God's Imitator

The game continues.

'Rabbit' Han Mengying faces off against each of the 8 players, leaving only the last round for the first stage of the game.

Han Mengying checks her gains.

In her matches against the previous 8 players, she netted a profit of 23,000 chips.

Adding the initial 10,000 and the 20,000 she exchanged from her visa time, and deducting 2,000 for one refill of oxygen, Han Mengying now holds 51,000 chips.

"This proves that no matter how much you try to make it a 'fair game' for ordinary people, smart people will always find a high success rate strategy."

Han Mengying is very satisfied with this result.

She briefly reviewed her strategy.

Most players might think this game is all down to luck, assuming what card an opponent plays is random, but that's not the case at all.

Even in the original 'rock-paper-scissors', the probability of players choosing each move differs.

In reality, the probability of playing the three moves is rock > paper > scissors, which is related to the movements of the three gestures and psychological factors.

When players are nervous, they subconsciously clench their fists as a form of self-protection, so the probability of playing rock is the highest.

Paper requires opening the palm, which increases a person's sense of insecurity, while scissors is the most complex gesture, so the probabilities of these two moves are lower.

Although the 'Fool's Game' turns these three gestures into three different cards, due to the illustrations of these gestures on the cards, players, upon seeing the illustrations, will still subconsciously project certain psychological habits, continuing to some extent their habits from the real version of 'rock-paper-scissors'.

In other words, because of frequent play, seeing the image of 'rock' will subconsciously generate a sense of security, while the images of 'paper' and 'scissors' generate insecurity, making players more inclined to play rock.

Of course, these psychological factors don't heavily influence the decision, perhaps only causing a 5% to 10% bias at most.

But in the 'Fool's Game', there might be other factors influencing a player's choice.

For example, a player might subconsciously balance the cards in their hand.

When receiving the Fool's Card Set, where a player has 3 rocks, 1 scissors, and 1 paper, they might subconsciously play the card they have more of first, allowing more flexibility in future rounds.

And this compounds the previous point, further increasing the probability of playing a 'Fool card (rock)'.

In other words, if it's evident that the opponent is a novice and hasn't deeply thought about the intricacies of these cards, then with a Fool's Card Set, the probability of the opponent playing rock first increases significantly due to the compounding factors.

So Han Mengying can simply play paper to secure a win.

Moreover, when playing consecutively, a player's brain will unconsciously save cognitive resources and play in a specific repetitive sequence, especially during winning or losing streaks. The brain, still reminiscing about the recent victory or defeat, occupies cognitive resources, making the next decision more predictable.

Inexperienced players subconsciously mimic the opponent's previous move, which is a completely wrong behavior.

So Han Mengying continuously places cards, not giving her opponents much time to think.

She didn't specifically rush them, so it wasn't likely to arouse their suspicion, allowing her to better predict the opponent's actions once they fell into this subconscious card-playing state.

She used this information gap to win against Gray Wolf by continuously winning twice under the same Fool's Card Set, rendering the next three cards predictable.

Moreover, Han Mengying confirmed a crucial piece of information during the duel: in the first round, both sides had the Fool's Card Set.

In the second round, when Han Mengying received the Wise Man Card Set, she immediately deduced that both sides were likely using the Wise Man Card Set.

The opponent in the second round clearly wasn't aware of this, and after receiving the Wise Man Card Set, applied their experience from the first round, assuming Han Mengying would likely play rock first, so they played the paper they had most of in the Wise Man Card Set.

Knowing that the opponent had likely also received the Wise Man Card Set, Han Mengying played scissors to win against their paper, establishing an advantage once again.

Of course, these strategies are not 100% foolproof, but in the absence of the opponent's deliberate defense, Han Mengying can still significantly increase her win rate with these strategies.

The subsequent progress of the game indeed went as Han Mengying predicted.

The first round was Fool's Card Set against Fool's Card Set.

The second round was Wise Man Card Set against Wise Man Card Set.

The third round was Fool's Card Set against Wise Man Card Set.

The fourth round was Wise Man Card Set against Fool's Card Set.

The game rules stated the first stage is the 'practice stage', so the imitator who designed this game certainly arranged for players to face different card sets.

If from the start, the Fool's Card Set and Wise Man Card Set were assigned completely randomly, it wouldn't be fair.

But for a player like Han Mengying, identifying the rules in reverse allowed her to guess the opponent's card set and further speculate on their actions.

So her gains in the first four rounds were also the most.

However, in the following rounds, there were no longer such obvious patterns; sometimes it was the Fool's Card Set, and sometimes the Wise Man Card Set, making it hard to accurately predict the opponent's card set, hence slightly decreasing the win rate.

Furthermore, Han Mengying encountered two players who played completely randomly.

The first player was a bit dull, playing randomly among five cards.

Against such a player, Han Mengying naturally had a way, choosing to play paper directly.

Because whether it's the Fool's Card Set or the Wise Man Card Set, the highest probability of appearance is rock or paper, so playing paper was the most cost-effective.

The second player was a bit smarter, playing randomly among the three cards.

Such a strategy was evidently more effective.

Random play, especially when blindfolded, can significantly increase the win rate in 'rock-paper-scissors', backed by data-supported conclusions.

This is due to the impact of psychological processing.

For players who aren't good at calculations, the more complex their psychology, the more disruptive factors will lead to easier judgment and decision-making errors.

Many people can consecutively lose several rounds of rock-paper-scissors, which is obviously not purely due to luck but also because they are easily predicted due to 'cognitive resource conservation' and 'psychological processing' influences.

The same applies to the 'Fool's Game', where players don't look at the card's front, randomly shuffling through three cards also creates a similar effect to playing blindfolded.

This is a strategy inclined toward defense, at least ensuring that the first round's result is entirely left to chance, preventing the opponent from seeing through the intent.

In this way, Han Mengying's strategy was left with little room to be effective.

But anyway, players who can truly ensure their cards are completely random are in the minority, so Han Mengying generally maintained a good net gain.

She certainly wouldn't choose to repay her debts now, as this level of profit doesn't satisfy her; she has to stay and proceed to the second stage to earn more chips.