Usogui - Vol. 43 Ch. 464 - An Intentional Mistake

[MangaDex]

 

[AggravatingHighway]

Thanks for the early chapter!

 

[Arcadia]

>Bitch pain

 

[TheInvisableKid]

I love how the referees are wondering about about the same things we do, it feels like the author felt like he would have to explain the small hints this time for us, otherwise we wouldn't buy it...

 

[vaur]

My theory about scratching the table to communicate with Hal seems ... more and more valid.
Its the only thing that has yet to be explained. Why did Baku makes some mark on the table.

My theory was that it was meant to create vibration that could travel from the table to the upper floor. The central tower being made of steel all connected together would allow the vibration to go through more easily. I've talked about it on chapter 446. Around that time Baku made small marks on the table.

My theory was that as soon as Baku solved the law he already understand who was selecting the hand and attempted to communicate with Hal through inscribing the law on the table.
I didn't think about it then but how would Hal be able to answer back ?
Well when he is in the witch pain he could easily knock on it with his feet or hands, with both Baku and Lalo being under water it would create some faint knocking sounds that could be easy to miss if you didn't pay attention.

 

[Jonui]

Oh, cool, it's available quite early. Thanks for the chapter!

I didn't expect Hal's hand to be an invalid 4 4 6 6 6.
With something like 7 7 5 4 3, Lalo would have suffered a calamity in the last round because of overlapping sevens. And damn, I would have loved this.
Also, 7 7 5 4 3 could have been made into a valid hand, even if a trashy one. And frankly, if Hal's objective was simply to make Baku's 25 card a straight flush, I don't see the need for an unvalid hand. It sounds like an unneccesary risk to me. Maybe it had something to do with tricking Fukurou into thinking that the mistake was real? Indeed, the trashy hand would make it obvious that it was intentional, but I hardly see how it would have changed anything. So... What did I miss?

EDIT :
Knowing Baku's hand, Hal could have estimated the total sum of Lalo's cards to be far higher. And he also probably wanted to prevent a calamity to hit Baku again in the 4th round. So... if he thought there was a risk of Fukurou using somes sevens for Lalo's high-sum poker hands, he might have tried to chose only cards of lower values... in which case he could have made 3 5 6 6 6 or 4 5 5 6 6 since they're valid and keep the straight flush intact.
No, really, I can't make sense of this 4 4 6 6 6.

 

[Clooud]

YEEEE

 

[frdrgn]

I'm guessing the last death is drowning to match the death at the bottom

 

[Petrichormus]

I honestly find it cheap if Usogui communicated through the table vibration. The solution is too simple and somewhat reaching. But, I'm sure the author knows how to hype it and explain why it is a godlike move by Usogui.

 

[spence7865]

@jonui

As you said, i think it was to avoid a potential calamity. As readers, we know that he could use some spare low cards safely, but Hal only knows that 25 and 26 are left. We know that lalo has 63 and 44, but what if Lalo had 42 instead of 44. There is no way for Hal to know the remaining number since 1) the totals dont add up to a perfect deck of cards and 2) there is a possibility of 2 numbers using the same card. if Lalo had 42 and it was played on turn then it would be 10 10 10 6 6, which would cause a calamity.

By making an invalid hand, he eliminates that possibility but also makes it look like he was still trying (not that there was anything Fukurou could have done). Also, its possible that because of the order Usogui played the 26 and 25, Hal may realize that Usogui wants to lose this round. He doesn't know the chip count, and a potential win could throw off the plan. So he may think that even making a trash hand has a potential to win which as we saw is what would have happened. Would be interesting to see what happens since Lalo would still have won the hand, but because of a fold and not the top side. That's my take on it anyways

 

[KeepTheFeather]

Bitch pain LUL

 

[Veshv]

@Jonui
I was expecting it to be invalid, but the fact that he went with 4 valid cards still threw me off as well. The reason he didn't make a fully valid hand though, is because since Baku basically wanted to throw the 4th round, it would not matter if he made a valid hand or not. And based on this chapter, Hal didn't care about the wedge of pain anymore. The belief of "This will kill me if I screw up" didn't exist.

@vaur
I'm not sure about vibrations going up tables, but the hatch was open after Takumi came down, so maybe the noise just went through there. Which would mean that Fukurou also heard it "loud and clear", just like Hal did. Makes a lot of sense. I believe @jonui also pointed out the possibility that Hal got the referees laughing with his alien gimmick to communicate to Baku that he heard the message.

The big question with this theory basically is, at what point did Baku actually determine that Hal was involved in the match? We thought it was after the third round had ended, but based on everything we've seen to now, it's more likely that Baku did everything that he did after the second round expecting (or hoping, actually) for a calamity. Because a calamity on the third round would confirm for him that Hal was involved in the match. He didn't fold because "folding might avoid the calamity" rather than folding being the cause of the calamity. And then after that calamity happened, he acted distraught while sending a message to Hal. I think that's what happened at that point.

@TheInvisableKid
Referees often do that, especially if there aren't any man-owners watching the match.

 

[BossCrab]

Well that explains Fukurou's "failure". Like we thought, he DID have an understanding of what Hal was doing. But he couldn't confirm it at all. He decided to avoid taking the Witch Pain and bury the feeling his instinct was giving him, because he couldn't conceive of someone intentionally taking that pain, and couldn't take the risk of having to bear the pain for what amounted to a hunch on his part. Of course, he had no idea that Hal could now remember or forget things at will, even the pain of death. It's a kind of tragic defeat for such a god of poker, he did everything "right", but Usogui defies logic.

pretty fucked up that Shion had to experience death to test the machine. even for a referee that's brutal.

@Veshv
I believe Baku had an inkling of what was going on through his dream while he "died", and then fully realized it at the end of Round 3. If you re-read Chapter 446, he starts grinding the table and keeps thinking of Yakou saying "think clearly, why isn't Leader here?" which he got from his dream. The timeframes of the match are a bit wonky with the flashbacks, but they both fully realize that it's a 2v2 game after Round 3. Later on, it's framed as if they realize it at the same time, but I think Baku realizes it a little earlier than Lalo, who is trying to figure out what determines the hands while Usogui is grinding the table. I like the idea that he's masking his signals through a facade of frustration (Lalo sniffs out that he's pretending, but misunderstands what he's trying to do).

The question is what exactly did he send to Hal? During the game, Hal remembers when Usogui gave him his nickname, was it something to do with his name that alerted him to the plan? Fairly esoteric, but if it was something as simple as morse code the others would probably sniff it out immediately. I'm not too worried about Hal being able to send signals back, since we learned from the greater Portoporos game that Hal and Usogui can communicate their plans in one direction and know that the other will understand and follow through with it.

@TheInvisableKid
@Veshv
tbh I much prefer the referees explaining things. The Man Owners are pretty annoying lol

 

[Veshv]

@BossCrab
I think Fukurou did sniff out the message, which is what he was thinking about during the 4th round. There was probably another reason he didn't understand what it actually meant though. Which is probably also why Hal was thinking about the time Baku gave him the name. Maybe the idea of "HAL" itself was the code?

Edit: Last chapter, @chrischewie theorized that shifting 26 forward to 25 could be how Hal figured out the last card was 25. Maybe the message Baku sent was literally "HAL", and then the fact that he played 26 tipped Hal off?

 

[BossCrab]

@Veshv
That might be it...I forgot that he got HAL from shifting the letters (PC98 -> Hachi Nana (87), IBM -> HAL). It makes sense that he might have done something similar here. It'd rely on Hal remembering what his name means, and since we saw Hal remembering HAL and 8 7, it seems like the right track to me.

All in all I'm surprised that I realized that Lalo's best option really was to fold. Even if Baku has saved some air (which I still don't know if he really did or was just bluffing to trap Lalo, the fact that both are plausible shows how brilliant of a gambler Usogui is), Lalo probably could have outlasted him.

 

[vaur]

@Veshv
My theory is that Baku figured it out at the same time he got the hint for the law. His thought process went further and thought both at who was selecting the hands and the calamity.

Writing the law down had 3 purposes in my opinion:
1) Tell Lalo the law.
2) Make Lalo think about the law so he consume as much oxygen as Baku
3) Communicate with Hal with the above 2 goal being a distraction.

Maybe I'm giving Baku too much credits but I think he made the calamity happen to determine what it was. (Possibly to make it happen ?)
At that time the calamity was an unknown in the gamble, Baku is the type to have it inflicted on himself just to confirm what it is and if he can use it.
(Maybe a calamity is going to happen to Lalo on that final round ?)

Edit: I've read the chapter again, I don't know much about Poker, but there is a possibility that the 7 from this round are shared ... Which means ... a calamity is going to happen to Lalo.
Edit 2:
Ok, I went through the chapter again, all 7 are still present. The art tend to highlight another 7 not used in the straight flush. Thought its only speculation from the viewers that have cards.
There is still the possibility of Fukurou choosing the wrong 7 or maybe ... be manipulated by Hal to choose the same 7 he used.

 

[Lithe]

It still seems kinda unfair that Usogui's partner was Souichi Kiruma (not position, but ability). He literally forgot the first two pains, probably used his insta-wipe with free intention now. I mean it's kinda hax, but I guess that's how Usogui's luck rolls ~

Strap yourself to the chair lol (or should I say lal(o)). Force the refs to make the call, (though that's almost tacit admission of defeat).

 

[Veshv]

@vaur @BossCrab
When he got the hint? I'm not sure what you're talking about. I do agree with your first two points, not so much the third. I also agree with your idea that Baku wanted the Calamity induced.

I figured I'd organize my thoughts over what happened from the end of round 2 onwards (long):

Spoiler

If we recall from Baku's dream sequence from the tower, right after he woke up from it, he immediately started wondering what some aspects of his dream meant. Specifically, he asked Marco to check which way Suteguma returned to the first level from, and to confirm the existence of that sniper. I think he did the same thing during this match. As soon as he woke up and started breathing the Air-Bios, he considered why Leader wasn't present for the match. At this point I think the fact that Shion was the referee for the match (who he had not encountered on the island until then) was also a factor to consider. Since a mystery referee was overseeing the match, Baku may have thought Shion was Fukurou's or Hal's referee, and therefore the two of them were involved in the match.

That said, it's just an idea at that point, so it has to be tested. There's also the Calamity to consider as well. Since Baku had good reason to believe it would be "strongest available hands", he knew his 45 would eat all of the Jacks. If the Calamity was overlapping cards, that means the hands are determined on the spot instead of prior to the match, which tells him (with relative certainty) that Hal and Fukurou are the ones deciding the hands. He also knew the sum of Lalo's remaining cards is very high, since Lalo played 15 and 8. Stands to reason that Lalo's remaining strongest card (the straight card) would involve a Jack. The issue would be forcing Lalo to play his strongest card, since he's not thinking about it. From here Baku realized he can force Lalo to play his strongest card. Since the sum of Lalo's remaining cards was at least 145, his straight card would be cannibalized by the other cards for sure. As long as Lalo figures out the Law (with some "gentle nudging" from Usogui), he has to play the straight card.

In that sense, the plan from Baku to tell Lalo about the Law had several layers to it. The obvious one was forcing Lalo's air consumption, and I think the actual plan was to drag out Lalo's remaining straight and see what would happen with overlapping cards. If the Calamity happens, someone is deciding the card strength, and an overlap is actually possible. If not, he'd have to reconsider the circumstances up to that point.

Once the Calamity happened, Baku saw yet another referee, this time Hal's referee, drop down to break the Bios. Between Shion and Hal's referee, Baku was at this point convinced that Hal and Fukurou were involved, and were the ones deciding what hand a card formed. While the hatch was left open, he started making a ruckus to send a message to Hal, while masking it as anger over "Lalo forcing the Calamity". He sent something that only Hal, the "Hal that knew Madarame Baku" would understand. This, I think, is the miracle that Baku was banking on. That Hal would be able to reclaim his memories as his own, to understand what Baku's message really meant.

The problem with this, I think is twofold:
1. Baku came up with all of this in less than 5 minutes. After nearly drowning. That's absolutely ridiculous.
2. This plan would be all or nothing the moment he played 45. If he was wrong about anything, he'd be up the creak without a paddle, being forced to reconsider whether his 25 was actually an ace card.

That aside, about this round, we already know what the upper levels chose. The 7s are not overlapping, so there is no Calamity.

 

[vaur]

@Veshv I meant chapter 434. I think he already understood at that point, not just the law but the people who make it. He first confirmed it, then wrote down the law to Lalo.

I've reread the past chapters, you are right, sadly there is wont be a calamity.

 

[lafiel11]

What a good arc. I am so happy to have read it.