Vol 3 Chapter 9 (1/2)

Book III:

THE THIRD EXHAUST

Chapter 9

CRANK SHAFT

01

To survive—that hat Balot thought in response to the cards that were dealt to her

She had no intention of being killed a second ti up some resistance Instead she was

here so that she could grasp her enemy’s heart in her hand, and in order to do that she had to stay in the

gaame that the man called Shell had drawn her into She had to

ame her own and solve her case

Blackjack—that was the naame in the casino

The dealer dealt the cards, starting froht The first card Balot was dealt was the queen of

clubs Worth ten points, a good card, a useful card The suit was irrelevant in this game

–Wow, clubs really are your suit They helped you win at poker too, didn’t they? Oeufcoque’s

words floated up inside the glove covering her left hand

–Is this a good omen, do you think?

–Well, it’s not a bad one

Oeufcoque said this to cal to these words, clasping

her hands together as if in prayer, and watched as the dealer’s upcard was revealed Unfortunately, it was

the ace of clubs

–How’s that not bad?

She couldn’t stop herself Inside her gloves, though, Oeufcoque just shrugged, she thought

Then Balot’s second card was dealt to her Another club But a 6 this time Her total was now sixteen

Her eyes flew involuntarily to the dealer’s second card The card that faced down, next to the ace

She heard the voice of the ht of the table, bold and resolute, calling

for another card—hit

Balot was about to look toward him, but Oeufcoque quickly stopped her

–You don’t need to worry about other people’s cards just yet

Balot looked down at her cards The problem wasn’t the cards but Balot herself Suddenly her heart

started racing What if she got it wrong? For the first time since she had entered the casino, Balot felt

nervous She tried to remember what sort of number sixteen was, but found that she couldn’t What had the

Doctor said to her again? Was it a good number or a bad number?

She heard thestay The old man stayed too

The wo

“Hit” The Doctor’s voice, right next to her Her heart skipped a beat It took every ounce of her selfcontrol

not to look at the Doctor’s cards Her heart pounded hard, and she was in turmoil A veritable

earthquake

“Stay,” said the Doctor He was going to weather this one out

Balot raised her head Her eyes met the dealer’s She was sucked in completely

–Hit

The dealer dealt her third card in a well-rehearsedthe card over in front of her with

machinelike precision Jack of spades She felt like she had been stabbed by the spade itself

“Bust” The dealer reported the outco ept away Her cards and her chips, all

gone in an instant And with it, the game, at least for this round The dealer collected them all and

deposited thenated places, then turned his hidden card over

It was a 7 According to the rules, this hteen—the ace and the 7 This meant that Balot

would have lost regardless of whether she stayed or hit So hitting ht decision after

all

Or was it?

She heard a hu sound It was the monocled man Had Balot not called just then, the one-eyed

jack—jack of spades—would have coh luck

In blackjack, where you chose to sit—and who

your game considerably Sos for everyone else and in

particular the players right next to you—Balot re like this This

factor worked in the dealer’s favor

And yet aBalot reproached herself

The dealer divided up the winners and the losers in h the

contents of your pockets—things you needed, things you didn’t This time it was the Doctor and the old

man who had won Their money doubled

–Let’s move on to the first step of our plan , Oeufcoque said as if the preceding game had never

happened

–What was I supposed to do back there? Did I ht move?

–The first thing you need to do is be able to work out the answer to that question for yourself

That hardly answered her question Balot silently placed her next chips down She felt bitterly

disappointed

Balot’s next card was a 2 She ignored the suit this time Then a 5—total seven

The dealer’s upcard was a jack Ten points And so the gaain, based on the cards in

Balot’s hand versus the upcard

–I’ to display your funds, Oeufcoque’s words floated up

First, Balot’s entire bankroll Next to that, her working capital, divided into ten equal parts Then, the

ame Finally, the total amount she had spent so far

That was the ement systemdevised by Oeufcoque

The basis of a sound strategy in a casino was neither a head for figures nor an eye for human

psychology It was more fundamental than that; you needed an effective system to keep track of your

money

According to the odds, it was not possible in the long run to turn the house edge around—statistically

the nu run In the short run, it was perfectly possible

for the player to enjoy a winning streak The key factor was this: when riding the crest of the wave of a

winning streak, keep track of the funds in play and h the drier

patches

Balot had just put down three hundred dollars in chips The same amount as in the previous hand The

as It was just a tactical sum, an expeditionary force

Balot’s total bankroll at that precise moment was just over 630,000

So one tenth of this would be her “h for one session

This worked out to be slightly over 63,000 They’d take a break once this was used up one way or

another; that was the idea

The maximum bet on any particular hand would be one twentieth of the mini-bank, and the minimum

bet—ie the basic unit—one tenth of that

In other words, at the moment Balot should start with bets of just over three hundred dollars

When the maximum bet per hand was one tenth of the mini-bank, there would be a one percent

possibility of losing all their capital If, though, they adjusted their bets according to the flow of play and

the fluctuation in their funds, it would be possible to limit the chance of bankruptcy to less than 001

percent

–Well, let’s start of by seeing e can do

After the nue came up on her left before

disappearing in an instant

That was the moment Balot realized why she was so nervous

It was because there was so little that she could do The only thing the players had any influence over

in these games was the chips Partly to pree, players weren’t even allowed

to touch their own cards

Not for this gaical warfare of poker or the finely tuned sensory perception involved

in roulette All there was to do here alk the tightrope of uncertainty over and over again

This hy she felt unusually i swept away by the action

But the key to successfully traversing that tightrope wasn’t just luck It was a ful activity

precisely because it was possible to separate out the factors that you could influence from the factors that

you couldn’t This was the lesson—indeed, the first principle—that Oeufcoque and the Doctor had

hammered into her fromday one

This was all reverberating inside her now, in her mind, in her heart

Before long it was Balot’s turn She looked at her cards again A 2 and 5, a total of seven

–Hit

A no-brainer There wasn’t a single card she could draw at this point that would o bust In

fact, for all intents and purposes her next card could be considered her real second card The card came,

and it was an 8—and now her total was fifteen

The upcard was a jack, ten points The dealer had to keep on drawing until he reached seventeen or

higher, those were the rules The only way Balot could ith her fifteen was if the dealer bust

Wouldn’t it be better for her to draw another card, then? This, rather than any complicated statistical

calculation, was Balot’s rationale for her next move

–Hit

Her heart missed a beat as she proclaimed her next move In a different way from the previous hand,

though; she felt that this was somehow her choice this time, rather than a move she made involuntarily

while swept up in the flow of the game

The fourth card was revealed right in front of her eyes in a swift movement The number was 7 Her

total enty-two

“Bust”

Her chips dissipated into the ether, just like with the previous hand

It stands to reason, see at the table Why, after all, should it be easy for a little

girl like her to ame? The dealer and the other players could have

told her that

That was fine with Balot It was no more than the truth, after all Part of her did really feel this way,

and it seemed for ain the chair

The dealer drew his card and it was a 6—his total was now sixteen As per his obligation under the

rules he drew another A 5 Total twenty-one There were sighs all around

Had Balot not drawn her last card, the dealer would have gone bust, and everyone at the table would

have won

Instead, as a result of Balot’s actions, everyone lost Having said that, Balot was no longer bothered

If you wanted to win, you should have predicted what cards I was going to draw, she thought,

unapologetic

Everyone’s chips were collected, and a new gaan After that Balot lost two more hands, won

one, and then see alternate hands

When you were destined to lose a hand you lost it, no matter how you bet or what you tried—that was

blackjack

You could lose because you had drawn a card, and you could lose because you hadn’t

You could draw on a twelve and bust, or you could stay on a sixteen and lose because of it Then there

were those hands where you were always going to lose whether you drew another card or not, because

the dealer simply had a better hand This happened not once or twice, but repeatedly

On the other hand, it could go the other way—you didn’t have to do anything and could simply win

over and over again Whatever you did, whatever the other players did Call it luck if you like, but such

luck didn’t just coht, and people had struggled with tactics and

strategy to work out the optih blood, sweat, and tears before finally reaching the

depths of the game

The battle raged on, a microcosmof Balot’s inner turmoil

Win or lose, it was all in vain if she didn’t e to keep a cool head and a steady hand

–Concentrate on your breathing

Oeufcoque had to remind her constantly of this

Balot knew for herself that this was the best way for her to stay in control

Even when she had learned to use a gun, the first thing sheThe Doctor

had drummed it into her that it hat she needed to focus on at all times; when she was first taken to

the hideaway, after the trial, whenever she had a headache

Balot concentrated on the feeling of what it was like when she was at her most relaxed and tried to

re, then exhaling She had always thought that breathing

was one of those things that happened of its own accord, varying fro on the

circumstances, but when she actually put her mind to it and focused she was surprised at how much she

could control her breath and how much in turn that improved her composure and her mood

When she breathed deeply into her stomach, she felt relief When she breathed into her chest, she felt

hope When she breathed into her shoulders she felt her whole pulse quickening, and when she breathed

focusing on her pulse she felt a strong sense of identity, of knowing the ins and outs of her body

Her aim noas to ensure that she would be able to breathe consistently and calardless of

whether she won or lost at the table

Turning her mind to thisdown

Curiously, it wasn’t even the high stakes that wereher feel tense and uncomfortable

Six hundred thousand dollars—an unthinkable sumof money in her previous life

As the Doctor said, it wouldn’t be at all strange if she’d wanted to just take the money and run,

forgetting all about the case

But the hatred that she felt burning away inside her was not about to accept the consolation prize of

mere money

The hatred that she felt was in fact for the money itself, and also for those people ere its slave

Virtually everyone she kneas rief one way or another

Not only that, the ot sucked in and the

that money would solve all their problems The more money you had the more you could do with it, true,

but also theto you

This hy it was no longer simply a question of money for Balot She had been hurt by other

peoples’ pursuit of money, but noas time to turn the tables and to use that very money that had hurt

her as her tool to do it Balot was fired up, but she wouldn’t let this fire disrupt her game She breathed in

deeply, deterht decisions no matter what the

game threw at her

She was a long ay from certain victory—indeed, her first mini-bank was slowly but surely

being eaten away At the moment it was a case of one step forward, two steps back But neither were

there any unpleasant surprises—it was all going according to their calculations It was all there for the

taking All there was to do was hope for the best and plow on, best foot forward

As they were approaching the thirtieth hand, Balot suddenly realized so

So was up with the dealer She tried to pinpoint exactly what

When her turn ca to test her observation

–Hit

For a moment, the dealer was thrown off-kilter One of the reasons for this was Balot’s cards

A queen and 9 Nineteen in total It was hardly the usual thing to draw on this sort of hand

The dealer flipped the card over It was a 2 Balot’s rather irrational move had worked in her favor,

and she felt a disturbance in the breathing patterns of everyone at the table

Her total enty-one—her first since sitting down at the table

The dealer turned over his hidden card, which was a 10

Total: twenty Balot was the only one to win All eyes were on Balot as the dealer calmly paid out her

winnings

It didn’t take long, though, before everyone dismissed it as a fluke and went back about their business

Balot hadn’t expected to win That fact probably registered on her face

She was onto soh—she was sure of it As she received her winnings, she thought about

it

Mainly about whether it was sonificance was Not yet, anyway

–Oeufcoque, there’s so I want to ask you

–What is it?

–I think the dealer is tiht moment

–Ai?

–Yeah, waiting until the instant we finish fullyexhaling before he deals

So far, it was a fragile hypothesis—had Oeufcoque dismissed it out of hand as ludicrous, she wasn’t

sure she would have been able to defend it

But Oeufcoque’s answer struck an unexpected chord

–How did you work that out?

As if to say that he was just about to tell her that fact himself Balot’s suspicions were confirmed, and

her vague hunch beca important

–I deliberatelytook a long breath He waited for

–Well, seeing as you’ve e of our work here is

complete You’re on course to secure victory with your oo hands

Half of her was delighted by the unexpected words of encouragement and praise, but at the same time

she was ed than ever—she seemed so near and yet so far

–That’s not true at all I’ to turn it around

–Don’t worry You don’t need to start winning yet All that’s ie is that you lose

in aa role in the Doctor’s plan And you in yet With me here to

back you up

Now Balot was fired up again She felt supported—as if there were a strong pillar inside her, supple

and flexible, there to prop her up, unbreakable

–Now that this hand is over, there’ll be a break

Hearing Oeufcoque’s words, Balot looked at the card shoe Sure enough, the clear red marker that she

had shoved into the pile of cards was noing, signifying an imminent reshuffle

–We’ll e of our plan after the shuf le

Balot squeezed both her hands tightly by way of reply

The game halted The dealer collected all the cards and started the shuffle in a series of smooth

movements

According to the tally that showed in her right palht hands had been played so

far Balot had only won seven of these Three were draws, and she had lost the rehteen hands

She was currently down 3,300

Conversation between the players broke out again

Balot watched the shuffle She felt that sheup—the reason he dealt in

te Whatever the reason, she had a gut feeling that she’d be able to start

using her abilities shortly She wasn’t about to surrender her fate to luck

As she was thinking the Doctor said, “I told you you’d enjoy yourself!” The fat lady next to him was

grinning in her direction too

Balot nodded A caled the lady in

conversation again He was saying that even an innocent young thing like Balot couldn’t resist the allure

of a ga for Balot’s somewhat unnatural manner

Before long the shuffle was over, and the dealer handed the red marker to the monocled man, who

placed it in the pile of cards The cards were cut, and round tas about to begin

–Tiive you the basic tactics

Oeufcoque’s words appeared in her pal symbols and

numbers started to appear on the other side Information on how to compare her hand with that of the

dealer

–I’ you more information

Balot quickly referenced her card against the chart on her hand

The roere her card totals, and the colu the two

shohat move would be tactically optimal under what circumstances

At the moment, her cards were 9 and 5, a total of fourteen The dealer’s upcard, 5

The table showed that the appropriate tactic in these circumstances was S—the symbol for stay

Balot would have played it differently, but she would have been wrong Under these circumstances,

the best option was not to battle it out but to sweat it out, however odd that seemed to her

She did as the chart indicated and gave the signal to stay

The dealer glanced at Balot as he turned over his hidden card A queen—bringing his total up to

fifteen

The dealer now had to draw another card—those were the rules, as his total was below seventeen He

drew a jack Total twenty-five—bust Balot was genuinely impressed

–And I could have sworn that I should have hit

–That would have been a mistake under those circumstances The most common value of a card in

this ga, queen, jack, and ten The cards in our hand

have little ef ect on the dealer’s chances of going bust According to a simple calculation the chance

of drawing a ten is 31 percent—four times as likely as any other card

–The ten factor, Balot answered Oeufcoque unconsciously She’d had all this explained to her

already, but it was different in real life, and she had had to experience it to believe it Balot straightened

herself up and tried to digest the implications of what had just happened

–So, when the dealer’s upcard is a five, he has a 43 percent chance of going bust That’s more than

two times out of every five When that happens and you don’t have a strong hand, your best chance of

winning is to hold tight and wait for the dealer to self-destruct

After the payouts were completed, the cards for the next hand were dealt Jack and 6, total sixteen

The dealer’s upcard was a 7

The relevant corner of the tactics grid was highlighted The symbol was H—hit

Another unexpectedBut she knew that this was

just because she had yet to fully absorb all the inforht, to assimilate it and

make it her own

Oeufcoque seemed to sense Balot’s self-reproach and juic behind this move

–If we stay on any number between twelve and sixteen when the dealer has an upcard of seven or

higher, we stand a 75 percent chance of losing Conversely, e have a total of seventeen or over

and the dealer has an upcard of between two and six, we’re better of staying—the odds are

overwhelly in our favor

–Seven up Seventeen or higher for the player, seven or higher for the dealer

Again the lessons that Balot had been taught ca back

–Exactly right Whereas the worst sort of hand for us is a fifteen or sixteen, e can expect to

lose Here, hitting reduces our chance of losing from 75 percent to 63 percent Better to move than

not

Balot obeyed and hit, drawing her third card

Unfortunately it was a king Well and truly bust

The dealer’s next card turned out to be a jack, also worth ten Total seventeen Whatever Balot had

done she would have lost Better to have gone out fighting and taken the chance to improve the odds, even

if she happened to have been unsuccessful this time

Blackjack was a losers’ game It was simply impossible to win all the time The key was not to expect

to win every hand but to play the odds so that you created conditions that were as favorable as possible

To win, a player needed great staying power—the force ofand

winding road

The next hand was a case in point Balot’s hand was a 10 and 5—and a fifteen was fully expected to

lose

The dealer’s upcard was a queen Not the ti, but

noasn’t the right ti defensively The bankroll was still nice and thick,

and even the first mini-bank was still intact, so it was no time to roll over and play dead

–Hit

The dealer glanced at Balot again He dealt her a 4

–Stay

It was Balot’s reflexes that spoke now Her new total was nineteen The dealer drew his card An 8

Balot and the monocled man were the only winners

For a brief ible, however slight She

exhaled, deeply

02

–I think the ti sos

Oeufcoque said this, attuned as he was to the subtleties of her feelings, in response to Balot’s

increasing interest in the players all around her He was now allowing Balot to progress, to do so

that he had previously forbidden

–Thanks It’s just that I really want to kno other people are playing She started to explain

herself, why she was getting so impatient, but Oeufcoque cut her off

–No need to apologize It really isup on all this It’s

on the early side to do so, but I really think you are ready to e

No sooner had the words floated up on Balot’s hand and registered with her than they disappeared,

replaced by a new set of tables There was now roughly six times as much information displayed as there

had been before Specifically tables showing the collated tactics of everyone at the table up to this point,

including the dealer And the results: how many hands won, how many lost

The monocled man was in the lead, with the old man and the Doctor not too far behind The lady and

Balot see hands in equal measure

Also shoas the regularity hich the dealer bust, roughly one in five times

The statistics thatto the

streak, and an i the crest of the wave of victory The question was

whether this was due to the man’s skill or his luck

The cards were dealt Balot received a jack and 2

The monocled man, on the other hand, had a 4 and 6—a total of ten

“Double down,” said the man The dealer’s upcard was 4 The man’s move was entirely consistent

as showing on Oeufcoque’s table The man added his chips to the pile and drew a 9 Total

nineteen When you called “double down,” you were permitted to draw only one additional card—so this

was about as good as it got, as far as the monocled man was concerned

The garessed, and Balot stayed on her hand

The dealer’s hidden card was a 7 He drew another card, a 5—total seventeen

Balot lost, as did all the other players except for the monocled man

Theyhad an 8 and a 6

“Double down”

For aBut theanother pile of chips

on the table

The dealer’s upcard was a 3 According to Oeufcoque’s tactical grid, he should be staying rather than

drawing The card that the man dreever, was a 7

Twenty-one

The player’s face broke out into a satisfied grin He’d now be looking at aas the

dealer didn’t get a blackjack himself

The ranted when the dealer bust and lost All the players—including

Balot—inners that round, but the monocled man won more than the rest of themand was obviously

delighted by this fact

Then in the next hand the ht to a close During the

shuffle the topic of conversation a the players was, rather inevitably, the

streak

–The

–Oh, the dealer has his eye on him

–Because he’s winning too much?

–Being allowed to win, more like

Balot didn’t iet what Oeufcoque meant

–Doesn’t the dealer have his eye on hi too much?

–No, he’s sed the dealer’s bait hook, line, and sinker He just happens to be winning now,

that’s all

Right at thatabout the man

–He seems to be in pain?

Thepatterns of everyone at the table—by far

–Good spot

Encouraged by Oeufcoque’s words, Balot probed further, trying to get to the heart of the matter

–Is it related to his breathing patterns?

–It is

–But themost of his hands, isn’t he?

–There’s ame than the number of hands you win This statement struck an odd chord

with Balot Then she realized that she was thinking about an iame from all the

wrong angles

–Can you tell me how much moneyeveryone has bet so far? How much they’ve lost too?

–Roger that

No sooner had he spoken than the existing tables on Balot’s hands were joined by detailed records of

wins and losses to date for each player—P&Ls for each individual player at the table, as it were

Thetotal of the monocled man; in absolute terms he was

considerably in the red The oldthe best, closely followed by the Doctor Balot had lost

fairly heavily at first but was now keeping her losses down to about half the rate she was losing at the

start The hly on a par with each other; that is to say, they were

both losing considerably

It was almost as if theoverall