Everything should be kept as simple as possible. Just no simpler.” There is great wisdom in this statement. One sure way to ruin a winning method is to continue to add more improvement until the system is too complicated to work.  

This manual is designed to make learning The PARR Zone simple and fast. It will show you the exact steps you need to recreate The Zone when you want it. You will also learn how to incorporate The PARR Zone as a seamless part of PARR itself. To enter The Zone on demand will require you to practice what you learn in this manual. 

This manual will expose you to cutting edge motivational techniques. You will learn that there are two different ways to visualize. One way, called the spectator, makes it more difficult to obtain goals. Yet, this is the way most people are taught to visualize. When you use the powerful form of visualization called Experiential Visualization, you dramatically improve your results – automatically! 

With Spectator Visualization, you experience what you are visualizing as if you aren’t really part of the event. Instead, you are a bystander. As such, your brain is lulled into believing that what you are visualizing just isn’t that important to you. 

When you use Experiential Visualization, you step into the image and begin to feel the experience, as if it were really happening. One example can be found in dreams. Most of us have had falling dreams. In some of these dreams, we are off to a side watching someone who looks like us as he or she falls. While this may cause a little anxiety, it’s more likely to be a non-event.  

With the Experiential Dream, it feels as if we are falling. This is the experience that wakes us up with rapid breathing and our hearts pounding. The dream fooled part of our brains into responding as if the experience was really happening. Experiential Visualization will help you trigger your brain into thinking you are calm, confident, with a sense of calm purpose, combined with muscle memory. That’s Muscle Memory!

The PARR Zone will be published in four parts:

Level 1 Learning Program: Power Visualization and Calm Conditioning

Level 2 Learning Program: Power Conditioning

Level 3 Learning Program: The Power Zone

The PARR Zone is easier to learn by breaking it into learning modules. There are three modules in this manual. The first module is Level One Training. During Level One Training, you will acquire the specific experiences and skills needed to create The PARR Zone on demand. These skills include:

The second module of your PARR Zone® training is called Level Two – Power Conditioning. Here, you add The PARR Zone method to your practice sessions. You will learn how to create close to Real World Conditions (RWC) for your home practice sessions. Also, you will learn how to enter The PARR Zone as you begin to set the dice. Within a few seconds, you will have created Integrated Focus. You will be in The Zone and ready to perform a Controlled Throw of the dice with a greater probability of avoiding the losing 7. 

Level Three is the Power Zone. This module will help you put all the pieces together into one integrated whole. When you finish Level Three, you will be able to enter into The PARR Zone on demand as you begin to handle the dice. You will be pleasantly surprised with how calm and focused you will stay as you are shooting dice. 

When Jerry announced his dice breakthrough, PARR, I was pleased and not surprised. I know how long he had been working on controlled rolls. When he approached me about creating a mental readiness program to support PARR, I was thrilled. This gives me the opportunity to contribute to the success of PARR. My background gives me a unique platform from which The PARR Zone was created.