Bob kept at it for two hundred and fifty rolls. And that Herculean feat had only been managed with the assistance of steady supply of golden liquid. Bob had stopped feeling guilty long ago. Truth be told, he’d rather started enjoying himself. If he’d ever deserved a drink in his life, today was the day.
He didn’t know if it was just because he was thirsty, or maybe it was the situation, or maybe this was some kind of magic beer, but the stuff tasted good. Real good. Like probably the best beer he’d ever had in his life. He put away another glass and signaled over the waiter. The smartly dressed man had quickly caught on to the process and promptly arrived with another glass filled to the brim. Bob was feeling pretty good.
In that time, he'd noticed something interesting. Some of the players felt a little different. They lacked that grey, lifeless quality. In other words, they looked like real people. There was a middle-aged woman with hollowed out cheeks. A little boy standing on a chair to see over the table. A teenager in school uniform snapping pictures with her smartphone.
And that was before mentioning the non-human contingent. There was a black cat perched on the far side of the table (the surrounding players did not look particularly pleased) and a very vocal gathering of three chickens sitting on stools, clucking animatedly to each other.
The survivors bet differently too. They’d hesitate, second-guess themselves and stare longingly after the chips the dealer swept emotionlessly away. Every now and again one of them would win and he'd cradle the chips to himself and look like he was about to weep. Then he'd take the whole lot and head off to one of the doors.
A handful of players had stopped betting at all. They just stood at the side and gazed blankly at the little ball. There was nothing particularly startling in the discovery. So Bob wasn’t the only player in this casino, so what? There was no direct competition here. They were all battling their own individual battles. Bob chose to ignore them all. He would focus on his task and on the ice-cold beer by his hand.
However at around the two hour mark, something happened to pull Bob away from his magic beer. An older man, in a respectable suit, good business-wear, had caught Bob's attention. There was a glint to his eyes and he was pushing a solitary black chip back and forth on the green velvet of the table. Bob got the feeling that was his last one.
The man deliberated a long time and then as though seized by a devil-may-care impulse he flung the chip onto red. A few seconds passed and the man studiously avoided looking at the table. Then came the dealer’s flat monotone: “All bets final.” The old man shuddered a little, but continued his indifferent act.
The ball was off. And Bob studied its gyrations with an interest markedly lacking from his previous two hundred and fifty observations. The old man’s nonchalance too had crumbled away. He looked like someone who’d just woken up and couldn’t believe the idiocy he’d practiced while asleep. His eyes flickered back and forth between the ball and his bet like he was on the verge of clawing it back, just grabbing the chip and making a run for it.
The ball started to slow. The man’s fingers were twitching. He was mumbling something to himself. It was like he was all alone in the world. The ball stopped, wobbled and tucked itself into the pocket: “Black 26,” the dealer said in an even, deadpan voice. The man turned white. He turned out his pockets, patted down his jacket, like he thought he might just have misplaced a chip there. Alas, they were all too empty.
Behind him there was a rustle, people were starting to move. Finally, the crowd parted as two large men pushed their way through, coming up on either side of the trembling man.
“No more chips, sir?”
The man gulped and looked down without answering.
“If you don’t mind.”
They each took hold of one of the man’s arms and started to march him away. What would happen to him? You didn’t have to be a genius to figure it out.
“Wait, wait,” Bob shouted after the pair, jumping from his seat and sprinting around the table. He chased after, shoving people out of his way to get through. He caught up with them just a few steps from a large, polished set of black doors. They looked like the gates of hell. Bob was panting.
“Wait, wait, he dropped this earlier. I picked it up,” Bob managed to get out, holding out a chip in his right hand. “Look here it is. It’s his.”
The large man hesitated, glancing ahead at the double doors; he seemed unhappy with the development. The two exchanged glances and then looked up at a camera on the ceiling. When no signal came, they shrugged and let the man go.
The man promptly sank to the ground and collapsed in a pile on the nice carpet. He seemed to have a hard time understanding what had just happened. Bob knelt over him. How were you supposed to comfort an adult male in the midst of a breakdown again? He didn’t remember learning that at school. Bob ventured a gentle pat on the shoulder, but the man started wildly, attacking the air, so Bob decided to give him a little bit of space.
After a minute or two, Bob attempted opening communications again: “feeling any better there?”
The man nodded groggily. “Thank you.” He said it a quiet voice, not looking at Bob.
“Don’t worry about it. I couldn’t see them take you away like that. Any idea what would have happened to you?” The man visibly paled.
“Let’s side table that question. I’m Bob. Nice to meet you.”
“Henry,” he managed a weak smile. “I thought it was all over there for a moment.”
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“Lady Luck hasn’t turned her back on you yet.”
“Yes, so it seems.” Henry reached up to accept Bob’s proffered hand.
“Up we go.” Bob pulled the man to his feet and give his suit a few brushes. “Good as new, good as new…”
Henry seemed to have had a chance to appraise his new acquaintance’s appearance. “Might I ask, what happened to your… attire?”
“Ah yes, right, long story that one. Where were you when it happened?”
“I was in the middle of a presentation. We had a meeting with a few potential clients in Asia. It was a significant opportunity to expand our market share.”
“That’s sounds… important. Well, I, not sure how best to put this, I was in the bath, enjoying a nice warm soak.”
“That explains things. Unfortunate timing.”
“Yes, well put, unfortunate timing, that’s the phrase, unfortunate timing. But you know, we make the best of things.”
They had made their way back to the table at this point and Bob led Henry over to his corner with its open exercise book and half-drunk beer glass. Bob downed the rest and signaled over the waiter. “Anything for you Henry?”
“No thank you. I don’t drink during working hours.”
“Suit yourself.” The waiter nodded silently and went off to fetch another beer.
“How you’d manage on the escape room?” Bob restarted the conversation. He felt like he’d plumed that room to its depths and could make a good showing (with appropriate revisions).
“The second challenge. Rather lacking in content I thought.”
“Is that so?” Bob held himself back, barely.
“Yes. The blank wall behind the chair spins open. I’ll admit you do have to do from the right side because the wall comes out anti-clockwise. But I don’t think I spent more than three minutes in the room.”
“What?” Bob whispered in the shattered tones of a broken man.
“Oh… so you mean?”
Bob sank his head down onto the table. Why hadn’t he ever tried pushing on that blank wall? It didn’t make any sense to have a completely empty wall. Well this conversation was doing nothing for Bob’s sanity.
“What about the third challenge?”
“It was rather anticlimactic I thought. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain what the task was. I was with a group of three other people and a wild goat. When the prompt came up, we all agreed to go hunter. The goat happened to do the same and then the system told us the challenge had been completed.”
"Fucking hell…" Bob grumbled into his beer. Some people have all the luck. “Is that so? Lucky you. Well and what about the boar?”
“It was rather a simple-minded creature, didn’t you think? It only charged in straight lines and the stage was densely forested. I did what I guess everybody did. I stood in front of a tree and stepped out of the way at the last second. I’m embarrassed to admit it took me a good many attempts before I could land a blow with the knife.”
Bob was shaking his head and gritting his teeth. “No that makes sense. That’s what I did.”
“Nothing really to it, was there?”
“No, just like you say, nothing to it.”
Bob fell silent for a good thirty seconds and sort of stewed in his beer. Somewhere along the way, despite the many Es, he’d started thinking he’d actually done quite well. Well Henry’s experiences sure put the thing into perspective. It was hard to say how long Bob might have sat there in his self-critical, self-pitying alcoholic haze. But Henry turned to him and asked point-blank. “How many chips have you got?”
Bob pulled himself up from a deep, dark place to respond. “Just the starting five, minus the one I gave you, so four left.”
“I see.”
Bob had a hard time making out what the man was thinking. He was pretty sure the man was thinking. He gave off that sort of quiet, intelligent vibe like he already knew or guessed everything and so didn’t have to bother saying anything.
“And the exit fee is ten chips.” He said more to himself than to Bob.
“Yeah, but there’s got to be some kind of trick to it, right? It can’t just be chance.” Bob gestured at the open notebook with its long list of numbers.
“I thought so too. I counted around 500 rounds. But the probabilities are all within expected bounds. I made some rough plots, but it comes out to a standard uniform probability model. There was no deviation large enough to exploit.”
“Huh, is that so?” Bob was a little annoyed. Another two hours of life squandered. Add it to the weeks and months that had come before. “Wait, so you’re telling me it’s just luck. Just a game of luck.”
“I explored half a dozen different theories. I’ve been here about six hours. But I couldn’t detect any irregularities. Everything was well within expectations.”
“Just a game of luck? What a way to run things. I’m starting to think this new world isn’t going to be a lot of fun.”
“Yes, I can’t imagine what this disorder will have done to the markets. We are in for quite unprecedented times.”
“Well what’s the move, I mean, how we are supposed to the earn the exit fee.”
“Yes that is the question. Now I believe the optimal move is to bet all 5 chips on either red or black straight from the outset. That gives you just under 50% chance.”
Henry grimaced. “But I’m embarrassed to admit I couldn’t stomach it. I thought there must be some kind of exploit.”
He shook his head. “I tried a bunch of small bets. There seemed a high chance that I might discover something. But, well," Henry coughed in his hand, "you saw what happened.”
Bob had muddled along, nodding where appropriate, but secretly thinking to himself that he’d just given up his one chip to save the man and so could no longer pursue optimal strategy. That one act of kindness had probably halved his chances of getting out of here alive. But you can put a price on gratitude can you?
“No good,” Henry muttered to himself, like he’d just reached some quite of conclusion. “One chip, it’s not enough. I would have to win three times in a row. Twice on half odds, and once on the 3 to 1s. That would give me 1/12 odds. So just about a 8.3% chance. Not counting the twice zeros of course. Realistically it is closer to 6%.”
Bob was stunned. How had he done the calculation so quickly, especially that percentage. Bob always had to draw divisions out otherwise he lost track of the numbers. Bob looked at his companion with a new respect. “What did you say, 8.7%?”
“8.3%” Henry corrected coolly. “But I can’t see a better combination. In a perfect world, I would go for a 10x which would give me 10% chance, but roulette betting options are quite limited, especially when you only have one chip.”
Bob continued to nod amiably, but he’d zoned out most of the figures. I mean the man was really just saying the same thing over and over in different ways: he had some long odds in front of him and he was scared shitless. Bob agreed. It was a fair and accurate assessment of the situation.
“What about me? What’s the best play for me here? You’d couldn’t give a man a tip could you?”
“You have four chips, right? Well then a straight 3x bet is the way to go. Put it on 1-12. 33% chance. And all over in one go…”
Henry trailed off, but Bob knew what the man was driving at. The poor sod would have to make three life and death bets in a row and he’d just got over losing the last one. If it were Bob, a less rational, more practical man, he would have been tempted to stick the chip on the double zero and just pray the gods took pity. Win or lose, it’d be over in the blink of an eye.
“You sure you don’t want a drink?” Henry seemed to waver. “It won’t change the odds.”
“No, I’d rather face the end with my wits about me.”
“Fair enough” Bob knew he’d rather face his end absolutely shit-faced, but these kind of questions come down to a man’s character. And Bob had enough tact not to argue the point.
A round had just finished and people were laying down bets.
“Aren’t you going to bet?” Henry asked, turning to Bob.
“What?” Bob spluttered, choking on his bear. “Right now?”
“Is waiting going to do you any good?”