Story: You Bet!

Here's a thread I've been meaning to update for a while. If there's anything in it that doesn't make sense, please let me know.

 Thread continues from here.




“What are we wagering?” Shino asked. He glanced towards Toshiko and Tomoko, and felt a little guilty for not immediately starting the game. But still, he couldn’t make it seem like he was losing his cool. Those that lost their cool first in a game would soon thereafter lose the game. Maintain self control, go at your own pace. It won’t do them any good if he lost the psychological war before the game even began!

“To destroy your dignity as you have destroyed mine is victory enough!” Yumako declared. “But we shall make it so that the loser must obey all commands given by the winner for one whole year! After all, the lovely Yumako could not wager any money for the club had none left to spare. No matter! The fool has no choice but to accept this wager if only to save these two girls from humiliation! As if association with him was not humiliation enough!”

What a strange, strange girl. “I accept these terms, but don’t think for a second I’m letting you pick the ref! Who knows what sort of signals you might have set up beforehand!”

“What a blithering idiot, to think that I would employ such an obvious underhanded strategum! The judge I have chosen is none other than... Toshito Takimoto!”

“What?!” Toshiko yelled, though her yell was almost completely ignored by the towel she was wearing slipping for just the briefest of seconds. “Why me?! Are you crazy?!”

“The loud and violent supporter of the vile scourge thinks she has the place to call others insane, but had best be careful lest her rant reveals more than intended! Of course you! The lovely Yumako explained, it is impossible for you to have pre-determined any form of signals as he has falsely accused myself of establishing! For, to put it simply, you did not know the rules of this game until now and nor did you even know that you would be playing it! Therefore, I can trust that you will do the right thing. Especially since, if you happen to be caught assisting his victory, you shall receive a second dose of my special formula, and no secondary towel to cover yourself! Yumako restrained herself from laughing, for there would be time for that later when her enemies lay before her cowering at her cunning!”

And then there was the psychological factor to consider as well. With Toshiko centre stage, it put that much more pressure on him to win the game. Alright. Fine.

“That is acceptable,” Shino said. Toshiko shot him a look that ought to have killed him stone dead, but then he said “The more time we spend arguing over the referee, the less time we have to play the game. Let’s get this done!”

Shino picked up his deck and gave it a cursory shuffle. He looked at the card on top, and slid it face down towards Toshiko. He didn’t plan on letting any psychological trick pick his card for him. His luck would do just fine. Still, for his luck to pick that particular card... it was pretty amusing.

Yumako passed her own choice over, and Toshiko put them both face down in front of her. It felt like an eternity had passed, but now they were finally ready to play the game!

Stage one of the game was to draw five cards. Then two had to be selected. Shino looked at the five he had picked: 3 of Clubs, 10  of Hearts, 5 of Spades, 6 of Clubs, 4 of Spades. Looking over the rules made one thing quite apparent. It was to the advantage of both players to play as broad as they could get. One suit would have to be left in the cold regardless of the hand, but it was to the advantage of the players to lead with the most varied cards, and the highest valued cards. In this portion of the game it broke down to a more complicated rock-paper-scissors.

He could hardly lose the game in just the first hand, so Shino decided quickly. His initial assumptions regarding the game would be proved either true or false fairly quickly, and from there he could develop his own strategies to counter whatever Yumako had come up with. Thus, he passed over the 10 of Hearts, 6 of Clubs and 5 of Spades.

According to the order of suits, spades beats diamonds beats clubs beats hearts beats spades. Each suit being defeated by the immediately preceding, and winning over the immediately following but not affecting the other suit in any way. Given the hand he played, then there were several different possibilities that could play out, which depended entirely on what she played and assuming that she wound up playing three different suits.

The first was  “Spade, Heart, Club”, which were the same suits he was playing. In that case, it would come down to a contest of the Clubs. Whichever was higher would win the round. Clubs was about the middle of the deck, making the odds of victory about equal in this case.

The second was “Spade, Heart, Diamond”, which handed him the win. Only his Heart would still be a valid card in the game, which meant his round.

The third was “Spade, Diamond, Club”, which made it a contest between his Spade and her Club. The Spade was fairly low, which made victory very unlikely in this given round.

The last was “Heart, Club, Diamond”, which was the worst possible combination. It would eradicate all of his cards, leaving only her Club left in the game. Her round.

It struck Shino then that each combination possible was left without a single suit, which could be quite telling in its own way. His lacked the Diamond, making it vulnerable to the Club suit, which certainly played out in his imagination of the possibilities that lay before him. He thus dubbed each combination in his own mind: Poverty lacked the Diamond, Weakness lacked the Club, Loneliness lacked the Heart and Sloth lacked the Spade. Yumako stared at her five cards, mumbling something to herself. Honestly, she couldn’t help narrating to herself, could she? That sort of behaviour would surely lead to her downfall at the end of this game. No question of it.

The cards were revealed, and the crowd gasped. Yumako had revealed a hand of Sloth. King of Clubs, Queen of Hearts and Seven of Diamonds. She had him beat even before suits came into play with a hand like that.

“Shino’s hand stood eradicated,” Yumako smirked. “It would seem that whatever luck had trailed him in his previous games, it would avail him not on this day! Let the Interrogation begin! My two questions are!” She pointed at him in a wide dramatic motion. “Is it a Heart? Is it a Club?”

“If I understand the rules correctly, I only need to deny one of those. In which case, it is not a Club.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Toshiko said. “And since he truthfully denied one of the questions, you sh-should shuffle your cards, and <b>hurry up about it already!</b>”

“His humiliation was only just beginning,” Yumako laughed. “How does it feel to begin your inevitable, slow crawl towards defeat?”

“Feels like normal,” Shino replied. “Well done on round one, but that doesn’t mean you’ll win round two!”

“We shall see soon enough,” Yumako replied, drawing five cards off the top of her freshly shuffled deck. No tricks in the shuffle so far as he could see. Yeah, just as he had thought. The strategy was far, far too straightforward for her to challenge him like this without a backup plan. Not with that sort of confidence. There really wasn’t any trick to the game that he could see... Which didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He’d just have to keep an eye out for it. Her club members hadn’t moved an inch since the game started... But then again, maybe her cheating plan was simply biding its time until it was more believable that she’d win? Nothing else for it but to keep right on playing... He’d figure it out soon enough. He’d always gotten it before. This time would be no different.

And then, the worst case scenario happened. At least where winning a round went. His entire hand was jet black! Not a Heart or Diamond in the bunch! Only two suits to play with. The best he could do was lay out a Jack of Clubs, Queen of Spades and the Ace of Spades. Lonely and Poor, huh? Well, not so much lately! Let’s see what she plays in retaliation!

5 of Spades, 7 of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds. Her Diamonds may have wiped his Clubs, but his Ace of Spades outstripped her Jack.

“It would seem that even fools are capable of victory!” Yumako sniffed. “Come now, you swine! Interrogate me if you dare!”

The strategy before him was so obvious that it seemed almost insulting. Tear down the suits, then go for the number. Say, use your first victory to eliminate one suit, replace it with another, and replace the second denied one with the last. Then start working on numbers until you got lucky, but... There had to be a better strategy than this. Something he wasn’t seeing! Some trap hiding in the rules that was waiting to pounce and devour him whole!

The more that a game felt like it was based entirely on luck, the more suspicious Shino got. But he could barely risk to take his time to figure out what it was. Not if he wanted to preserve these girl’s remaining shreds of dignity! Never mind their clothes!