GAMBLE: Rule of Cards

CHAPTER 28

Sandra looked at the cottage which hinders her sight from seeing Denton. The cottage only has glass screen in front and not on the side, so whatever they does, the other players cannot see whatever they are doing. “How are we going to talk about on how to play this s**t?” Sandra cussed as she scratched her head. It is not as if she is depending herself on Denton but among all three of them, Denton has the best strategy and that, these strategies has the tendency of making them all successful. “Alright. I am just going to put my all in this. Maybe, at this rate, I do not need to depend on someone. At this round, I must continue to live by the help of only myself.”

Paul, however, scratched his head upon placing his gaze on the cards that were making his head hurt. “How am I going to play this?” he asked himself while looking at the cards and started rearranging the cards from the lowest to highest. He chuckled on himself like he was going nuts. “This is so funny. How am I going to win when I learned how to sequentially arrange poker cards upon my entrance in this game.” He looked at the cards before he heaved a heavy sigh. “I am neither smart nor strategical but it is no use depending on other people in this kind of game. I have to strive alone, so I will get to escape.”

Denton, on the other side, can see his own reflection on the mirror. His worry is on the utmost visible side of his face. He cannot help but to worry about Sandra and Paul who depends on him. “Argh, what should I do?” he asked himself. No matter how loud his voice was inside the cottage, no one could possibly hear his voice. He looked at the cards and placed them on the ground. He opened the card holder of his vest as he also placed it on the ground. “Blaming myself would not do anything better for me. I have to strategize my own game and let the other two do their own games too. I am sorry, Sandra and Paul, for I am of no hold today, but I trust your skills and strengths. I know that you two can do it, for sure.” He placed the cards facing in front of him. He immediately removed the jack, queen and king cards and replaced it with his numerical cards such as seven, eight and ten. “I have all fundamental operations but the minus card is two... so I have to remove the negative cards,” he paused as he removed his negative cards, “and place these positive cards on my final lineup. These positive cards will have positive output, no matter what number I have...” Denton removed the other addition card and replaced it with his existing multiplication card. “Between the two positive operations, multiplication will, for sure be the best option in this game. Whatever cards multiplied by the next card will always create better output than the card added to the next cards. For now, this is my tentative cards. I have a lot of lower card numbers but as long as I do not have one and two, it will do as it is.”

Paul also started on making the final lineup of his cards. “I guess, like Denton said, it is better to remove the negative cards and replace it with positive ones,” Paul replied as he placed the cards Denton gave him in exchange of the negative ones. “But... I have no numerical cards to replace the lower valued numbers to, so I will stick into this already. For now, I have numerical cards and jack, queen and king. I also have positive cards, with one minus card, since my resources is short. If only I can identify what strategy to use, then it might be better. For now, I still have twenty minutes to identify how the hell must I recognize my cards while they are facing aback of me.”

“This is fine, I guess,” Sandra muttered on herself as he looked at her card’s final lineup. “I have better chances since I have more positive cards than negative ones...” Sandra has two addition and two multiplication cards. Amidst having one minus card, she thinks it is still good that she has four positive operations. “About the cards, as long as I do not choose these jack, queen and king cards, then it’s fine. I do not think they have actual value, though. The important thing is actually getting high value of cards and positive operations.” Sandra nodded on her own thoughts. “The question I have here is, how am I going to play open and pass if I only have the guts? Should I lend my fate to the destiny?”

“There is really a difference between these cards if I am going to look at it closely. There is a crown in the center and there are sparkles around the crown, in which it represents the value of the given card,” he muttered on himself. “For example, the card is ten, so it also has ten sparkles around the crown. The thing is these sparkles are too little and too small to be seen from a distance. If leaning onto the cards is possible, then I might do this.” Denton is suffering from an eye cataract and he was unable to bring his glasses, so it was really hard for him to identify the cards. However, the vision was not that vague, he only has to lean forward to further see the sparkles. “The operation cards, however, all have ten sparkles around the crown, but the distinct uniqueness of this is that the sparkles are also the given operation. The thing is our eyes are preventing this to be seen, but I happened to see this. The problem here is how the hell am I going to tell Paul and Sandra this technique?”

There are only less than five minutes before the individual play is going to happen. Denton has already finalized his move by that time. Some of the players already finalized the strategy that they are going to use. While some are still identifying what strategy to use, some are already prepared enough to use the strategy they thought of using. In that five minuted, as the time slowly approached the individual play, players are becoming more and more eager to win the round. There are some who is, however, nervous but are still willing to try their best and win their individual plays. “Let’s do this,” Denton told himself. “I just have to make sure that Paul and Sandra are looking closely at the screen while I am playing. In that way, they could possible identify my strategy.”

The speaker showed up in the monitor as the timer lost its time. “We will now start the individual play. As I said before, the sequence will be from the left to right,” the speaker told the players. “So, the first player to play the individual play is Player Q-07. You can now start giving your cards to the dealer on the table.”

The guards immediately unlocked the door of the cottage and asked the player to get out of the place. The player was guided towards the dealer who was waiting for the players in the center of the battlefield. “Please give me your card,” the dealer asked the player who quickly abided by what the dealer said. The dealer immediately shuffled the card, and the player has this hidden confusion and worry because he totally memorized the card by its sequence and it turned out that it will be shuffled by the dealer. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” the player replied, as he was of no choice but to say yes. The strategy the first player was doing is to memorize the cards sequentially. Little did he know, the dealer needs to shuffle the cards, to play the game equally and with no further cheating. The dealer finished shuffling the card before asking ‘open, pass’ to the player. “Open,” the player replied and the dealer quickly placed the card on the first slot. It was three. Then, the individual play continued on playing. Minutes later, the first player finished the individual play getting the combination of ‘3x2(4)+9-7’, for simpler equation, it is ‘3x2+9-7’ and it equals to 8, and it is quite low as a starting play. The chart added the first player’s score on the top, as it was the first one to be input on the list.

The second player immediately placed her card on the dealer’s hand and the dealer shuffled it. The second player’s game has officially started. “Open,” the player told the dealer who asked to open or pass the first card. It turned out to be seven, and is not that bad as a starting card. “Pass,” he said on the second card. The dealer declined the card and continued on the third card. “Open,” the player told the dealer and caught a plus card. The other player looked at the player who looks like he knows what he is doing. Her game was good in the first two cards but she ended up having troubles on the third to eighth slots. The second player ended up with ‘7+2x(+)3-6’, which in simple term is ‘7+2x3-6’ and is equals to 7, which is now in second of the chart with only two input players.

The speaker showed up on the screen as the guards started on unlocking the door of Denton’s cottage. “Player M-22 will be the next player to do the individual play,” he muttered as Denton walked out of the cottage. He immediately looked at Paul and Sandra who were looking at him ad well. He just continued to walk, as he was pushed by the guard to the dealer. “You can now give the dealer you deck of card...”