After a pause, A Yao spoke coldly, "All in for one hand, Niuniu for another, and Blackjack for the third! Best of three."
"For the first hand, I'll deal the Stud, and for the second, Niuniu, you deal! The third hand, Blackjack... we'll just draw cards and compare ranks!"
"Sure, no problem."
Before I could even speak, Yu Shuang beside me had already agreed decisively on my behalf.
Seeing this, a flicker of leaping anger ignited in A Yao's eyes. He then stared intently at me, as if he could devour me alive.
It seemed this guy had transferred all his resentment for Yu Shuang onto me.
He stubbornly believed that Yu Shuang had replaced him because of me, completely failing to find fault with himself.
To be honest, if A Yao were truly strong, given Yu Shuang's calculating nature, she probably wouldn't have gone to such lengths to find me.
...
Taking out a brand-new, unopened deck of cards, I pretended to carefully unseal and inspect them. With a few swift movements, A Yao finished shuffling.
The moment he handed the cards to me, a fleeting, sinister smile crossed A Yao's lips. He then said in a deep voice, "Cut the deck."
Catching his expression, and looking at A Yao's face, which held no hidden hatred, my eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly.
It seemed this guy was really in a hurry! Before we even started dealing, he was already up to his little tricks.
Good thing I saw through him! It's just a jump shuffle, acting like it's the real deal!
I didn't expose A Yao. Since he was so blindly confident that he could treat me like a fool and openly mess around, I didn't need to hold back.
As A Yao handed the deck to me, I directly used a technique called "flower cutting" to thoroughly shuffle his already shuffled cards.
Flower cutting, as it's known, is the act of interweaving and shuffling someone else's shuffled deck.
It looked like random cutting with no discernible pattern, but in reality, there was a hidden order.
My "flower cutting" was so fast that A Yao didn't even get a clear look at what was happening. He just thought I was desperately scrambling his cards.
A hint of wild joy flashed in his eyes, and even the corners of his eyes involuntarily crinkled with a smug smile. A Yao laughed heartily, "Hahahaha! Just as I expected!"
"You brash novice, all you know is one shuffling technique! No wonder you could only occasionally win a hand or two when you were shuffling last time."
"Your haphazard cutting methods won't have any effect on me at all!"
With that, as if to provoke me, A Yao slightly raised his right hand holding the cards towards me.
Seeing this, I didn't offer any explanation. I simply replied calmly, "Vision determines perspective! Those frogs stuck at the bottom of a well, before they jump out, they all believe they are the masters of this world."
"But in reality... they are nothing!"
Hearing my words, A Yao's narrowed eyes immediately widened in fury.
His expression, shifting between uncertainty and surging anger, suddenly flashed with a cold, sharp glint, and then exuded a fierce killing intent.
"You sharp-tongued brat! Later, I'll make sure you get a good taste of my skills!"
After saying that, with a cold sneer, A Yao began to deal the cards.
The gameplay of Stud is actually quite simple. Five cards are compared by rank, from highest to lowest: Royal Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, High Card.
The difference between Stud and games like Zha Jin Hua and Niuniu is that, in addition to normal betting, Stud also has an "all-in" bet.
"All-in" means to bet everything you have.
In a normal game, Stud deals two cards in the first round, one face-up and one face-down. Players can bet, call, or fold based on the combination of their face-up and face-down cards.
Then, starting from the third card, an "all-in" option is added to the betting.
However, in the game between A Yao and me, since the rules were clarified in advance, there were no face-up or face-down cards.
All five cards were dealt one by one, and then we directly compared ranks!
After dealing the first card to me, and when it was his turn, A Yao's hand trembled slightly, as if beyond his control.
It was clear that although A Yao didn't understand my cutting technique and was just boasting to save face by saying it was useless, he was secretly afraid that I had messed up the cards he had shuffled using the jump shuffle.
Drawing out the card and revealing it, an Ace of Spades appeared.
The moment A Yao saw this Ace of Spades, his slightly tense expression gradually relaxed.
After the tension, his face showed a confident expression, and A Yao said with a smug smile, "Da Jianming, it seems your cutting didn't work! Hahaha~"
"With this one card, I can tell you clearly that you... are destined to lose!"
"..."
I was utterly speechless.
It seemed that A Yao not only treated others like fools but was himself a big fool!
Could it be that he had become so arrogantly paranoid that he believed no one in an insignificant small town like An Hai could possess a more skilled gambling technique than him?
This was exactly like the prototype of Kumārajīva in "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils"!
He thought he was invincible, only to be beaten and battered as soon as he stepped out, yet he stubbornly refused to admit it.
Man, stop kidding yourself!
You can't even recognize my perfect shuffle technique, achieved with ordinary methods, and you're already getting cocky with just an Ace of Spades?
I really don't know how this guy managed to hold back and pretend to be profound when playing Zha Jin Hua with Shi Jianguo and the others back then.
I ignored him and made a gesture to continue dealing.
As soon as the second card was dealt, A Yao impatiently flipped it over to reveal it.
Upon revealing it, it was the 2 of Diamonds.
"Pfft!"
The moment the 2 of Diamonds was revealed, Yu Shuang, who was watching from behind, couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"Impossible!!! There's no way!"
"When you cut the deck, the cards I wanted were all held firmly by me! If you had moved or cut them, I would have known!"
"The second card should have been the King of Spades!"
"You were just cutting randomly, there's no way you could have succeeded!!!"
At this moment, as if he had lost his soul, A Yao slumped onto the table, completely motionless.
The cigarette he was holding had burned down to the filter, and he was about to burn his fingers, but A Yao didn't seem to notice at all.
"Keep dealing! Maybe the King of Spades you wanted is in the third card."
Facing the crestfallen A Yao, I didn't feel the slightest bit of sympathy. Instead, I fanned the flames from the side.