Recap / The Genius S 1 E 7 Open Pass

Open, Pass (Indian Poker)

Air date: June 7, 2013

Games inspired by: Indian Poker — Blind man's bluff

Each player is given deck of cards. Cards have either an arithmetical operation or a digit on them. Players come to dealer's table one by one and present 20 cards. Dealer shuffles them and puts them on a table faces down. Dealer picks these cards one by one (still faces down) and player chooses to either "Open" or "Pass". "Opened" cards become part of math equation going from the end of it towards beginning. Players' goal is to maximize the value of this equation. Consecutive digits after the first one are ignored (so "193" becomes just "1"). If operation is put on the leftmost place in equation, "0" is added before it.

The perfect outcome is something like 9*9*9*9*9*9= . So players need to alternate between digits and operations. Operations are preferably multiplications or at the very least additions. It is imperative that player doesn't "Open" operation card on the leftmost place of the equation because if it's multiplication then 0 will be added before it, making the entire equation 0.

Players can buy extra decks for 1, 2 or 3 garnets. Higher the price the "better" deck is, as in higher digits, more addition and multiplication signs.

Sunggyu has the most garnets so he buys deck of each type right away. He starts playing with them and notices that 2 garnet decks have cards with red backs. This deck is overlooked by others because if player has lots of garnets they buy expensive 3 garnet deck and if they have few garnets they pick cheapest 1 garnet one. This means he now has a way to distinguish cards from their backs.

He wants to hide this from others but Eunji notices his red cards. Sunggyu now has no choice and reluctantly enters the team with Eunji, Sangmin, Kyungran and Yuram (i.e. everyone except Jinho and Poong). They combine their decks, buy more decks and start distribute them among themselves with sets like "all digits have blue backs and all multiplications have red backs".

Jinho has no team today and has nothing to do but to play rehearsals with dealer over and over and also occasionally peek over to see what big alliance is doing. To prevent Jinho from seeing too much Sangmin and Sunggyu distract him, keeping him in the other room.

Time is up, and players start to create their equations on dealer's table. Kyungran leads with 15 552 points and it seems like she's gonna win, Jinho starts forming his equation and he miraculously opens all the right cards and wins the game with stupendous 35 840 points.

Jinho didn't even know about red cards. He found the other trick. Backs of the cards are not perfectly symmetrical and have defined "top" and "bottom". While playing with dealer he also notices how particular she is about NOT turning them. So he turns his multiplication cards upside-down and this allows him to tell them apart from digits from their backs. This is a classic Jinho victory and the highlight of entire season.

Jinho wins and doesn't even know who to give immunity to since all other players were against him. After some consideration (and Sunggyu's gesturing) he gives immunity to Sunggyu hoping to pick up a new ally.

Poong goes to Deathmatch and picks Eunji. They are playing Indian Poker and Poong loses.

Tropes:

• "Eureka!" Moment: 2 moments where Sunggyu and Jinho separately discover two different tricks with the cards.
• Holding the Floor: Sunggyu and Sangmin keep turns in distracting Jinho with smalltalk not letting him into the room where girls of their team distribute their decks.
• Taken A Level In Badass: Jinho who has been completely isolated this entire game, manages to crack it and spectacularly wins using only black and blue cards (while others are also using red cards).
• Theme Music Power-Up: "Genius" title theme starts during Jinho's turn when he is opening his cards and miraculously guesses all of them right, slowly building up for trick reveal.