The moment I chose to go all-in, pushing all my chips onto the table…
I sensed that the other contestants at the table, as if by unspoken agreement, all turned their gaze towards the two hidden hole cards in front of me.
Their eyes seemed to burn with the desire to see straight through my hole cards!
I had already prepared myself psychologically for this scene before deciding to go all-in.
With the five community cards dealt, it was impossible to find a flush.
Since there was no flush, unless someone was dealt a pair in their hole cards from the start, allowing them to form three of a kind that would instantly win the game…
Otherwise, the final outcome would be a case of choosing the best among the mediocre, starting from two pairs and working downwards.
Basically, those who got a pair or two pairs would be the ones competing for victory.
To win with such a hand, one must bluff.
Therefore, I didn't care at all whether they thought that of me.
Because I wanted to see if, in a high-level competition like this, apart from cheating, I could truly stand out among my competitors at the table with a calm mind.
Uncle Tuo once said that it wasn't impossible to cheat openly in the Macau Gambling King competition, but the difficulty of success would be immense.
A top-tier gambler like him would generally choose key moments to subtly make a move, delivering a decisive blow.
Therefore, when cheating was not an option, one must make good use of their intelligence, try their best to preserve their chips, and also calculate the cards in their opponents' hands.
...
After I placed my bet, the young woman wearing sunglasses immediately murmured, "Two pairs? Or one pair? Or is she bluffing with no pair?"
As she spoke, I saw her light another cigarette.
From this scene alone, I concluded that this young woman was most likely up to something!
If you ask me why, I'm sorry… not yet!
It's just that my intuition tells me she's problematic.
Who has ever seen a woman smoke three cigarettes in less than half an hour?
Even though many people smoke incessantly while playing cards, it's rare to be as outrageous as smoking three cigarettes in half an hour, isn't it?
Moreover, she's a woman.
Taking Macau as an example, unless you are playing cards in a casino, smoking is strictly prohibited during any competition.
If you want to smoke, you have to report it to the referee.
Once permission is granted, the game will be paused and you can go outside to smoke as much as you want!
...
Regarding the young woman's behavior just now, I personally lean towards the idea that she was secretly signaling or passing secret codes to someone.
Just as I was imagining this in my mind, the mysterious young woman suddenly spoke, "I call!"
After saying that, she pushed all the remaining chips on the table forward.
At the start of the game, everyone had the same amount of chips.
After the young woman called, among the other three people, the elegant young woman decisively chose to fold.
Following that, two others called and one folded.
When the last person threw their chips onto the table, the dealer signaled that the three of us could reveal our cards.
Since I was the one who went all-in first, I revealed my cards last.
The young woman followed closely, and the last player finished.
One pair, two pairs, one pair.
It was pretty much as I had speculated; among these players who called, someone had indeed been dealt two cards of the same rank as the community cards but of different suits from the start.
Undoubtedly, that person was the mysterious young woman.
The moment she won the bet, the young woman smiled with disdain in her eyes.
Although her face was hidden by the mask, judging from the expression in her eyes, she was likely mocking my overestimation of myself.
Seeing this, I didn't say anything but chuckled lightly behind her.
Although the opening loss caused me to lose all my million chips at once, losing ten thousand points, and my ranking on the table dropped to the bottom, however…
There was still a long way to go until the end of the competition, and I still had time to turn the tide.
For me, losing early was much better than losing late.
Because in a situation where everything was still uncertain, by being the first to lose a million chips and ten thousand points, I had effectively removed myself as a threat in the eyes of most of them.
Of course, removing the threat was only temporary, unless I remained at the bottom until the end of the competition.
However, having a period where I wasn't drawing much attention was also quite good.
At least I could settle down and get a feel for everyone's playing style…
After losing all my chips, I decisively had the scoring referee deduct ten thousand points from my account, bought another million chips, and continued the competition.
It was almost exactly as I had expected; ever since my points dropped to the bottom, the young woman who had vaguely shown hostility towards me was now paying much less attention to me.
Besides her, there were also two or three other opponents who had been subtly watching me, and they had all shifted their attention elsewhere.
In their opinion, having lost a round less than half an hour into the game, I had basically withdrawn from the competition for the top two spots on the small table and was not a significant threat.
And I was happy to be forgotten, beginning my observation of the playing styles of the other nine people at the table…
It turned out that being distracted while playing cards came at a price.
Because I was playing cards while secretly observing others, I became absent-minded several times.
As a result, in the following period, a large portion of the one million chips I had just brought to the table was quickly depleted.
This was not the worst part.
The worst part was that I found my luck seemed to have been affected by my distracted play.
In the subsequent hands, the hole cards I received didn't even have a chance to enter the pot!
On the few occasions I called, I was forced by some of them to fold before I could even see the last river card, due to their raises.
The "river squeeze" in Texas Hold'em, I actually experienced it in such a situation today.
Half an hour passed quietly.
Of the million chips, only about three hundred thousand remained.
This result also caused the gap between me and the second-to-last person to widen further!
Fortunately, my mindset was not affected.
Because I understood the principle that one cannot have both cake and eat it too.
There was no reason why I could guard against everyone while also getting a feel for their respective playing styles.
Therefore, the 700,000 chips lost in the last half hour were, in a way, the bait I had cast.
Earlier, I was the fish, and others were the cleaver.
But now, the roles should be reversed.
A new round began.
I received the big blind, which was a position that could stir things up.
Therefore, I decided that the counterattack… would start from this round!