Chapter 22: The Depth of the Chip Pool

Seeing Sister Liu go all-in, Lin Sizhi and Qin Yao naturally had no reason to continue raising, so they each chose to call and reveal their cards.

Sister Liu held a junk hand with a King high.

Qin Yao held a pair of Queens.

Lin Sizhi held a junk hand with a Jack high.

【Player's chips exhausted. Please leave the table.】

Watching the mechanical arm sweep all the chips on the table toward Qin Yao, Sister Liu left the gambling table looking somewhat despondent.

However, she held no resentment.

Looking at the chips before her, Qin Yao couldn't help but feel invigorated: "Great! I finally won a round!"

In this round, she had earned 19,000 points, which was an incredible figure.

However, when she looked at Lu Xinyi, Qin Yao's heart skipped a beat.

Because the corners of Lu Xinyi's mouth were slightly upturned, as if she didn't care much at all.

Lin Sizhi looked at her: "It's two against three now. Can you still smile?"

Lu Xinyi shook her head slightly: "You should worry about yourself. Is bluffing the only way you know how to play? Count your chips and see how many more rounds you can last."

Clearly, Lu Xinyi's confidence stemmed from the depth of the chip pool.

She and Lyu Mingxuan still had plenty of chips, enough to handle the upcoming games with ease.

In contrast, after losing two massive rounds, Lin Sizhi had already lost a full 13,000 points.

Even if he sold blood, Lin Sizhi could at most obtain forty to fifty thousand points. Following this style of play, how many rounds could he possibly sustain?

...

*Tick.*

*Tick.*

The countdown on the large screen was still ticking; 21 minutes remained.

The game had reached the seventh mini-round.

The young man to Qin Yao's right had been forced to leave in the previous round after exhausting his chips, leaving the remaining four players with varying degrees of success and failure.

This was an inevitable outcome, as he held the fewest chips.

Under Lin Sizhi's continuous, mindless raising, he either lost the ante without calling, or called only to be harvested by Lu Xinyi or Lyu Mingxuan. After struggling to persist for a few rounds, he could only leave the table.

But clearly, the one who had lost the most was not him, but Lin Sizhi.

Lin Sizhi had continued his previous playstyle: after seeing his cards, he would always mindlessly bet at least 4,000 points, followed by a reckless call.

It was just that his deliberation time after seeing the cards was getting longer, and his willingness to raise was gradually diminishing.

By now, he had lost nearly 40,000 points.

Over 10,000 of that had been won by Qin Yao, while the rest had been divided between Lu Xinyi and Lyu Mingxuan.

Looking at the growing pile of chips in front of her, Lu Xinyi's long-held anxiety finally eased.

As the chip counts fluctuated, the possibility of Lin Sizhi making a comeback was dropping rapidly.

As long as they exhausted Lin Sizhi's chips, she and Lyu Mingxuan would be two against one for the remaining three rounds.

At that point, they would hold an absolute advantage and could certainly force Qin Yao to cough up her winnings with interest.

By then, Qin Yao's only choice would be to forfeit and lose the antes for the three rounds.

Lyu Mingxuan was the dealer for this round. After looking at his hand, he chose to raise.

It was Lin Sizhi's turn.

"I've been unlucky for six rounds. Surely it's my turn to get lucky?"

He sighed silently and picked up his cards listlessly to take a look.

Then, his eyes instantly brightened.

But soon, Lin Sizhi's expression returned to calm, even tinged with a hint of melancholy.

After agonizing for a full minute, just as the countdown was about to end, he finally pulled his right hand out of his pocket and slammed six 2,000-point chips onto the table.

"Raise!!"

Qin Yao looked at him, considered it for a moment, and then carefully selected from the chips she had won to place 13,000 points.

"I also raise."

Lyu Mingxuan's brow twitched in shock.

Because this amount of chips was indeed a bit startling.

More importantly, according to his estimates, Lin Sizhi had at most forty-some thousand chips, but now, the total amount Lin Sizhi had put forward had reached just over fifty thousand.

This completely exceeded his and Lu Xinyi's initial expectations and disrupted their judgment.

The countdown on the table continued to tick. Within a mere minute, it was difficult to make a quick decision.

Fortunately, he wasn't the one who had to decide right now.

Lyu Mingxuan looked at Lu Xinyi, only to find that the corners of her mouth were uncontrollably curling upward.

She even couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Your acting at critical moments is far too poor. Are you putting on a show for me?"

Lu Xinyi quickly counted out 13,000 points from the chips on the table and placed them in the pot.

"I bet you're bluffing. And besides, your pockets should be empty; you shouldn't have any chips left."

Lu Xinyi stared intently into Lin Sizhi's eyes.

Lin Sizhi did not meet her gaze, but instead looked at the countdown on the table: "Why do you think I'm bluffing?"

Lu Xinyi smiled: "Because people have path dependency. At the most tense and critical moments, people often choose the way of playing they are most skilled at and most instinctive. Clearly, you are a player who likes to bluff, and you are quite stubborn. After your first bluff fails, you immediately use the 'hidden in plain sight' logic to continue with a second and third bluff. An average player could easily be intimidated by you, especially since you can throw out large amounts of chips without changing expression, breaking through the opponent's psychological defense. That is indeed an excellent gambler's quality. If you had intimidated me in this round, I would be at a psychological disadvantage for every remaining round. But unfortunately, you missed one very crucial factor: the depth of the chip pool. You are working hard to create an illusion, as if your chip pool is infinitely deep, as if you can easily pull tens or even hundreds of thousands of chips from your pocket, giving your opponent the illusion that 'our chip pools are not on the same level,' thereby continuously accumulating fear. And when you suddenly throw out an unreasonably large amount of chips far exceeding expectations, most people will feel they have misjudged. Within a single minute, it is difficult to make a quick decision to call. Not only that, you even put on a performance while looking at your cards, displaying a 'self-contradictory' posture. This will exacerbate the opponent's suspicion; whether they guess your hand is big or small, it will only make their thinking more chaotic. But unfortunately, I won't consider those issues. Because in this game, bloodletting has a limit, and exchanging chips has a limit. 400ml of blood is the safety line, 600ml is the limit, and 800ml carries an extremely high risk of death. Since your chip pool cannot be infinitely deep, then this final all-in must be a bluff. To make matters worse... my luck happens to be quite good this round, so I've decided to call until the end."

Lin Sizhi was silent for a moment: "But my hand might be even better? After all, my luck has been terrible for the previous six rounds; it's time for a bit of luck, isn't it?"

Lu Xinyi laughed: "Learn some probability. Every hand is an independent event. In true probability, there is no such thing as a law of conservation of luck."

As they spoke, Lyu Mingxuan's thinking time expired, and he folded. Lin Sizhi had only a few seconds of thinking time left.

With a calm expression, Lin Sizhi reached into his suit pocket once more.

"Is that so? Then what if... my hand really is very good, and my chip pool really is infinitely deep?"

He grabbed something in his pocket and then gently placed three 1,000-point chips in the betting area.

"Raise, 3,000."

Qin Yao also silently placed 3,000: "I also raise."

Clearly, Qin Yao was just cooperating with Lin Sizhi, placing a raise of the 1,000-point difference to ensure the cards wouldn't be revealed.

Lu Xinyi's expression froze; she was clearly surprised by these 3,000 chips.

But she quickly recovered, sighing and shaking her head helplessly: "Fine, you certainly know how to squeeze out the toothpaste, hiding these chips away. Are you planning to waste time? In that case..."

Lu Xinyi once again took five 2,000-point chips from the pile in front of her.

"I raise another ten thousand."

Ten thousand chips, in Lu Xinyi's view, was an amount Lin Sizhi absolutely could not squeeze out again. His only choice next would be to go all-in and reveal the cards.

However, Lin Sizhi reached into his pocket again. After fumbling around, he pulled out four 2,000-point chips.

"Raise."

Lin Sizhi's two bets were 3,000 and 8,000 respectively, exactly 1,000 more than Lu Xinyi's.

Lu Xinyi was stunned; she couldn't fathom where these chips were coming from.

Lin Sizhi's suit pocket was like a treasure bowl with infinite chips; no matter how many times he reached in, he could always pull more out.

And even worse, Lin Sizhi's chips were always exactly 1,000 more than Lu Xinyi's.

This meant that if Lu Xinyi folded now, she would never see what Lin Sizhi's hand actually was, and all the chips she had thrown in would go to waste.

But if she continued to call, she had no way of guessing how many more chips Lin Sizhi could produce, or how many she would have to bet.

"No, calm down. Even if Lin Sizhi still has chips, Qin Yao shouldn't have many left..."

And as long as Qin Yao ran out of chips and could no longer raise, she would also be forced to reveal her cards, allowing them to see Lin Sizhi's hole cards.

However, in the next second, a scene occurred that Lu Xinyi did not expect.

The chips on Qin Yao's table were completely insufficient, but she also reached into her pocket and produced exactly 8,000 points in chips.

"Raise."