God's imitator

Chapter 25 Differences in Grouping

The moment the countdown reached zero, Lin Sizhi realized that she had returned to the lobby of her original community.

Others from the community also appeared around the same time.

"One, two, three... twelve." Fu Chen counted the number of people immediately and breathed a sigh of relief after finding that no one was missing.

Although they have returned to the absolutely safe place of the "community," it is clear that many people have not yet been able to recover from the dangerous environment of the arcade and are still apprehensive.

Many people clearly had something to say.

But at that moment, the information on the big screen was refreshed.

[The final chip standings for Community 17 in Blood Poker are now being announced.]

[No. 1 Fu Chen: 52000]

[Jiang He No. 2: 87500]

[No. 3, Lee In-sook: 65000]

[Cao Haichuan, No. 4: 54000]

[No. 5 Cai Zhiyuan: 58000]

[Wang Yongxin, No. 6: 223500]

[Qin Yao #7: 144000]

[Su Xiucen, No. 8: 91000]

[Xu Tong, No. 9: 24000]

[Ding Wenqiang, No. 10: 15000]

[Yang Yuting, No. 11: 24000]

[Lin Sizhi, No. 12: 217500]

[The above chips will be converted into visa processing time after 24 hours and added to each player's visa processing time.]

"What??"

"How many!!"

"What's with the visa time for tens, hundreds, thousands... tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? Aren't the chips of the eight people in this game only 160,000 in total?"

Upon seeing the numbers on the big screen, many people couldn't help but gasp in surprise.

Ding Wenqiang was clearly the most shocked. He stared in disbelief at the numbers on the big screen, then kept looking at Wang Yongxin.

As for Wang Yongxin, he was clearly in a good mood at the moment, browsing the product list in front of the vending machine.

"Does anyone want something to drink?"

With no one responding, he had no choice but to order a coffee for himself.

Cai Zhiyuan's face was also full of confusion.

Clearly, as someone skilled in calculation and knowledgeable about probability, he had a rough estimate of the maximum amount of chips he could obtain in this game.

Therefore, when they saw a number that exceeded their upper limit by an entire order of magnitude, they were more shocked than Ding Wenqiang, who was completely bewildered throughout the process.

“I think we need to do a post-mortem analysis,” Cai Zhiyuan said, looking at Fu Chen.

Fu Chen looked at everyone and asked, "Would you like to rest for a bit, or do you want to review the game first?"

"Let's do a debriefing." Everyone quickly reached a consensus.

The time in the arcade is the same as in the community, so when everyone entered the game at 8 o'clock, it was only a little past 9:30, which was still a long time before dinner.

Although many people were mentally exhausted, the huge gap in chips aroused their intense curiosity.

Those with fewer chips immediately want to know where the extra chips came from.

Those with more chips don't mind showing off to everyone as victors.

"Retrieve the game rules for 'Blood Poker'," Fu Chen said to the large screen.

Soon, the large screen displayed detailed game rules, which were exactly the same as what everyone had seen in the arcade, but even more detailed.

These rules are divided into two parts: the "chip exchange area" and the "multiplayer game area," and the various facilities in both areas are described in great detail.

Even the appearance and style of the facilities are described briefly.

The large amount of text filled the big screen, making everyone a little dizzy.

But most people patiently read the rules again from beginning to end.

Fu Chen looked at everyone, and hesitated for a moment: "Where should we begin our debriefing..."

Cai Zhiyuan seemed to have found some ideas. Looking at the visa times on the big screen, he thoughtfully uttered two words: "Grouping."

Fu Chen: "Hmm?"

Cai Zhiyuan explained, "It starts with grouping. In multiplayer matchmaking games like this, everyone's gains are often strongly positively correlated with their group composition."

"For example, our group's earnings are all between 5 and 6 yuan, because we use the exact same and most reliable strategy."

Fu Chen seemed to be deep in thought, then quickly picked up a pen and paper.

"So, if we deduce the groupings from the chip count..."

"Group 1: You, me, Officer Cao, Sister Li."

"The second group should be... Xu Tong, Uncle Ding, Yang Yuting, and..."

Wang Yongxin raised his hand while drinking his coffee: "Me too."

"Oh?" Fu Chen was somewhat surprised.

Because the first three people had too few chips, it was easy to tell that they were a group, but Wang Yongxin's chips were ten times higher.

If Wang Yongxin hadn't admitted it, Fu Chen would have had a hard time realizing that he was in this group.

"Then the third group is Jiang He, Qin Yao, Aunt Su, and Lawyer Lin."

"Indeed, an individual's earnings are directly related to their group assignments. There are exceptions, though."

Without much explanation, everyone quickly figured out what was going on.

Because this game is a multiplayer team game.

An individual's decision is highly likely to be influenced by the other three. Ultimately, all four will tend to use similar strategies.

If their group strategy is good, everyone will benefit greatly; conversely, if the group strategy is poor, everyone's benefits will decrease.

Judging from the list, the first group should be the strongest overall, with all four being intelligent individuals, but their chip stack is not the highest.

This is clearly the effect of group strategy.

Fu Chen continued, "Okay, let me first briefly explain our group's strategy, and then we'll see what the specific differences are between the three groups."

"At the beginning, the four of us exchanged 20000 chips by default, and then met up in the multiplayer game area."

"After discussing for about ten minutes, we reached an agreement with our opponents, the players from Community 9, to complete the multiplayer game by taking turns being the dealer and winning the ante, thus avoiding having our visa time deducted when leaving the game."

"After that, we returned to the chip exchange area and had another 400ml of blood drawn."

"In the multiplayer game, everyone followed the agreement, but because the score couldn't be split evenly after ten games, two random players took turns being the banker and earned an extra 7000."

“We adopted a one-on-one seating arrangement, so Sister Li and a player from Community 9 each got to be the dealer one extra time, ensuring fairness to the greatest extent possible.”

Upon hearing this, Jiang He exclaimed "Eh!"

Clearly, this strategy is almost entirely consistent with her ideas.

Yang Yuting said with some surprise, "Hmm? Xu Tong thought so too, and that's roughly how we've been doing it."

"I thought it was a very ingenious solution... Turns out everyone thought of it?"

Xu Tong was somewhat annoyed: "So... the key difference lies in the amount of blood drawn."

"Each of you had an extra 400ml of blood drawn, so you got nearly 4 more chips."

Fu Chen nodded: "Yes. Actually, at the very beginning, we only drew the minimum 200ml. The suggestion to draw more blood was made by Cai Zhiyuan during the discussion."

Cai Zhiyuan explained, "Drawing 400ml of blood is the normal amount of blood to donate, and it will not have any impact on the body."

"600ml will make you feel weak, and more than 800ml will harm your health."

"All four of us are in good health. Exchanging an extra 400ml of blood for 4 minutes of visa time is a very worthwhile deal."

A 4-minute visa, if measured by the prices in a vending machine, is roughly equivalent to 4 yuan, which could allow players to survive in the new world for almost a month longer.

Regardless of how you measure its value, this exchange is absolutely worthwhile.

Ding Wenqiang lowered his head with some regret. He couldn't understand why he hadn't thought of this problem during the hour and a half of gaming.

Li Renshu looked at Yang Yuting: "Yuting, your group probably only used the initial 2 chips, right?"

"But... why is there such a big difference in the final number of chips?"

The chip counts of the other three people can be explained; they only drew 200ml of blood, which would amount to a maximum of 2 chips.

But why would Wang Yongxin have 20 chips? They were clearly in the same game.

Yang Yuting looked at Wang Yongxin and Ding Wenqiang somewhat awkwardly: "Because... there was a small conflict in our group. You could say it was an internal strife."

(End of this chapter)