Usogui - Vol. 43 Ch. 469 - Air Poker's Epilogue

[0verSky]

Man being a referee has a lot of perks.
Get to preside over mortal entertainment.
ALL STATS 100% buff when uphelding the rules.*
Plot armor / Death resistance.

*Do not apply when opponent is another ref.

 

[troita]

So, I've got another doubt that I hope @a2j04vm0 or @catx3 can help me with

I don't get why Baku told Lalo the law.
The reason given is that he wanted to make Lalo play his ace card first. Lalo did end up playing 47 but that was because playing 63 or 44 would have destroyed 47. Baku had no role in this.
Moreover, after the second round all 2s,8s and 9s had been used. So Lalo knew that there was a high probability that Baku's ace card was 25(3 4 5 6 7), since that is the only straight flush other than 47 that could still be formed. Similarly Baku also know that Lalo's ace card had a high probability of being 47 (10 11,12 13 A), since that is the only straight flush other than 25 that could still be formed.

So, the optimal play would have been Baku not telling Lalo the law and playing 45 in the third round as it would have destroyed Lalo's 47 and subsequently guaranteed Baku's win with 25 in the later rounds.
There's still a 1/3 possibility of Lalo playing 47 in the third round but it's still better than the current scenario where Lalo still plays 47, can make an informed choice and also can't be bluffed into folding or calling.

Also, another thing that's bothering me is why did Baku not fold in the third round after the cards were revealed.
Shion says that Baku didn't fold because he wanted to know the result of overlapping hands because he didn't want to leave anything to luck.
But Baku knows the possibility of a calamity occurring and when it happens his only chance to win would be to send the message to Hal. This was incredibly more risky and much more is left to luck than simply folding in the third round.

I may be missing something ( I hope I am ) but this seems like a huge oversight.

 

[Veshv]

@troita
I'm curious about the real reason Baku told Lalo the law as well, since my own thoughts on it have flaws as well.

But that aside, Shion said Baku didn't fold because "Folding could be the special way of losing" where the calamity occurs. If Baku is ascertaining what the calamity is, he has to make sure it's not folding. If he were to fold in round 3, the calamity would still happen given what we know, but Baku would not know why it happened. The Calamity condition is "overlapping cards" on the upper level, and nothing the lower level does in terms of betting changes the occurrence of it.

If we're talking about optimal, Lalo was already thinking of 47 as a royal straight and was about to play it, so Baku just nudged him in the direction he was going in the end. If he did nothing and played 45, even if Baku folded, he'd win round 4 with 25, lose round 5 with 26, and come out basically 21-20 on Air Bios. With the benefit of hindsight, that small advantage in air means Baku loses, both because he breathes faster, and because Lalo had been secretly saving air. Baku from the start wasn't planning on letting it become a close battle of resilience, so that sort of flow wasn't something he wanted to go for.

 

[LuffyKun]

Damn... So they're alive

 

[marcyvq]

Kaji: haha, w-what are you saying Baku-san? You trying to get me purged for interference or something, you dick-hole?

 

[troita]

@Veshv
When explaining the rules of the game, Shion explained the calamity as, "Please think of it as an outcome of the law"
I don't think folding is in anyway connected to the law . On the other hand losing during overlapping cards or when a player cannot make a hand for a number because all required cards have been used seem like a probable outcome of the law and hence a calamity.

Besides Shion also said that "Lalo lured in Baku with his curiosity" and "Baku invited the calamity onto himself" which I take to mean that the calamity wouldn't have occurred if Baku had folded.

Also, Lalo was going to play 47 because his other cards were 44 and 63, but Baku did not know that and from his point of view I just can't see a logical connection from " I'll tell Lalo the law" to "Lalo will play his ace card"

But I absolutely agree with your last point about Baku still having to play 26 then 25 in 4th and 5th round respectively.
If he had folded , it would be 25 vs 17 after round three and 21 vs 21 after round 4. So Lalo would have to call in round 5 because if he folded it would be 26 vs 16 and a 10 bios lead is insurmountable even with the difference in breathing pace.

 

[Veshv]

@troita
Folding is not related to the law, as we know it. Baku, at that point in time, could not be certain of that. What decided a card's hand was the only thing he could try to figure out, whether it was guaranteed to be the strongest hand available for the round or not. As far as he was concerned, the way you bet could have an effect on the hand. That is, calling/raising will create the strongest available hand, and folding will make it a trash hand guaranteed to lose, which could very well have been the real Calamity. He wasn't sure at the time, and without knowing who was directing the law (himself, the referees, a third party), he couldn't just ignore the possibility of folding being the way for a Calamity to happen.

If you go back and look at the discussions before the law was unveiled in the chapter, some people were theorizing it had to do with how you bet. Without knowing the match really was a 2v2, Baku could also go down that train of thought.

As for Baku inviting the Calamity onto himself, it's because he played 45 and told Lalo the law. Manabe specifically said you lose the amount of Bios that you bet on the table, and even when you fold, you already bet the ante. The Calamity definitely happens whether or not a player on the lower level folds.

 

[troita]

@Veshv
I think at that point of time Baku did know how the hands were being made.When Baku was drowning during the second round, he had a dream in which Yakou asks him "Why isn't Leader here? ". Moreover, after the calamity occurs in the third round, Baku immediately starts sending the message to Hal. So, I think Baku definitely knew since the end of the second round that Hal and Fukurou were the ones making the hands.

Also, Shion specifically says,"That 2 air-bios bet which seemed pretty low risk at first glance, provoked Usogui's curiosity and lured him into the trap of calling".
So, my guess is it wouldn't be much of a trap if the calamity occurred regardless of whether Baku called or folded.
In ch445, it is given that, "The calamity occurs when a player loses in a specific way.He must forfeit as many bios as he bet in that round". I think the specific way of losing is when players battle with their cards and the cards used for making the hands overlap.
But I'm not exactly sure and would really like a confirmation either way from @a2j04vm0 or @catx3.

 

[BossCrab]

@troita @Veshv
In my estimation there are three reasons why he told him the law. Two of them hinge around something we know: Lalo was not particularly interested in trying to figure it out at first. Lalo mentions that he has seen so many people waste their energy struggling at the end and he doesn't want to do it. Fukurou also thinks its doubtful that Lalo would try to figure it out.

1. As you said, he wanted to bait out his ace card immediately. You guys talked about this and the manga does as well.

2. He wanted to make Lalo actually have to think, greatly increasing his air consumption. Remember, Baku's breathing went out of control when he realized the law. It would have made the difference in breathing rate cause an even bigger gap in used Bios over the course of the game.

3. As we heard in Hangman, Baku doesn't like to leave anything to chance or luck. If Baku knew the law but Lalo didn't, Lalo could basically play just as a game of chance and blindly pick cards. This would have left an avenue for Baku to have no influence over Lalo's actions, and he could lose. By telling Lalo the law, he could better manipulate his actions and come to his desired end result.

As for Shion saying he invited the calamity on himself, I took it to mean that he invited Lalo into the world of the Law, and invited him to play his ace card in that round, which directly caused the calamity. Even if Lalo had been leaning toward playing 47, there was a chance he wouldn't have. Once Baku told him the law, he was guaranteed to play 47 in that round, which caused the calamity due to the card overlap.

 

[troita]

@BossCrab
I completely agree with your second point. Rate of consumption was a huge factor here and in the end if Usogui wins more more bios through the rounds but ends up consuming vastly more air at the same time,it is of no benefit to him.
My only problem with your third point is Usogui did not know that telling Lalo the law would make him play his ace card because he did not know that Lalo's other two cards were 63 and 44.

Anyway 45 vs 47 was not an ideal matchup for usogui because it risks occurrence of a calamity which did end up happening. The ideal matchup would have been 45 vs 44, because it would have destroyed Lalo's ace card and won Baku the round while also avoiding a calamity. Even 45 vs 63 was fine because while Baku would have lost the round, he would have still destroyed Lalo's ace while avoiding the calamity.

So,either Usogui knew Lalo had 63 and 44 and making him play 47 was a bad move or Baku didn't know Lalo had 63 and 44 and so had no part in making him play his ace card other than by accidentally doing so.The second one seems much more probable to me.Or maybe there was some other method by which he knew that Lalo would play the ace card if he told him the law.

And that is my main point of confusion.
Telling Lalo the law brought about the calamity and forced him to take the much riskier gamble of
1)getting the message to Hal
2)Hal regaining his memories and understanding the message
But the alternative on not telling the law had much better probability of good outcomes.
And Usogui had thought of this line of events because he immediately started sending the message after the calamity.
Yet Usogui chose to tell the law which I can't understand for the life of me.

 

[BossCrab]

@troita
He didn't know what cards Lalo had at all. But looking at his own hand and understanding the game, he could make the assumption that Lalo has an ace card that was likely a straight flush like Baku's 25. Baku wanted Lalo to understand that there was probably a time limit on how good his cards can be and force him to use his best card in that specific round out of fear of losing it. If the hands are made from the best available cards then it stands to reason an ace card could lose value if it was held onto too long.

He was goading Lalo into using his best card specifically BECAUSE he wanted to play a weak card against it to throw the hand in the 3rd round where the antes were lower, and not risk having Lalo's ace vs his own later. That's why he reacted like "I reeled in a big one" when he saw 47, he realized it was the royal straight flush and that his bait worked. The calamity hit him, but Lalo got pulled into Usoguis world and could no longer just play cards without thinking.

Yes, his strategy was risky. Maybe he would have had "better odds" just letting Lalo blindly pick his cards but thats not the point. It's the same as Hangman; why did he have no problem losing multiple rounds, and then go through the weird song and dance of having Yakou make a time limit on the game and trying to trick Sadakuni when he could have had held his cards down and have Sadakuni just guess blind? Because if it comes down to an element of luck there's still a chance he could just get unlucky and lose. If Lalo was allowed to move on his own without Baku dragging him into his world of mindgames he would not have control of the situation and could still lose. Lalo could have just done whatever he wanted instead of Baku being able to manipulate his decisions. As it stood he was able to manipulate Lalo fully.

 

[herolm]

@BossCrab

My thinking is that he originally wanted to prove he was the strongest gambler, but once he became connected to Hal he's looking for something more special.

I was thinking the same. Souichi mentioned wanting to stay as Hachina longer a few times. We just learned that his whole memory loss actually stems from the huge self imposed pressure he experiences as his role of the leader. Even Tatsuki preferred his role as a Referee to being the leader. Just before his gamble with Fukurou he wanted to abandon those roles and stay as HAL forever.

Spoiler

I thought Baku actually might try to depose Souichi from his position for the sake of HAL. Not sure how that works when it's supposed to be a gamble of life and death though. Maybe there's some loophole the same way Baku avoided his collection. Baku is the Lie Eater after all. The way I understand it his most defining talent is being able to see through people and understanding them, so I can see him understanding his wish to live as HAL.

 

[troita]

@BossCrab
I think you are underestimating how risky this strategy was.This is nothing like hangman.In hangman, Baku was just manipulating Sadakuni and he had a good idea of what time limit Yakou would set because he had known him so long.

In this gamble, he had no idea whether the message would even reach Hal in the first place. The first floor could have been soundproof to prevent communication between the allies. Hal and Fukurou could have been on 3F instead of 2F so the sound wouln't even travel that far.They could have been in a separate building altogether.
And the biggest gamble would be if Hal would even regain his memories to understand the message. Even Baku himself called this a miracle.
If the only thing Baku had to do was to win the mind game against Lalo, then sure this makes sense since Baku is so proficient at it.
But all the other things that had to happen for the gamble to pay off make it seem like he left much more to luck than in the alternative case.

 

[catx3]

@troita

Telling Lalo the law brought about the calamity and forced him to take the much riskier gamble of
1)getting the message to Hal
2)Hal regaining his memories and understanding the message
But the alternative on not telling the law had much better probability of good outcomes.
And Usogui had thought of this line of events because he immediately started sending the message after the calamity.

Hmm, good question. I had to think on it for a while, here is what I think Baku was thinking:

Telling Lalo the Law

Spoiler

At the start of round 3, Baku only needed to win one more round to have enough bios to fold all the other rounds, and still have enough to win the entire match. But based on the remaining sum of the deck, he knew that 2 of his cards were weak and very likely to lose to Lalo's cards. So he could only rely on his straight flush to win that "one round".

However, he could only play his straight flush on either round 3 or 4, otherwise the required cards would be used up. He also suspected that Lalo had a better ace card or two (either a stronger straight flush or the royal straight flush). So he realized that if he played his four-of-a-kind of jacks to eliminate those hands from the game, it would make his straight flush to 7 the best hand in the game.

But, there's still a chance that Lalo had a straight flush to 7 as well. In that case, Baku would either lose due to suits, or they would draw and have to split the pot, both of which would end up in his overall loss.

So Baku's goal was to avoid playing his straight flush against Lalo's, if he had one. So Baku told Lalo the law, to make Lalo use up his "ace cards" in both round 3 and 4. Since the ace cards have a high chance of weakening if not used, Baku knew that Lalo would try to use them as soon as possible, if he was given the knowledge of the law. After baiting out Lalo's strongest hands, at round 5, Baku's "hidden" straight flush would definitely win, since Lalo would have used his hypothetical straight flush in a previous round.

So ultimately, he gave Lalo the knowledge so that he would play his strongest cards first, so that Lalo would not randomly save and play that straight flush in the 5th round.

If Baku didn't lose to the calamity in the 3rd round, I think he might still have avoided playing the straight flush in the 4th round, to avoid the chance of Lalo having another ace card (straight flush to 7) on top of his royal straight flush. Although in actuality, Lalo only had the royal straight flush as his ace card, but Baku wasn't sure of that until the very end. At the start of the 5th round, Baku was probably most worried about whether Lalo had the same card as him.

So I think at the moment he told him the law, he was already prepared to rely on Hal for the 5th round win.

Baku losing extra bios due to the calamity might have been calculated as an acceptable loss, because he knew that Lalo would later call his raise at round 5, because Lalo (with the knowledge of the Law) could tell that Baku's straight flush should be gone. So telling Lalo the law also set up the final bait of getting Lalo to call his raise.

edit: One more possibility is that Baku wanted to prevent what happened at the end: a situation where Lalo "gracefully accepts" his loss. Maybe he told him the law so that he could actually outplay him in a game of skill, rather than a game of luck, to completely obliterate his spirit as revenge for Kyara? So he wasn't only trying to win, but he wanted to win specifically in a way that makes Lalo fall into despair, so he needed Lalo to know the law for that to happen.

Sound & HAL

Spoiler

He definitely gambled big on HAL being able to hear the sound. At the very least, I think it's reasonable for Baku to assume they're in the same building, because Manabe and Shion are their follower referees, and they have to be close enough to be able directly handle any unexpected situations that may occur.

Also, maybe he could've known they were on F2 rather than F3, because he could see that the announcing room was on F3, when he was outside.

Someone else mentioned in a previous chapter that Hal's alien joke could've been used to signal Baku that Hal regained his memories, by Baku seeing that referees are laughing (which is an abnormal situation), and recalling the only time it happened was during the terrorist arc with the same alien joke. So that could've confirmed that his signal reached him, and that his strategy worked. (I didn't catch any panel of Baku noticing it though.)

Miracle of HAL

Spoiler

Indeed, this was an even bigger gamble than the sound. There are a few things I can think of which might've made it less of a gamble:

-Baku knew that Hal's opponent was Fukurou, and maybe that their meeting would awaken his memories of Hal, specifically since Fukurou was Hal's last opponent before his "death". Or maybe he predicted that Fukurou's conversation would do something, since Fukurou would remember Hal but not vice versa.
-Baku perhaps learned something about how Hal's memories work, by looking at Eba's computer back during the Bookstore arc. Baku had the "Prince Bee" book for awhile, I think it's likely that he actually read the book and found the hint to Eba's location. Or, after hearing about the Hal-Fukurou gamble on the phone, he went to that place and looked at the computer after Eba died and Hal left the building. Also, at the start of Air Poker, the referees talked about how the place was a torture facility. So he could've predicted that Hal & Fukurou were being tortured, and combined that with his knowledge, and thought that Hal being tortured might trigger his memory to return?
-Hal registering his name as "HAL" in protoporos might have been enough of a hint for Baku that Hal has some sort of residual memories.
-They also could've had some sort of talk in between the time they met at the bookstore, and the meeting between Hal/Baku/Lalo. A curious thing to note here is that the meeting happened in the abandoned building, so Hal casually just went into Baku's territory without fear of any traps.

You're definitely right that Baku's reliance on Hal was overall very risky. But I guess to Baku, it's better to rely on Hal rather than hope that Lalo does not have a 25 or misplays it.

Although the sound bet was risky, I suspect that the miracle of HAL might've had some sort of basis that we don't know of yet, since it's not like Baku to rely on crazy miracles.

 

[BossCrab]

@catx3
Thank you...you got a couple things across that I had a tough time explaining.

 

[troita]

@catx3
Hey that's a pretty good explanation. I hadn't even considered the possibility that, from Baku's point of view, there could be another 25 with Lalo. It just seems so counter-intuitive to think that there could be two same cards in the game, but Baku does not have the luxury to make that assumption so he has to factor it in his plan too.
Lalo having 25 along with 47 does makes the alternative of not telling the law much more dangerous because even if Baku does successfully destroy 47 using his 45, he has no way of destroying Lalo's 25 without destroying his own. Also, as you pointed out, even if they clash it still gets wasted and Baku loses. So yeah Baku had to make sure that his 25 does not clash with either of Lalo's (potential) ace cards, and the best way of doing that is to tell Lalo the law to make him play his ace cards early.

There's just one hitch in the plan that if Lalo had a 25 and played it in the 4th round, it could potentially destroy Baku's 25. There are two suits (hearts and clubs) remaining which could be used to make the straight flush to 7 and even if Fukurou makes Lalo's 25 using one of them in the 4th round, it still leaves the other for Hal to use in the fifth. But the problem is Hal used the 4 of hearts to make full house for 26 in the fourth round. So, if Fukurou makes straight flush to 7 using hearts, it could potentially trigger a calamity (I don't know if overlapping hands trigger a calamity if a hand is invalid) and if he used clubs, it would destroy Baku's 25.

Other than that your theory also explains why Baku didn't fold in the third round. Baku's plan involved folding in the 4th round, so he had to know if folding triggers the calamity. So, suppose Baku folds in the third round and the calamity triggers (I also don't know if overlapping hands still trigger a calamity if a player folds,does it?), then Baku wouldn't know if the calamity triggered due to folding or due to overlapping hands. So, I guess calling was better because there was a high chance that overlapping hands did trigger the calamity so the confirmation would be nice for the plan.

Your points about the sound and Hal do make sense because as Yakou said, Manabe and Shion were the only one who could intervene in the gamble so they had to be close to Fukurou and Hal to make sure that everything goes well. But how did Baku know that the top room was the announcing room? I think Baku and Lalo thought that the announcement room was the one above them in ch429. But yeah even if it was a pretty big gamble( soundproof rooms,3f or 2F, etc.) it had somewhat reasonable odds.

But tbh I would really like some sort of explanation or reason from the author for Baku believing that Hal would regain his memories in the next arc.

Again, thanks for the explanation

 

[Heap]

Kaji's upset? because Baku bet his life again? actually nah I'm guessing that was Usogui's acknowledgement of how much Kaji has grown, because this time it wasn't a lucky accident but something he figured out before anyone else, i think Kaji's actually tearing up a little. Also, yay! Ikon's alive! and Amen is ok, just sad because she couldnt do her job and glad that Lalo is purged

 

[glueweeb]

bruh, kaji is fucking scary lol

 

[7goat]

That tone shift from Ikon being alive to Marco discovering Kyara's corpse was too much.

 

[uncidutch]

I bet things are awkward between Yakou and souichi since Yakou killed his dad