Slow Boat from Macau by Jeremiah A. Gilbert
I’ve never been much of a gambler. This is in part due to focusing on the odds of losing, but mostly due to wanting to spend any extra money on traveling. This isn’t to say I don’t occasionally gamble. I’ve been known to purchase a lottery ticket when the prize is in the hundreds of millions, figuring the odds of losing are the same but the money won is much greater.
So far, the most I’ve ever matched is two of six numbers. I also used some cruise ship credit I once had in their casino as I already had their drinks package and there was nothing in the shops I wanted to buy. The end result? Forty dollars’ worth of credit gone in about twenty minutes.
I did once think I’d figured out the secret to hitting it big. For some reason, a casino near where I was living at the time had started a new promotion—playing tic-tac-toe against a chicken. The rules were simple: You got one play per visit and there was no fee to play. If you lost or tied, you won nothing but were also out nothing, but if you won, you got $15,000. Not bad for a few seconds of your time.
I decided to do a little investigating. Fortunately, there was a good view of this game from the casino’s buffet, so I filled up a plate and began to watch people playing against the chicken. It should be noted that there was a real chicken, though it was off to the side of the screen the players used and it pecked at its own smaller screen.
I noticed a few things. First, the chicken always went first and started by picking one of two squares. Second, there is a timer, so you need to be able to react in a reasonable amount of time or you forfeit your chance. Third, the chicken always won. With these observations noted, I headed home with a plan.
I started by drawing up a tic-tac-toe grid with one of the two spots the chicken always started with marked and made many copies. I then worked out every possible game starting with each opening selection. I then removed those that ended with a loss or tie as neither earned any money.
Focusing on just the winning combinations, I then started to ask people to play tic-tac-toe with me, with the condition that they started first and always picked one of the two opening spots. I got to the point I could determine if I was going to lose or tie by the chicken’s second selection, though by this point I couldn’t guarantee a win.
I went back to the casino to test my research. I sat in the same spot in the casino’s buffet and watched the game. I saw one woman who would have won but she ran out of time. Simple lack of training, I thought. I also made note of the chicken’s second selection based on their opponent’s first choice and started to notice a pattern.
So, I returned home and kept practicing. With this new information, I could pretty much determine the outcome by the chicken’s second selection with certainty. I figured I could only win once, but if my system worked, I could teach it to others for a small cut. This could be a nice supplemental income if I found enough people to train.
Filled with confidence and a lightening fast response to anything the chicken could throw at me, I made another trip to the casino to cash in on the spoils of my research and training. I figured I’d watch from the side for a while to spot the pattern of the chicken’s second selection and then step in line when I was certain I knew what it would be come my turn.
If I was right, I knew I’d won and could start work on training other hopeful tic-tac-toe chicken challengers. Only one problem: The casino got rid of the game sometime between my second and third visits. There goes that plan. What’s one to do besides head to the buffet again and have some chicken?
Given my lack of luck when it comes to gambling, why am I now on a ferry headed back from Macau, home to around forty casinos? The short answer is I’m in Hong Kong and it’s only an hour’s ferry ride away. The slightly longer answer is that, while I’ve been to China on several occasions, this trip is intended to fill in some gaps, namely Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, so why not include Macau while I’m at it? Besides, Macau had been a Portuguese colony well before the arrival of the casinos and there must be something left to see from that time.
Instead of heading into a casino, I spend my free time roaming the city. It’s just a few days past Christmas and decorations are still up. The most famous non-casino attraction in town is probably the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, whose construction began in 1602.
It was the greatest of Macau’s churches, but it burned down in 1835, leaving only its very large and beautiful facade and the front stairway. Here along with statues of the Virgin and the Saints, symbols of the Garden of Eden and the crucifixion, and carvings of angels and the devil, one finds a Chinese dragon, Japanese chrysanthemum, a Portuguese sailing ship, and inscriptions written in Chinese characters.
Of all the forts in Macau, Monte Fort is the oldest, lying to the east of the ruins of St. Paul's. Built in 1616, it originally belonged to St. Paul's Church and was used to defend the church from the pirates. It later became solely a military fort. Barracks, cisterns, and storehouses were the main buildings of the fort. An ancient tower situated here was one of the sites of the Society of Jesus. With cannons on all four sides, the fort was strongly fortified. Though the cannons have lost their military function, they still remain.
It’s on the return ferry ride that I begin thinking about my lack of success playing tic-tac-toe against a chicken. This is partly due to the amount of time it takes. First, the one-hour ride is delayed an hour. As no announcements are in English, it’s difficult to tell the reason but I’m assuming either engine trouble or a delayed ship from Hong Kong. Once we can board, it’s past sunset and the boat must sail at half-speed, making the return trip a total of three hours. Thankfully, it’s a comfortable ride leaving me to my thoughts of past potential gambling glory.
As I’m back in Hong Kong much later than expected, my dinner plans change as the restaurant I had in mind for the evening is now closed. So, I leisurely stroll back toward my hotel from the port and find a place beside my hotel for dinner. It’s a bit more touristy than what I originally had in mind, but it’s tasty and leaves me only a few steps from my hotel after an unexpectedly late day.
I had the chicken.
