Chapter 4 Absurd Preparations

The flight from Leningrad to Washington slowly landed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The staff of the Organizing Committee of the 22nd International Mathematical Olympiad Science Contest had already arranged a bus for the Moscow delegation to take everyone to the airport in the dark Transfer from airport to hotel. Grigory and Sergey played poker almost all the way, and when they got off the plane, they could be regarded as good friends, at least Sergey thought so.

It was already late at night when we arrived at the hotel, and the room had already been allocated. After taking a shower, Sergey was leaning on the bed in his bathrobe and watching TV. At this moment, there was a knock on the door, Sergey quickly opened the door to check, It turned out to be Grigory. Seryozha was a little surprised, so he asked, "Is there something going on so late?"

"I've come up with a method that can increase the winning rate of 21 points. I don't know if you are interested in it?" Grigory said excitedly while standing outside the door with his luggage.

In fact, Seryozha is now more interested in sleeping. Unfortunately, it is not Seryozha's style to reject a friend he just met. Anyway, his room is a double room with an empty bed. It was not a problem for Grigory to come in, so he shook his head and made way for Grigory to come in sideways.

Before Grigory stood up, Seryozha pressed his shoulders and let him sit on the bed, saying in advance: "Sleep first, we have a game tomorrow!" I thought this guy would object, but who knew he would Actually agreed. Seryozha lay on his bed, turned off the TV and turned off the lights, and soon fell into a half-asleep and half-awake state.

"Seryozha, do you think there will be a bonus if you win this competition?" Grigory's sudden question brought Sergesha back from the trance before going to bed again.

"What is the matter, are you short of money?" asked Seryozha.

"I want to buy a violin for my sister, and a sweater for my mother. By the way, I want to buy a better calculator for my father." Grigory counted the gifts for his family one by one. , only forgot his own.

"It's okay, I can lend it to you and return it to me when you have money!" Sergey replied casually.

"Actually, my blackjack card counting method is very simple, just..."

"Snoring! ~~ Snoring!"

Grigory was about to continue talking, but there was already the sound of sleeping snoring from Seryozha, and Grigory had no choice but to give up.

The next morning, Grigory has been urging him with his eyes since Seryozha got up, saying that women need to do the most things in the morning. In fact, there are many men. , get on the tuba, and then go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Grigory has been waiting anxiously for him all the time. It was not until they returned from the dining room that Seryozha patiently listened to Grigory explain his theory.

"My method is to record 2-7 as +1, 8-9 as 0, 10, J, Q, K, A as -1, and after this addition and subtraction, it can be calculated that the unused cards will be biased towards that One side. The counted sum is then divided by the number of remaining cards in the card shoe, and the result I call the real number. By referring to the real number to adjust the bets and decisions, the effect of weakening the banker's advantage can be achieved. "Ge Rigori said confidently.

"The game is going to be played in the afternoon. Don't you need to prepare and instead let me play blackjack with you?" Sergey Sha asked a little worriedly. This inspection was originally the goodwill shown by Leningrad University to Sergei. Sergei had not been assigned any specific work. In fact, it could be regarded as a public trip. Seryozha did not want to affect the performance of the Soviet delegation because of his relationship.

"It's okay, just give me an experiment, I want to see if my theory works!" Grigory urged excitedly. So Seryozha played blackjack with Grigory in the room to verify the winning rate of Grigory's theory in actual combat.

This was a boring thing, but Grigory had a great time playing it. To be fair, Grigory allowed Seryosha to record the cards that had appeared. Because Grigory's memory is so strong that he has his own cheating device.

"It seems that this method is not very effective, and it can only provide a 3% success rate." The two have been verifying hundreds of rounds, and Grigory made some small changes to his method, and finally became discouraged. Said.

"But I almost never beat you on the plane yesterday?" Seryozha encouraged Grigory. Just after saying this, there was a knock on the door outside. The leader shouted outside the door: "Seryozha, it's time for us to go!"

"Oops!" Seryozha and Grigory have been playing for too long, and now they can't help but always think of J, Q, K, A and other patterns in their minds, and their brains are extremely tired, it's like playing a game. The feeling of finishing all night mahjong. He guessed that Grigory's mind must be a mess now, how can this game be played! You must know that although the International Mathematical Olympiad is an event for middle school students, it is a competition for mathematical geniuses from all over the world, and this competition is held in the United States. Whenever they can compete with the Americans, the Soviets will always compete. The company is highly anticipated, which has caused a lot of pressure invisibly.

"Are you alright now? Hurry up and wash your face and wake up!" Sergey could not help but blame himself. He didn't help much at first, but now it's all right. He played blackjack with the main players for most of the day. If When the team leader found out, he had to kill him.

"It's okay, let's go back and play!" Grigory pushed open the door and walked out with a face of indifference. When he came outside, everyone had already boarded the bus, and there were only the two of them left, Sergey He boarded the car with an apologetic face, found a seat and sat down, and the car started quickly.

The venue of the 22nd International Mathematics Olympiad is located in a spacious gymnasium on the campus of the University of Washington. It is said to be a competition, but it is actually more like an exam. The contestants will be arranged in designated seats for the test. The test paper consists of 6 questions Composition, each question is 7 points, and the full score is 42 points. Each participant must finish all the questions within 4-5 hours. In order to take care of the Russian team that came from afar, this competition specially changed the game time to the afternoon. The competition lasts for two days. Today is the first preliminary round. Only the teams that pass the preliminary round can be as quiet as tomorrow's rematch.

After entering the arena, Grigory separated from Sergey. Sergey sat in the audience, and beside him was the deputy leader of the delegation, a professor of mathematics from Leningrad University. The audience is full of mathematics professors from various universities in the United States. If outstanding players emerge in the competition, they are likely to be spotted by these mathematics masters and recruited under their command. Seryozha couldn't help but sweat for Grigory. If he delayed Grigory's future because of himself, he would be really guilty.