There were now three kinds of people on the floor.
The first kind, like Stark and Bruce, realized immediately after the rules were announced that this was actually a game of manipulating suit probabilities.
The second kind did not figure it out at first, but discovered the trick as they played. Though they had already made some mistakes, there was still room to recover.
The third kind did not understand what was going on even when the game ended. They had no idea what the key to winning was and lost without ever knowing why.
There were relatively few people of the first and third kinds. Few people who came aboard this ship possessed great wisdom; if they had truly been smart enough, they would not have ended up gambling on this ship. But neither were they utterly foolish. Truly stupid people lacked the courage to cause such enormous trouble.
Most of the people on the ship now had a bit of cleverness. They were the best among ordinary people, and had once achieved success because of the times or because they had caught the right wave. But in the end, something consumed them and brought them to where they were today.
As the rounds progressed, the vast majority gradually realized that a straight flush was the game's ultimate weapon. To assemble one, they had to ensure that they held most of the cards of at least one suit, with no gaps in the ranks.
In Bruce's match against Roman, Roman had discarded all the low cards in his hand. As a result, Bruce's low ranks were exceptionally complete, from Ace through 8, and the golden ranks—2 through 6, the ranks that would secure Bruce's victory—each had several copies.
Bruce had maximized the odds of getting a straight flush because