Three of hearts, four of spades.
And one more card... the two of hearts!
With the first two cards being incredibly low and of different suits, the fortunate arrival of the two of hearts reversed the situation, forming a mixed straight with the three cards.
A mixed straight (dragons), in a blind game, is considered a very strong hand.
This outcome completely stunned the stylish youth.
He stood there, frozen, his lips parting and closing several times. Having already managed to utter the word "play," the final word was forcefully stuck in his throat, not daring to be spoken.
The stylish youth wanted to falsely accuse me of cheating, but he was truly unwilling to accept defeat.
When I revealed the cards earlier, my hands had no superfluous movements whatsoever; the three cards were simply turned over as they were.
If I had cheated, the dealer would have stopped the game before he could even call out.
Therefore, the stylish youth ultimately held back and did not speak further. He directly threw his cards into the discard pile and said, "Consider yourself lucky!"
Upon hearing this, I didn't argue much, my lips curving into a victor's smile.
The reason I didn't bother arguing with him wasn't out of concern for causing trouble, but because I had a mission.
Instead of wasting time on verbal sparring, it was better to seize the opportunity to gain more points.
I thought that upon seeing even luck was on my side, the stylish youth would abandon the idea of competing with me.
But what I didn't expect was that after failing to gain an advantage against me, he turned his attention to the dealer.
More precisely, to the cards in the dealer's hand.
In a competition with tens of thousands of participants like today, it was impossible to change the deck every round.
This was only the preliminary stage, with the main competition and finals yet to come.
Therefore, unless a guest requested it, the deck was changed approximately every half hour.
Just then, after the dealer had changed to a new deck and shuffled it, the stylish youth requested to cut the cards.
Casinos permit the request to cut the cards.
However, the moment the stylish youth began to cut the cards, I suddenly noticed... his posture and technique for cutting the cards were not quite right!
Normally, when cutting cards, hands would grasp the two shorter edges of the deck and cut them vertically.
But the stylish youth did not do this.
He was cutting using the horizontal edges.
The scene of cutting with horizontal edges is mostly seen when dealers, dealers in dark rooms, or cheaters shuffle cards, performing a single-handed horizontal cut and stack, which looks very cool and flashy.
But in reality, if the technique of cutting with horizontal edges is practiced well and thoroughly, it allows for the seamless execution of flicking and stealing cards in the instant of the cut!
Compared to cutting with vertical edges, the biggest characteristic of cutting with horizontal edges is that as long as you are not intentionally trying to conceal something while picking up and cutting cards...
When starting with horizontal edge cutting, the area of the playing cards that the palm can cover is slightly larger than with vertical edge cutting.
This slight extra area might seem insignificant to ordinary people.
But to a cheater, it represented a great opportunity.
To use a popular saying from later generations, it meant: there was a lot of room for maneuver.
As long as one's finger strength was sufficient, even under the watchful eyes of professionals, it was easy to steal and conceal cards invisibly in an instant!
Knowledge of such relatively obscure card-cutting techniques was taught to me by Uncle Tuo.
He warned me that cheaters are cunning and unpredictable, especially those without any moral bottom line.
To win, they would go to any lengths, constantly exploring the potential of their ten fingers.
In gambling, whenever encountering unusual shuffling, cutting, or dealing techniques, one must be extra vigilant.
If you cannot see through it, it is better to lose a little money first rather than act rashly.
Having a bet is not losing!
As long as it's not the final moment, the small winnings from before are not money, but paper!
...
After understanding the stylish youth's actions, I did not immediately call out to catch him cheating.
This was because the dealer had not yet started dealing the cards.
Who knew what card the stylish youth had stolen, or if he could use it in this round.
It was only after the cards were dealt normally, and he had successfully swapped cards and won the round, that catching him red-handed would be the most secure.
According to the preliminary round rules, if a contestant reported another contestant and was caught red-handed, the reported party's points would automatically be transferred to the reporting party.
Therefore, it was not too late to fatten him up before taking him down!
The card game began, and everyone played as before.
In this round, I was still the last player.
After the players before me placed their bets, the stylish youth, uncharacteristically, did not bet blind but chose to look at his cards.
I knew he wanted to confirm if the card he had stolen earlier could be used in this round.
If not, he would wait for the next round.
To avoid suspicion, after looking at his cards, the stylish youth smiled slightly and said, "The previous few hands were too aggressive; let's play it safe for a couple of rounds!"
"You guys play, you guys play!"
For the others who were unaware of the situation, having one less direct competitor in a round could only be beneficial.
After all, the probability of one in five is higher than one in six by less than 4 percentage points.
Therefore, no one paid attention to the stylish youth's unusual behavior of looking at his cards without betting blind.
I also pretended not to know and placed my blind bet as usual.
Due to an unexpected turn of events regarding the accumulation of points, I played the next few hands by the book, without any tricks.
Thus, after several rounds of wins and losses,
Soon, a new round arrived.
At the beginning of this round, the stylish youth again chose to look at his cards without betting blind.
Unlike the previous few rounds, this time after looking at his cards, he did not discard them but chose to call the bet.
Calling with an exposed card, depending on the blind bets of the players before him, meant betting fifty to call one hundred.
After a moment of feigned hesitation, the stylish youth called one hundred.
I knew his chance had arrived.
He didn't know that my chance had also arrived!
Instead of continuously gambling for wins and losses round by round, it was better to directly snatch points from the stylish youth.
However, before that, I had to feed him a little more.
After all, pigs are only truly delicious when slaughtered at their fattest!
With this thought, when it was my turn to bet, I directly called the maximum bet of one hundred.
I don't know if I should say the stylish youth was lucky or unlucky.
After I called the bet, even though some people chose to look at their cards without calling, the moment they looked, they all chose to call with exposed cards!
After a round, only the tattooed woman and I folded due to bad cards, while the stylish youth and two others continued to call and raise bets in turn...
Before long, the scoring referee called a halt to the competition.
According to the tournament rules, unlimited consecutive betting was only allowed when two players remained.
In any round with more than two players, if each player's cumulative called bets exceeded ten thousand points, the scoring referee would stop the game, and the dealer would intervene to determine the winner immediately!
This measure was to prevent contestants from colluding privately and engaging in dirty tactics like "two ghosts playing cards."
The so-called immediate win determination meant that everyone would reveal their cards in sequence, and the winner would be determined instantly!