Huang Shengjie took a couple more steps and suddenly noticed that a blocking mechanism on a certain gold panning machine was rising, with no one outside currently in line.
This was a great opportunity. He quickly rushed forward to claim the spot.
About two minutes later, the blockade slowly descended. It seemed that the player had completed a round of the game and packed up the gold sand.
The player tried tapping the screen again but couldn’t start a new game—a line of text appeared on the screen.
[You have played 4 rounds, and are required to rest for 20 minutes.]
His eyes were somewhat bloodshot, but he didn’t say anything and just picked up his suitcase, got up, and left.
Huang Shengjie hurried forward to take over the spot.
"This person played 4 rounds, which means he must have taken painkillers.
Earlier, there were definitely players waiting, but he chose to take the medicine. The waiting players were uncertain about how much longer it would be, so they left, allowing me to seize the opportunity.
This seems to show that my luck is quite decent.
So I’ll play two more rounds."
Huang Shengjie was originally thinking that if he couldn’t find a spot, he would check out the situation in other sections, or consider whether there were any group strategies to utilize.
But since there happened to be an available spot, he first ensured the immediate gains.
Huang Shengjie looked at the 16 tiles in the new round of the game, lost in thought.
"Was the method I thought of before already the optimal solution for this game? Probably not, there’s definitely room for improvement.
Maybe I could refer to other people’s strategies? Like Cheng Yu’s strategy.
Now it seems that she’s definitely not an ordinary player; she should be quite strong.
She only played two rounds, yet her gains were so high. There’s certainly some element of luck involved, without question, but beyond luck, there must be some strategy. Pure luck is impossible.
Li Haoqiang said that Cheng Yu only observed 4 times in two rounds.
Why 4 times? Is there a particular reasoning for this number?"
Huang Shengjie stared at the screen’s 16 tiles, suddenly coming to a realization.
"Oh, I see!
She also utilized the ’Enrichment Effect’ of gold sand tiles, but she didn’t flip too many tiles; she only flipped four.
Seems this is a smarter choice?
The only question is which four tiles did she choose: was it the four corner tiles, or the four in the middle, or four with one tile interval between each?"
If the 16 tiles are sorted from left to right, top to bottom, then the selected four tiles come down to three different modes.
The first is ’1, 4, 13, 16,’ the second is ’6, 7, 10, 11,’ the third is ’1, 3, 9, 11’ or ’6, 8, 14, 16’ kind of format.
Huang Shengjie stared at the screen for a while, roughly guessing: "It should be the third type, meaning observing each tile spaced one apart.
The first and second, the four flipped tiles either too concentrated or too scattered, are not easy to locate.
With the third method, each tile is spaced one apart with a moderate distance, and the numbers of these four tiles can determine the general trend and direction.
Surely, it’s still impossible to 100% guarantee hitting big numbers, but from the probability perspective, it may not be lower than my previous method of observing 10 tiles, because observing too many might accidentally flip over larger tiles.
Plus, it saves time and costs."
Huang Shengjie decided to follow this method to play two more rounds and see if he could earn more gains.
...
Meanwhile, in a corner of B Gold Panning Area, the furthest from the trading area,
Community 9’s Yu Xinming furrowed his brows, still unsure about which tile to choose.
Among the 16 tiles, he had flipped open 9, leaving 7 tiles unopened.
Overall, his luck was good this time, as most of the opened tiles had relatively small numbers, and the three largest tiles with 20,000, 10,000, 5,000 had not yet appeared.
This meant that randomly choosing one of the remaining 7 tiles yielded an expected return of over 5,000.
But this also made him more hesitant.
Because expected returns are abstract, while flipping open any tile is highly random, potentially causing great fortunes or devastating losses.
He still wanted to observe other tiles, ensuring that the 20,000, 10,000, 5,000 tiles were left for last purchase.
But deep down, he also knew that doing so had little meaning, as he might flip over the 20,000 tile while observing, which would ruin everything.
While he hesitated, a voice came from behind.
"Interested in selling me your remaining game round?"
Yu Xinming turned to look and found a person standing behind him at some unknown time.
[Lin Sizhi].
He was holding a small golden suitcase in his hand, clearly having already engaged in a match.
Yu Xinming was momentarily stunned: "Sell? How much are you offering?"
Lin Sizhi replied: "You currently have 7 tiles left. Judging from the remaining few numbers, the expected return for purchasing a tile is around 5,000.
So, I’m willing to offer 3,500 minutes of visa time to buy your game round."
Yu Xinming was momentarily stunned and instinctively refused: "Less than the expected return? Isn’t that pure loss for me? Why should I sell?"
Lin Sizhi shook his head: "No, actually, this is a fair trade for you because you need to consider two additional factors:
Firstly, there’s volatility and risk.
By selling this game round to me now, you can get a stable 3,500 minutes of visa time, whereas if you choose to continue playing yourself, there’s enormous risk and uncertainty.
You have a small chance to get 20,000, but there’s also a certain chance you’ll only flip five hundred or one thousand.
I’m offering you stable earnings.
Secondly, there’s the cost and loss in converting illegal gold sand into visa time.
Even if you manage to acquire 5,000 gold sand successfully, you still need to figure out a way to bring these 5,000 gold sand through the rest zone for trading, during which you might get confiscated by the Anti-Smuggling Team or encounter natural loss during transactions with others.
In this game, if you don’t have specific skills and means, it’s tough to convert gold sand into equivalent visa time smoothly.
So considering these two points, your current game round is only worth about 3,500, which is a fair price."
Yu Xinming paused in realization: "Then... if I observe one more tile and flip a smaller number, wouldn’t my expected return increase further?"
Lin Sizhi nodded: "Of course, if you’re willing to take on that risk, I’d be glad to see it.
If you can flip over another small number and increase the expected return, my offer will rise accordingly.
But if you accidentally flip a large number, causing the expected return to decrease, my offer will also drop accordingly, and I might even refuse to trade.
After all, there are many rounds to buy, and I would only choose those with high value.
Whether to sell the entire round to me or when to sell is entirely up to you.
I’m only presenting this proposal to everyone equally, trading with those willing to sell their round."