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 game began again, based on the cards in Balot’s hand versus the upcard.
–I’m going 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 maximum and the minimum that she could bet per game. Finally, the total amount she had spent so far. That was the money management system devised 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 numbers were against the player. But that was the long 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 manage the bank to stay in play through the drier patches.
Balot had just put down three hundred dollars in chips. The same amount as in the previous hand. The amount wasn’t a true representation of Balot’s feelings. 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 “mini-bank,” enough 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—i.e. 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 0.01 percent.
–Well, let’s start off by seeing what we can do.
After the numbers had been shown on Balot’s right hand, this message 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 preempt the possibility of cheating, players weren’t even allowed to touch their own cards.
Not for this game the psychological warfare of poker or the finely tuned sensory perception involved in roulette. All there was to do here was walk the tightrope of uncertainty over and over again.
This was why she felt unusually impatient and susceptible to being swept away by the action.
But the key to successfully traversing that tightrope wasn’t just luck. It was a meaningful 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 from day 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 make her go 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 win with 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 was twenty-two.
“Bust.”
Her chips dissipated into the ether, just like with the previous hand.
It stands to reason, seemed the general feeling at the table. Why, after all, should it be easy for a little girl like her to master the deep mysteries of such a game? 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 a moment that there was a different version of herself sitting in 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 game began. After that Balot lost two more hands, won one, and then seemed to settle into a pattern of winning and losing 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 come out of nowhere; many battles were fought, and people had struggled with tactics and strategy to work out the optimal course of play through blood, sweat, and tears before finally reaching the depths of the game.
The battle raged on, a microcosm of Balot’s inner turmoil.
Win or lose, it was all in vain if she didn’t manage 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 she mastered was her breathing. The Doctor had drummed it into her that it was what 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 remember what her breathing felt like then, inhaling, then exhaling. She had always thought that breathing was one of those things that happened of its own accord, varying from hard to gentle depending 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.