New Gods of North America.

Chapter 492 Misleading
It turns out that

It's not that easy to fool Lina.

"Hahaha, when you cut the cards for the last time, I knew that the replacement card had been cut to the fifteenth position from the top, so I chose to replace all five cards in my hand. Now the replacement card belongs to me, and I win this round.

"Let me see what my other cards are... Hmm, three kings, one queen, plus 'the replacement card can be any card', my hand is four of a kind!"

At the other end of the table, Lina turned over the cards one by one in front of everyone, and then raised her arrogant little head.

The detective agency was full of extraordinary people, and Lina's own rank was not low either. It would be difficult for her to not be noticed if she had the slightest fluctuation of spiritual power.

Lina also has Peter the Big Spider to help her do bad things. Although it has not been officially confirmed, everyone assumes that she has a dual perspective.

Therefore, everyone was not too surprised by this result, after all, Wayne's opponent was Lina.

However, since both parties in the game were partners of the detective agency, no detectives came to congratulate Wayne before he opened the cards and officially confirmed his defeat.

When two cunning guys are playing against each other, the game is definitely not easy.
Wayne and Lina actually competed in drawing cards. They took out all the A, K, Q, J and replacement cards from the deck. The two sides first shuffled and cut the cards alternately, and then each drew five cards in turn.
Then there is another chance to change cards. After drawing the cards, you can replace several cards in your hand, draw the same number of cards again, and finally compare the size of the cards according to the "Texas Hold'em" that is very close to modern society.

Due to the needs of pioneering and daily entertainment, after years of iteration, the shape of modern playing cards has been basically determined in America. The difference is that now the official commonly used cards are only 52 cards of four suits, and there is no so-called "king" or "joker card".
However, manufacturers usually print an extra billboard as a simple replacement for the damaged one, so the concept of "replacement board" became popular earlier.

Lina's intuition in this regard was quite sharp. After Wayne explained the rules clearly and demonstrated them again, she realized that the "replacement card" that could be used as any card should be the key to determining the outcome of the game.
The principle is simple. You draw five cards from four different points. As long as you get the replacement card, no matter how bad your bottom card is, it will be a "three of a kind", which basically locks in victory.

As expected, after both sides drew their cards, Lina accurately replaced all the cards in her hand. Before Wayne started to replace the cards, she drew the most critical universal replacement card in the deck into her own hand.
Since only four types of point cards were used this time, there was no so-called "straight flush", so the "four of a kind" in Lina's hand was already the largest card combination. In addition, the most critical replacement card was also in her hand, so she really looked like she had the momentum to win.

Wayne let Lina be happy for a while, then turned over his cards:
"Four Aces and a King, the same four of a kind, but the Ace is bigger than the King.

"Sorry, I won this round."

The bright smile on Lina's pretty face froze in an instant, and she reached out in disbelief to pick up Wayne's cards and check them one by one:
"Huh?! How did you do that?! I was the one who got the replacement card."

Wayne deliberately kept the secret and quickly ran away, "You have to accept the loss and remember what you promised."

"Hey! Don't leave!"

How did they do that? By bullying the newbies, of course.

Wayne's layout actually started when he was explaining the rules. By laying out the cards one by one in the form of a demonstration, he could secretly memorize the initial arrangement of the 17 cards before shuffling them. Then he could make flexible adjustments when it was his turn to shuffle the cards to complete the entire operation.

From a technical perspective, Lina draws five cards out of the 17 cards. She is determined to get the universal replacement card and will keep it in her hand after getting it. In addition, with the "card exchange" operation, the maximum number of cards she can pass through is ten. Two people can completely empty the deck.

As long as Wayne made sure that when he started drawing cards, the four Aces were within the range that Lina could not draw but he could touch by changing cards - that is, he used other "unique cards" to fill the remaining intervals, even if he used wild cards to fill them - he basically won directly. In order to avoid controversy, Wayne also deliberately controlled a K to prevent Lina from arguing with the "five of a kind" statement.

But if it is just meeting the technical standards, it is actually far from enough. If Wayne can do the same thing, then Lina can probably do it too, and maybe even do it better.
Therefore, the core of the whole performance lies in whether Lina can be "misguided" successfully. Just like a magic trick, the real key point must be hidden behind the focus before the audience reacts.

Wayne pretended to be very concerned about the replacement card through his words and actions, hinted at its importance several times, and even placed the replacement card in a position that was difficult for Lina to get. This was all to mislead Lina and make her think along the lines of "the opponent wants to fight for the replacement card", "the opponent wants to win", "the opponent cannot be allowed to succeed", so "grabbing the replacement card means winning".

Otherwise, if she was left to figure it out on her own, she might soon discover that something was wrong.

The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it. So naturally you can do the opposite and deliberately let the "cicada" go first.

……

In the carriage, Inissa obviously really memorized the order of the cards. It seemed that she might be able to restore the appearance of the deck after each shuffling and cutting, instead of just grasping the approximate "range" like Wayne.
So she seemed to find this matter quite interesting. "I didn't expect Lina to be fooled by such a simple trick. But after you cut the cards for the last time, it seems that she has no chance of winning."

Wayne nodded. "As for magic, the stage that really consumes energy and has the risk of failure is often before the so-called 'revealing moment'. Once the most critical steps are carried out as planned, the rest is just performance time. That's why I have to run away quickly and not give Lina a chance to try again and suddenly wake up..."

Noticing that Wayne suddenly fell into thought, Inesa blinked her eyes and did not rush to ask.

When Wayne came back to his senses again, she continued, "What did you think of just now?"

Wayne's face showed a slightly playful curiosity at this time:
"It suddenly occurred to me that if Mr. Molière really died, I wonder what the third party that attacked him would do next?"

Inissa thought for a moment, "Maybe she will hide in the shadows again?"

Wayne's eyes rolled around in his sockets. "If a magician wants to leave the stage in the middle of a performance, the audience won't agree easily."

After Inissa and her men got off the train near the location of the local agent organization's contact person whom Tyrell betrayed, Wayne knocked on the partition of the carriage:

"Let's go to the cathedral first, and then report the case to the police station."

(End of this chapter)