With the dealer's final call, the question of who held the top spot in the point rankings at my table was settled.
This preliminary round, a series of twists and turns that almost saw another reversal, concluded in a way that surprised everyone.
I advanced and won, while Shui Cenyin and the other four were all eliminated.
Timing! Fate! The caprices of destiny!
This was my assessment and evaluation of the preliminary round.
For Shui Cenyin and I, both seasoned gamblers, we were both mercilessly toyed with by fate!
I, who desperately sought to control destiny, and Shui Cenyin, who planned to leave things to chance, found the fate of the final hand completely in the grip of others!
This is fate!
One can choose not to believe in fate, but one must accept it!
*Dong!*
The moment the gong sounded, the preliminary round officially drew to a close.
After the eliminated contestants had filed out and the staff had rearranged the hall…
Ying Baolin, impeccably dressed in a suit, made his grand entrance.
Without any preamble, as he stepped onto the stage, Ying Baolin directly announced, "Before the main competition begins, all contestants who have advanced to the main competition, please pay close attention to the big screen!"
"Just like the preliminary round, the main competition will also use a random draw system, with six players per group."
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone saw the names of contestants begin to flash across the large screen behind Ying Baolin, over the icons representing the numbered gambling tables.
Each time six names were simultaneously locked in, it signified that a table's participant list had been randomly drawn.
The screen was vast, capable of displaying the draws for multiple tables at once.
Before long, my name appeared, assigned to table 54.
After the main competition draw, there was a mid-session break.
Time for eating and resting.
This period was for the contestants advancing to the main competition to recover their stamina and mental faculties.
At 1 PM, the main competition officially commenced.
When I took my seat, one person was already there – a portly gentleman.
Setting aside his height, his weight… at least two hundred pounds!
When his round face broke into a smile, his eyes crinkled shut, giving him a rather comical appearance.
However, the dazzling gold rings on his plump hands hinted at something more than met the eye.
One should not judge a person by their appearance, nor a body of water by its depth!
How could someone who emerged victorious from a six-person round table in the preliminary round, topping the rankings, be as simple as they appeared?
If the preliminary round was the first hurdle in filtering out genuine from fake gamblers, then once that hurdle was cleared, there were no more impostors trying to blend in!
The main competition was a gathering of elites, a battle of skilled gamblers!
As I shifted my gaze away from the portly gentleman, the other four contestants also arrived.
Three men and one woman.
One of the men appeared to be of an age where he understood the heavens.
With his temples greying, he greeted us with a smile, his forehead creased with wrinkles – a proper elder.
The other two men were unremarkable.
As for the sole female contestant, she was a heavily made-up woman of mature years.
I wasn't sure if she was over 40, but definitely over 35!
An age of fierce desire!
The heavily made-up woman, exuding an air of worldliness, surveyed us all with a flirtatious and audacious expression.
With everyone present, the dealer produced fresh, unopened decks of cards, gesturing for us to inspect them while explaining the events and rules of the main competition.
The event for the second round was Stud Poker, also point-based, but with the addition of chips.
This was not surprising, as Stud Poker allowed for all-in bets, and betting with points was impractical.
After all, one couldn't go all-in with points on every hand, could they?
A single loss meant elimination.
Therefore, the organizers provided chips to all contestants.
Each person received one million, which would be collected upon leaving the table.
Ten thousand chips corresponded to one thousand points.
In conversion, one million chips were equivalent to one hundred thousand points from the preliminary round.
Contestants who advanced to the main competition would undoubtedly have at least one hundred thousand points.
Wins would accrue points based on the chip equivalent, while losses would be directly deducted.
Losing the entire one million chips was not a critical issue; as long as one had sufficient points, the organizers would provide more chips, to be settled after the competition.
Of course, if someone lost a full hundred thousand points right at the start, recovering them would not be easy.
Therefore, how to quickly accumulate points using the initial one million chips became a problem all contestants had to face.
………………
As the competition officially began, and after confirming that no one wished to inspect the cards, the dealer immediately started shuffling the deck with practiced skill. The ante was one thousand, with no upper limit on bets, allowing for all-in.
At the start, we all played cautiously, only placing the ante.
After all, at this point, everyone was unaware of each other's true capabilities and strengths, and no one dared to cheat easily.
A single caught instance meant immediate elimination.
Consequently, even single bets were small, rarely exceeding ten to twenty thousand.
After playing like this for about half an hour, the portly gentleman, the elderly man with greying temples, and I had all won a small amount.
Not much, just thirty to forty thousand chips.
Discarding the element of trickery, everyone began to play with their minds and luck, engaging in a game of strategy and calculation.
A new hand was dealt.
I hadn't looked at my hole card yet, but the face-up card on the table was the Queen of Spades, a very strong single card in Stud Poker.
When the dealer indicated it was my turn, I unhesitatingly placed a ten-thousand-chip bet, thinking to use the money I had won earlier to probe these players.
Perhaps out of a tacit understanding among gamblers, when it was the portly gentleman's turn to bet, he smiled and raised the bet to thirty thousand.
Except for the elderly man, who chose to fold after seeing his hole card, everyone else called.
Seeing this, I also chose to call.
With a face-up Queen of Spades, there was no reason to fold this early.
The dealer began dealing the cards.
Since I had the highest card in the first round, the deal started with me.
A Six of Spades; if not for the same suit as the Queen of Spades, this card wouldn't be considered good.
Then came the others.
Finally, it was the portly gentleman's turn.
The portly gentleman's first face-up card was a 7, and his second face-up card was also a 7.
A pair!
Upon seeing this, the portly gentleman's brow twitched uncontrollably, seemingly pleased with this card.
Apart from the portly gentleman's good luck in hitting a pair of 7s, the rest of us all received single cards.
Without a second thought, the portly gentleman raised the bet to fifty thousand, throwing his chips out with great flourish.
Clearly, he intended to capitalize on his good fortune to win big.