<h4>Chapter 117: Poker yer</h4>
“What are you gonna do if you keep the apostle safe? Is an apostle like some soybean paste to ferment?”
“But…”
Sung-Woon knew that it was mostmon for the yers of The Lost World to have a conservative y style. That wasn’t a problem in itself.
A match of The Lost World was long, and due to that, the emotional aftereffect of losing was big, and the desire to win great.
ying safe was the obvious choice. But Sung-Woon believed being moderate was important at all times.
Eldar asked what he meant.
“What I’m saying is a yer’s style could be divided into two—high risk high return, and low risk low return.”
Eldar nodded.
“Then let’s say there are two poker yers at about the same level of skill, but one chases big benefits even though it may be risky, and the other ys it safe and seeks only small benefits.”
“Okay.”
“As they continue to y poker, which of the two do you think would win?”
Eldar blinked.
“Is that a question with an answer?”
“Yes.”
“You said they have the same abilities… So wouldn''t it be a tie?”
Sung-Woon stayed silent for a moment.
“I did say it has an answer, but it’s just a simple quiz. There’s no need to overthink it.”
“So a tie isn’t an option?”
“It isn’t.”
Eldat hesitated and then said, “I do think you’re going to say I’m wrong if I say the conservative yer will win…”
“It doesn’t really matter, but there’s no need to give an answer that you don’t understand yourself, is there?”
“...Wouldn’t the person who yed safe win in the end? I’ve barely yed poker, so I don’t really know much about it. Still, I do think I’ve seen quite a few cases where yers lose after making an extreme bluff…”
As if he had been waiting for that, Sung-Woon replied, “The yer who takes risks wins.”
Eldar seemed to have expected the response.
Sung-Woon then shamelessly urged Eldar, “What are you doing? Hurry and ask why.”
“...Why is that?”
Sung-Woon replied, “ying safe is noticeable.”
“What?”
“Cards are continuously rotated in poker, so there’s no way to know what cards I’ll get, what the opponent will get, and whether I have a better hand than them. But if one chooses to y safe, what do you think will happen?”
“They would be read.” Eldar nodded. “But Neb, in my opinion, wouldn’t that be the same for a yer who insists on risky y? If someone keeps insisting on raising the bet even though they have a bad hand, wouldn’t they also be read?”
“Yes, they would. But right now, they’re against someone who ys safely.”
“Yes, so?”
“Then the person who chooses to y safe wouldn’t respond to the risky y. Because if their opponent really does have a better hand, they would be in trouble.”
Eldar’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not making a y on words, are you?”
“Did you even hear my exnation with those pointy ears?”
Eldar grabbed the tip of their ears and said, “That’s only how they look.”
Sung-Woon then added, “Anyway, that’s how the game called poker is made. Someone ying safe may keep raising to follow their opponent, but if they get a bad hand and end up making a call instead, they’ll be exposing the cards they have. That’s what ying safe is. Of course, you should also keep in mind the possibility of that being a trick itself, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.”
Eldar thought for a moment.
Eldar didn’t have much experience ying poker, but applied to other games, Sung-Woon’s exnation didn’t seem inurate. In other words, ying safe meant missing even obvious opportunities, and risky y meant catching an opportunity after several tries.
“Hm, so what you’re saying is that poker is a game designed to be more advantageous to yers who y risky than safe, right?”
“Huh? No,” Sung-Woon replied. “Most games are like that. At least for games where there are uncertain variables and thus a need to predict and calcte probability.”
“If that’s true…why is that?”
Sung-Woon tilted his head as if he was questioning why Eldar would be asking such an obvious question.
“Because that’s more fun.”
“Oh.”
Sung-Woon continued to say, “But I’m not saying that you should y risky.”
“Right, you said moderately. May I ask what’s the standard for that?”
Sung-Woon immediately replied, “That’s a difficult question.”
“As expected.”
“Wouldn’t the process of getting to know that be the process of improving your skills in the game?”
Eldar then realized why Sung-Woon had sent Lakrak to the capital of Danyum by himself. As Eldar saw it, it was a dangerous move.
Of course, Sung-Woon fortunately knew that the five allies had been having frequent meetingstely. Lunda was a part of the meetings, so of course he would know. Due to it being part of a separate system, however, Lunda was unable to contact Sung-Woon in the meantime; Sung-Woon thus didn’t know when the meeting would end, or if all five of them were in attendance.
<i>‘If Crampus hadn’t attended today’s meeting?’</i>
Generally, yers tended to stay at ces where they could observe the important locations of their territory, such as the capitals.
When Lakrak appeared, Crampus would have released his creations and used lots of Faith points, which could put Lakrak in danger. And in the extreme case of losing Lakrak, that would be too great of a loss for Sung-Woon.
Therefore, Eldar considered the decision a gamble, andpared to the risk, the return seemed pretty low. A high risk and low return gamble. Eldar thought so because Crampus’s main troops weren’t in Deimerit, the capital of Danyum.
<i>‘Of course, breaking down the king’s castle in the capital and killing the king is pretty much the same as the checkmate move that would copse a country.’</i>
However, in The Lost World, if a war broke out, the real conductor would be the god, not the king. As long as the principle of causality was present, it was true that it would be more efficient for a god to ce an authority like a king to pass down theirmands, but that didn’t mean an existing army would just fall victim to an unexpected catastrophe. The army of thirty thousand Sung-Woon had to face remained where they were.
Regardless, Sung-Woon exined his strategy and said that although it was dangerous, it was a necessary move for victory.
And Sung-Woon agreed with Eldar’s thought after the exnation.
“That’s true.”
“Then it is in fact an impractical gamble.”
.
“Hm, well, the risk is high, but the return isn’t low.”
“Is there another gain I didn’t think of?”
Sung-Woon replied, “There’s many, but firstly, it’s now revealed that I’m not a user who ys the orthodox way, right? That in itself is a gain.”
“What?”
“Think about it.”
Sung-Woon tapped on the temple area of his mask with his index finger.
“Everyone sits around a table and ys poker. They all check the chips they have and then the cards they receive. They look at their cards and think it’s not bad. They think it would be okay for them to check the next card. So everyone would call. But suddenly, thest person stands up and says they’re all-in. What would you do?”
“What about the cards in my hand?”
“They’re okay.”
“...I can’t lose all my money in the first round, so I would probably fold.”
Sung-Woon nodded.
“That’s reasonable.”
“Whew.”
Sung-Woon then asked the next question.
“But what if the guy who suddenly stood up keeps going all-in for all five rounds, even though their hands are just average? What would you do?”
“...Huh?” Eldar stared into the distance for a moment. “Is that possible?”
“What part?”
Eldar said, “Well, didn’t that person go all-in because they had good hands?”
“You don''t know that. There is a possibility that the person had gotten good enough hands that they would be confident in winning for all five rounds, but that’s the wrong way to think about it. They might have bluffed a few times, and they might have even been bluffing the whole time.”
“Then…” After thinking about it, Eldar replied, “I would fold until I get cards with a high chance of winning.”
Sung-Woon shrugged.
“That’s not a very good choice.”
“Is that so?”
“That kind of person would make the other yers conflicted. There could be some who wait until they get a good hand to go against that person, and if that person goes all-in again, some might just go with it regardless of what cards they have. However, having more chips is advantageous in poker. That all-in yer would have received the small bets gained from the others calling and folding in the meantime, thus creating a gap between them and the other yers. And after that, that yer would be able to start at an advantageous point even without going for such an extreme strategy.”
Eldar nodded.
“So what you did was also…”
“Not to the extent of an all-in,” Sung-Woon said. “I’m just saying I did it because it seemed worth trying.”
***
Wisdom sent Crampus a simple message of constion and told him he should be more cautious about his preparations for war, and about Lakrak moving alone.
“I didn’t know Neb would go this far. Using an apostle for assassination was predictable, but ck Scale doesn’t have any other strategy resources like Lakrak. Normally, a yer wouldn’t use an apostle in this way unless they had a backup apostle.”
Crampus got over the mental shock rtively easily.
“He did overdo it. The royal family wasn’t wiped out, and the castle wasn’tpletely destroyed either. The chain ofmand is still fine, and the army of thirty thousand remains as they were.”
Of course, the damage done was a lot worse than what Crampus had described. Lakrak the apostle had exerted a divine punishment, and even the god of the Satyrs was unable to prevent that. Many people were saying that Lakrak had struck Deimerit like lightning.
As numerous rumors spread, fear of ck Scale grew. And because of that, the other countries were agitated. Aside from Asbestos, where a civil war had already begun and driven the country into a mess, the yers of Golden Eye, Red Fruit, and even Mangul had to keep giving revtions for the sake of internal control. yers like AR1026 even had to send their creations as guardians.
The five allies decided to stop having meetings during the war, which they had regrly held to share news with each other in the beginning. And Lunda was bewildered to see this happen.
<i>‘Is it okay to do so? It’s true that the meeting itself has be a weakness, but don’t we meet regrly to bring the alliance together? It’s not my ce to say, but it’s likely the meetings were also meant to prevent betrayal. We agreed that our number one concern was the copse of the alliance, didn’t we?’</i>
Everyone was fretting, trying to settle the situation that Lakrak had created, but in Lunda’s perspective, problems seemed to arise once they all became more attached to their capitals out of worry that Lakrak would attack them.
<i>‘Of course, it’s a relief that I personally have less to worry about now.’</i>
Lunda’s heart was slowly leaning toward Sung-Woon and away from the five allies.