Yan Ke and others are all MIT students, living in the school dormitory, and are not looking for another place to live. Although it is now the summer vacation, there are many vacant seats in the dormitory, but the beds in the dormitory of American universities are still relatively private, and it is not popular for friends to come to the dormitory, so Xiao Yao naturally will not squeeze the dormitory with them.

Cambridge is a famous university town, all kinds of basic supporting facilities are very complete, there are many hotels in the city, and the environment is quite good. Xiao Yao had booked the hotel in advance before he came.

Xiao Yao has been on the plane for more than 20 hours, and he will meet with the people of the card counting team tomorrow, so naturally there will be no program arranged in the evening. After Yan Ke and the others sent Xiao Yao to the hotel to check in, they invited Xiao Yao to have a meal, told him to have a good rest, and then said goodbye and left.

The next morning, Yan Ke and the three came to the hotel to pick up Xiao Yao and went to the MIT campus to meet with the rest of the card counting team.

The card counting group is not a student club recognized by the school at MIT, and can only be regarded as an unofficial secret organization at best, but MIT is very rich in hardware resources, and it is easy for students to find a few classrooms as a place for activities. Xiao Yao met Yan Ke and the members of their card counting team in a relatively remote classroom on the MIT campus.

There are a total of seven members of this card counting group, in addition to Yan Ke and the three, there are four other members. When Yan Ke and the three arrived with Xiao Yao, the four members were already waiting in the classroom. After meeting, Yan Ke introduced Xiao Yao and the four of them to each other.

The gender of the four is three men and one woman. Judging by their skin color, the three boys were Caucasian white, South American Latino, and Indian, while the girls looked like a mixed race of East Asian and European Latino.

Xiao Yao came to the card counting group to learn the card counting method, which is actually a kind of "peach picking" behavior. In order to persuade the other four to agree to Xiao Yao's "peach picking", Yan Ke and the three of them naturally introduced Xiao Yao's situation to the four of them in advance. However, Xiao Yao is here to learn card counting, not to hold a fan meeting, when Yan Ke and the three of them introduced Xiao Yao, the focus was on Xiao Yao's mathematical skills and relationship with them, not Xiao Yao's identity.

Yan Ke and the three said that Xiao Yao was their roommate when they participated in the training camp of the Chinese Olympiad national team in middle school. Those who can enter the training camp of the Chinese Olympic mathematics national team are naturally not bad in mathematics. Yan Ke and the three of them already had certain research results when they joined the card counting group, and the reason why they began to study the mathematical model and method of card counting very early was also from Xiao Yao's proposal, so the results they brought into the card counting group were also due to Xiao Yao's credit, and they also agreed to go to the casino together to experience playing 21 points with card counting.

The card counting team agreed that Xiao Yao would come to learn card counting, mainly for these two reasons. Yan Ke and the three didn't think that Xiao Yao's star status would be of any help to this matter, and they didn't even mention it to the four people in the card counting team.

At this meeting, when introducing the two sides to each other, Yan Ke and the three of them also did not deliberately mention Xiao Yao's star identity.

However, Xiao Yao also has a certain reputation in the United States. Yan Ke didn't mention the three of them, which didn't mean that the other four wouldn't recognize Xiao Yaolai.

After greeting each other, the mixed-race girl stared at Xiao Yao for a while, and suddenly asked, "Xiao Yao, is your English name Yang? Are you a member of the band "Immortals"? The Chinese star who participated in the Eva Show and the All-Star Celebrity Game?"

"It's me!" Xiao Yao smiled and nodded, "But I've quit "Immortals" and am not a member of the band now. ”

"Dean, haven't they made a statement that I've quit the band?" Xiao Yao said in his heart.

Recently, he has been busy, and Xiao Yao has not paid attention to the news in this regard. However, this kind of thing, Xiao Yao can express his attitude to Dean and others, even if they haven't made a statement, Xiao Yao will not urge it. At this time, I just muttered in my heart.

"Oh, oh my God!" the girl named Sandra said to Yan Ke and the others, "Why didn't you tell me that your friend was a big star in China?"

"Does it matter?" Yan Ke spread his hands and smiled, "We let him learn card counting because he can learn it in a short time and can do it well, and it has nothing to do with whether he is a star or not!"

"That's right!" said the white boy named Taylor in the card counting group, "Our card counting team teaches him card counting, and it has nothing to do with whether he is a star or not!"

"Jan, can you ask which school you went to college and what major?" Taylor turned to Xiao Yao and asked.

"Tye, why are you asking this?" Sandra asked Taylor, "are you trying to show your superiority as an MIT student?"

"Of course not. Taylor said to Sandra, "I'm just a little worried about his math skills. ”

"Yan told us that Yang once participated in the training and selection of the Huaxia Olympiad national team and scored a perfect score in mathematics in the Huaxia SAT test!" Sandra said, "Do you think they are lying to us?"

"No, I believe Yan!" Taylor said, "but maybe Jan was a math genius like Yan in middle school, but genius also needs to be learned." The fact that a member of the band "Immortals" was able to perform at the Eva Show and the Masters shows that he is an entertainer, a star, and I don't think a well-known entertainment star can spend much time studying and researching mathematics. He is a well-known star in the United States, which shows that he is not a hobby, but a profession!"

"Seems to make sense!" Sandra thought for a moment and nodded slightly.

"Can you answer my question?" Taylor saw that Sandra was silent, and turned his head to ask Xiao Yao again.

"First of all, I don't just want to be a band member, I'm also a professional actor and director. Xiao Yao smiled, "Then answer your question." I studied at the Shencheng Drama Academy in Huaxia as an undergraduate, which is a professional film and television school, and my major is the acting department! I am currently a double degree master's student in the directing and acting departments of the Huaxia Yanjing Film Academy. ”

"Do you need to learn mathematics for the film and television schools in Huaxia and the film and television majors you studied?" Taylor asked again.

"No need!" Xiao Yao shook his head and said, "My undergraduate and master's majors are all arts, and they don't have any math-related courses!"

"Ah~" Xiao Yao said this, and the four non-Huaxia members of the card counting team all showed surprised and disappointed looks.

"Thank you for being honest!" Taylor nodded to Xiao Yao, "But I'm sorry..."

"Wait!" Yan Ke interrupted knowing what Taylor was trying to say.

"Yan~" Taylor looked at Yan Ke with some dissatisfaction in his eyes.

Of course, Taylor will be dissatisfied with Yan Ke and the others. However, compared with Yan Ke interrupting him, he was even more dissatisfied with the fact that when Yan Ke and the three of them introduced Xiao Yao's situation to them, they didn't mention Xiao Yao's recent situation at all, and concealed it from the four of them.

When the four of them heard Yan Ke and the three of them say that Xiao Yao participated in the training camp of the Chinese Olympiad Mathematics National Team with them, and the Huaxia SAT Mathematics got a full score, and the total score was the first place in the city, they took it for granted that Xiao Yao was a mathematical genius, and continued to develop in the direction of science and engineering like these mathematical geniuses. Even if I didn't come to MIT like them, most of them studied at Shuimu University in China or other famous universities in other countries, but I didn't expect this person to go to study art, and he didn't study mathematics at all in four or five years.

"Taylor," Yan Ke ignored the dissatisfaction in Taylor's eyes and said with a smile, "Now our card counting model has been made. Jan is here to learn card counting, not to help us figure out how to count cards. We don't need to tell him the math of the cards, as long as he memorizes the formulas and tells him how to calculate and how to do it. So even if Jan didn't learn advanced mathematics at university, he could still learn card counting. ”

"But," Taylor said.

"I know!" Yan Ke interrupted Taylor with another wave of his hand, "What is the basis of card counting? First, it requires a strong memory and can remember the cards used. The second, strong mental arithmetic ability, through the formula to calculate the probability of the next card, from the probability of making the most beneficial choice. Memory and mental arithmetic ability, for the sake of talent, can also be improved through training. We are both talented and have a lot of exercise. Even if Jan exercises less, if his talent is high enough, he will not be worse than us!"

"What do you say?talent?" Taylor said.

"Yes," Yan Ke said with a smile, "We all think we are geniuses, mathematical geniuses, but Yang is our even more genius genius! We know Yang in the Chinese Mathematics Olympiad training team in high school, Yang was younger than us at that time, but he was better than the three of us in memory and mental arithmetic, and much stronger. Even though Jan hasn't studied math or trained in the past few years, his talent in these two areas is very high, and we believe that he is still better than us in both abilities!"

"Is it possible?" said Taylor, somewhat disbelieving.

"Isn't that the case, let's test it?" Yan Ke said, "We originally said that we would train and assess Yang. Now that Jan has come to the United States from Huaxia, we can't just let him go back without doing anything, right?"

"What do you think?" Taylor asked the other three non-Huaxia members.

Yan Ke, the three Huaxia people, have always advanced and retreated together, looking at the expressions of Chen Jiwei and Yu Gang, it is obvious that they are all this idea, Taylor feels that there is no need to ask, so he only asks the other three non-Huaxia members.

"I think Jan should give it a try!" Sandra said first.

"We're all here anyway, and we don't have any plans for today," the South American Latina named Sam pulled a deck of playing cards out of his pocket and shrugged his shoulders, "It's okay to play!"

The Indian boy named Raj looked more introverted and didn't speak, just nodded.

"Alright!" Taylor nodded when he saw that everyone agreed, "Sam, you can test it, first test his ability to remember cards!"

"OK!" Sam nodded, put the two desks together, stood on one side of the desk, pointed to the other side and said to Xiao Yao, "Please take a seat!"

Xiao Yao smiled, moved a chair and sat in the middle of one side of the two desks that had been put together. Naturally, the rest of the group stood at the table and watched.

"I have a deck of cards in my hand right now," Sam said to Xiao Yao as he unwrapped the cards in his hand, "I'll shuffle the cards first, get all the cards out in order, and then deal the cards at the pace at which the casino's 21 table deals." We calculate according to four players plus a dealer, not counting the cards, each time ten cards, and then buckle, you must tell all the ten cards what they are, and then play the second game, or ten, after the card, you say. Fifty-two cards can be played for five rounds, and as long as you can get them all right, the test is passed. ”

"Do you have to have the right suit and points?" Xiao Yao asked.

"Preferably so!" Sam thought for a moment, "but if you can't remember the suit, you can remember how many times a point appears!"

"Wait!" this time it was Yu Gang who said, "This is too difficult! We have a way to count cards, not to mention the suit, and we don't even need to remember the points so clearly! We use certain points as a code name to put together..."

"Stop!" Xiao Yao said to Gang, "I haven't passed the test yet, so don't tell me your card counting method first! There are five or six decks of cards in the casino, and in many cases there are more than four players at a table, and now Sam only tests me with one deck of cards according to the situation of four players, which can be regarded as lowering the standard, and I am willing to accept this level of challenge!"

"OK!" Sam took out the king and threw it away, shuffled the remaining cards, and began to deal the cards.

Sam dealt according to the 21-point rule. first sent four in front of Xiao Yao, then one in front of himself, and then one in each of the five positions. Except for the first card in front of him, which is buckled, all the other cards are directly revealed. After all the ten cards were dealt, Sam first showed the card he was holding in front of him, and showed Xiao Yao separately, made a gesture, and then deducted all ten cards in turn.

"Taylor, you put the cards away, you check!" Sam said to Taylor, pointing to the ten buckled cards on the table.

Taylor understood what Sam meant, and reached for the cards on the table.

"Wait!" Xiao Yao grabbed Taylor's hand that reached for the playing cards on the table.

"What's wrong?" Sam and Taylor both looked at Xiao Yao curiously.

"I want to make it a little more difficult!" Xiao Yao smiled, "I don't just remember the cards, I also have to remember their positions." ”

"Here!" Xiao Yao stretched out his hand and clicked on the two cards on his leftmost card, "Three of diamonds and ten of spades!"

Taylor reached out and picked up the two cards on the far left of Xiao Yao, looked at them, and nodded.

"Here, the six of clubs and the queen of hearts, here, the nine of spades and the eight of hearts..."Xiao Yao nodded in turn, and finally pointed to the two cards in front of Sam, "Finally, Sam in front of you, two Js, respectively spades and hearts!"

Sam picked up the two cards in front of him, looked at them, and nodded.

In the first round, all the guesses were correct, but the people in the card counting team did not show too surprised expressions. After all, it's only ten cards, and any of them can do it. Even if Xiao Yao increased the difficulty of the suit and position, it was not impossible for them. The key is that after there are more cards in the back, Xiao Yao can still remember.

Holding the two cards in his hand in front of him, Sam looked at Xiao Yao and said: "Originally, I was going to put away all the cards that I had used, and then randomly ask you how many times a certain point has appeared in the next few rounds, since you want to improve the difficulty yourself, I won't accept these cards." Later, I'm not just going to ask questions about the number of times a point occurs, but also about the decks that have already been used in a certain position. You might ask if there's a card of a certain value and suit in that pile, or you might ask you to name all the cards in that pile in terms of value and suit, can you do that?"

Sam did this to further escalate the difficulty of the test, and it was getting farther and farther away from the requirements of card counting. However, after Xiao Yao took the initiative to upgrade the difficulty for the first time, Yan Ke and the others no longer wanted to help Xiao Yao speak.

"I don't know, but I'm willing to give it a try!" Sure enough, Xiao Yao didn't refuse, and nodded with a smile.