thefictionvixens Chapter 174 The Attack and Defense in the Amethyst Castle
Chapter 174 The Attack and Defense in the Amethyst Castle
Chapter 184 The Attack and Defense Inside the Amethyst Castle
Two people are sitting opposite each other at the Double Dragon Poker table.
The sage in purple robes sat at the white end, while the gambler in a dark blue suit sat opposite him at the black end. Both men remained calm, scrutinizing their opponent across the chips.
A member of the plasma team stood awkwardly in the spot that was originally the dealer's seat, shuffling his feet.
His anxiety is understandable, after all, Vio had just taught him the most basic poker rules and dealing techniques an hour before the game started.
The reason for this was that the old man couldn't trust the dealer on the Royal Union, and there had been apostates within Team Plasma who had been misled by the casino. Under the current circumstances, having someone completely ignorant of poker as the dealer was the best way to ensure fairness. In this way, the guy had already exhausted all his efforts just to master the shuffling technique, let alone colluding to cheat.
Furthermore, there's no need to worry about dealer errors. In such a completely public environment with ten display windows, if a mistake is made against either player, both opponents can point it out on the spot and request a re-deal. With thousands of spectators watching the game on board and the rooms equipped with comprehensive video surveillance, there's no need to worry about this rule being abused.
The match began in a predictable manner. Both sides nodded to each other, showing no intention of exchanging harsh words.
The dealer silently shuffled the deck of cards, using the four decks Vio had chosen late last night after disembarking—the most common kind from a roadside convenience store.
The shuffling technique was the most basic alternating cut combined with random shuffling. Because the dealer was a novice, the shuffling was slow and heavy, and he occasionally had to stand on the edge of the table to complete the action. However, no one complained about this; the lengthy preparation made this highly anticipated game exceptionally solemn.
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Naza, holding the new leaf cat entrusted to her by the jasmine, looked at the screen in the hall, where the betting results were displayed in crystal clarity.
The lady who owned the gambling den, from Kanto, wasn't very good at poker; she only had a general idea of the rankings of basic hands. Yet even she could tell that the two players at the table were playing unusually conservatively.
The duel-style Double Dragon Poker game uses an unlimited betting mechanism, with both players holding the same amount of bets, and each holding a thousand purple chips that are piled up into a spectacular fortress at the edge of the table.
However, right between these two cities, the two men, who possess billions in wealth, tacitly maintained a minimum level of betting.
Whether it's blueberries or Vio, they didn't hesitate to give up call opportunities time and time again, wishing they could split a chip in half to use it.
The bets thrown out were like lone knights venturing out of the city, encountering neither powerful enemies nor reinforcements, only to collide head-on with equally lone opponents, either returning victorious or being captured in defeat.
"Did you see that? The hole cards that King Yueju folded just now were a pair of high cards. If it were me, I would have gone all in with that hand."
A portly gambler commented from a gambling table behind Naz.
Now all the gambling tables on the ship have voluntarily ceased operation and become spectator seats for watching gambling duels.
“So that’s the difference between you and a legendary gambler,” said his companion at the same table. “Right now, Vio and Blueberry are just testing the stacking of the top layer of the deck. With a greater than 50% chance of chance, even if one side throws a big bet, the other side will just fold cleanly and run away. There’s no way you can go all in.”
"Then this gamble will never end until the deck is empty?" a young gambler sitting behind a slot machine asked innocently.
"No, both duelists are masters of probability calculation. As their calculations of the deck become more detailed, their bets will increase. When their calculations show a clear divergence, the real showdown will begin."
As if responding to the sounds from the casino, Vio made his first bet in this game. The aloof Amethyst Knight was aided by two reinforcements, who together captured the citrus chips and brought them back to the castle.
From this moment on, the tide of the game turned.
The sage of the plasma group seemed to have regained his form from the blackjack game last night, calmly throwing out round after round of bets in accordance with the principle of maximizing interest rates.
The chips rolled silently onto the black and white tablecloth, but the old man's card-flipping and betting seemed to follow a rhythmic pattern, making it a delight to behold.
Conversely, the way bilberries are betting on the other side is rather complicated.
Shaking one's head, giving a wry smile, skipping a card, folding – these are tricks often used by bluffers seeking to make a fool of someone.
Like a master of this art, Lingju kept skipping or folding, constantly concealing his hand by voluntarily conceding. In one game, a spectator's perspective revealed Lingju's hand: he had two Queens, and there was another Queen on the table, but he still chose to fold.
The cards that the evil-type king has to play are melting away like an iceberg under the scorching sun.
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"Booing is not a good habit."
Just as Blueberry was putting up a large amount of chips in a round of calls, trying to force the old man to back down, Vio spoke up indifferently.
The bet didn't forbid conversation between the two, but they had previously kept silent in tacit agreement. Now, however, the mathematical genius seemed to have just finished a complex calculation, uttering his first words with a sigh of relief.
"There's no point in arguing. If you insist on thinking that way, then please place your bets as you see fit," Yueju stated calmly with a standard poker face.
"His imposing manner certainly lives up to the Gambler King's infamous reputation, but bluffing is useless against a true mathematician."
The sage responded dismissively, pushing a third of the way through his castle with both hands.
Watching this scene on the high-definition screen, Naz felt the gamblers around her hold their breath for a moment.
These guests were not unrelated to the high-profile betting, as the outcome of the duel also affected the size of their wallets—the Royal Union would never miss an opportunity to make money through gambling, so naturally, they also offered betting services for their boss's bet with Vio.
Aside from the incredibly high odds of a tie, which is almost impossible in poker matches, the odds for the King and the Sage are basically the same, with the former even having slightly higher odds due to home advantage.
The next moment, the expressions of those who were greedy for the high multipliers became quite interesting, and a few strange cries of uncontrollable joy even rang out in the hall. This was because although the card that Lingju had turned over was a set of unpaired decimals, it could form a straight with the five face-up cards on the table.
For this type of hand formed by consecutive card numbers, Double Dragon Poker has a fitting descriptive term – “Dragon”.
Vio on the screen, seeing this, raised his eyebrows and sneered, then revealed his trump card.
Two 7s and 10s of different suits are inserted into the gaps in the community cards on the table as accurately as bullets, forming another dragon.
If we were to use Pokémon as an analogy, the difference between the two dragons would be as vast as the difference between Dragonair and Rayquaza.
The dealer from the Plasma Group awkwardly moved the messy chips on the table towards his boss, whose pale face finally showed a hint of illness.
"People tend to focus only on the probability of getting a big hand, and few people notice that the possibility of having five cards that don't make any points is also very small. You can make a big hand with a bad board, but your opponent can too."
Vio spoke sarcastically to the gambler in front of him.
The two sides now have a clear advantage, with the magnificent Amethyst Castle, ruled by the Purple-Robed Sage, standing tall and more than a third ahead of its opponent.