Grrl Power #1440 – Gambledämmerung
I want to know what Cora’s Hard Light Holo-Projection interface looks like that she can spontaneously select a sword and have it appear to grow out of her cleavage, all without missing a beat in her conversation. I imagine her eyes dart around a bit while she’s talking when she does something like that. On the other hand her hardlight limbs are obviously tied right into her motor cortex, and presumably she has proprioception and touch feedback hard wired into her brain as well, so it’s entirely possible that she can just imagine what she wants to happen, then commit to it by flexing her prefrontal cortex just so.
I don’t know a lot about betting, but on Tom’s screen there, he was prepared to bet on Max to win the entire tournament, which of course would be much longer odds than betting on her to win each round, one at a time. Well, statistically, I think the actual mathematical odds would be the same, but I’m sure the bookies weigh things differently and always slightly in their favor than pure math would allow. But really… how do you even set the odds of such a thing anyway? If you had massive amounts of data on all the fighters in the tournament, like a hundred fights against all sorts of different opponents, you might be able to put together some sort of in-the-ballpark statistical model, but “Ixah” is a total unknown, as are a few of the other remaining competitors, so I assume the odds at this point are derived mostly from gut feelings?
I put the odds on her to win the entire tournament at 7:1. She has to actually win this round, of course, then there’s the semi-final against seven more, presumably tougher opponents, and then the final is another 8 person Battle Royale. (I think, I haven’t actually totally finalized that in my head.) But 7:1 is probably pretty generous, even though she effectively eliminated 3 of the other competitors herself by showing off a lot of strength and even a little tactical acumen by neutralizing the singularity spell with another opponents attack. I’d guess at the beginning of the round, her odds of winning just this round would have been at 8:1 since she was an unknown… or maybe a little worse, since the bookies would be favoring UMBRage and Kill-7? Again, I don’t really know how that stuff is figured. But her odds of winning the entire tournament at that point might have been mathematically 512:1, but the bookies probably wouldn’t have given better odds than like 24:1 maybe?
I know the odds in gambling isn’t set entirely by statistical models, the amount of money in the pot also is a big factor, and I think the odds are actually limited by what it’s possible to pay out. At least, in “reputable” gambling forums. If someone bets $10 million on a pot that’s already only $1 million, the odds might shift to 1.1:1 maybe, despite how much of a long shot that three legged horse is to win? Maybe it’s possible the house will actually contribute to a pot, cause they take a fee to process all the bets or something, and that could sweeten the potential payout? I don’t know.
But Cora and friends placed their bets at the beginning of the tournament for her to sweep the whole thing, so they’re going to make bank if she pulls it off. They probably also placed smaller bets for her to win each round, that way they don’t lose everything if she gets knocked out in the semi-finals.
A tournament like this would also have all kind of weird other gambling going on, like wagering on how many total decapitations or incineration or whatever else occurs.
Ah! I thought I had more time till March. I’m bad at looking at dates apparently. The new one is underway. I should have a draft ready to go for the next Monday comic?
Here is Gaxgy’s painting Maxima promised him. Weird how he draws almost exactly like me.
I did try and do an oil painting version of this, by actually re-painting over the whole thing with brush-strokey brushes, but what I figured out is that most brushy oil paintings are kind of low detail. Sure, a skilled painter like Bob Ross or whoever can dab a brush down a canvas and make a great looking tree or a shed with shingles, but in trying to preserve the detail of my picture (eyelashes, reflections, etc) was that I had to keep making the brush smaller and smaller, and the end result was that honestly, it didn’t really look all that oil-painted. I’ll post that version over at Patreon, just for fun, but I kind of quit on it after getting mostly done with re-painting Max.
Patreon has a no-dragon-bikini version of of the picture as well, naturally.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
“Well, statistically, I think the actual mathematical odds would be the same”
Not really, because the odds aren’t independent. A priori you might give her a 50-50 chance of winning any given match, and thus assume that in 8 matches she only has a one in 2^8 (0.39%) chance of winning them all.
But the matches aren’t random, and every time she wins a match the odds of her winning the next get reevaluated, so while she might get 50-50 odds from the bookies for winning any given match, they might give her 1 in 20 odds of winning the whole thing.
They’re not obligated to make the odds add up to 100%, after all.
Beat me to it.
I would add that the the bookies are not assigning odds a priori, either. Some of the contestants are repeat participants with a track record. Others (e.g., Maxima) are complete unknowns, and the bookies will just be using their best guess, based on the average performance of new competitors for which they have no information.
Forgot to fix my in correct use of “a priori”. Yes, the odds are assigned “a priori”, but the bookies have reason for that not to be 50-50 odds, even for unknown competitors.
Big Tiddy Sydney is distracting.
Surprised she’s not staring at her own more.
You know she’s gonna ask for a temp potion from Dabbler or give her Woof BF the puppy eyes until he gives in.
She now can pull off the Oppai Lolita look. Since she learned that holoprojectors are everywhere, I suspect she’s gonna do the LokiThor walk with Woof through the corridors.
Maybe even do a mini-max alt on herself. Poor staff is gonna get a sideshow and no relief until end of worksheet. Unless it’s like a coffee or smoke break, only for nookie.
I’ve also heard bookies will adjust odds so people will bet less or more on certain contestants. Like, if the odds are 1.5:1 and there are 4 contestants, they want equal money on each so they make 2:1 or better payout. If one contestant starts getting favored, they’ll adjust so the others will get more put on them.
They don’t care who wins, they just want more money than they pay.
A dark horse might still have an upper limit of 8:1 or 20:1 so they aren’t losing their own farm on a random loss.
And…..reveal eldritch, super-massive, world splitting sword in three, two, one….and she’s back to making paste of the competition!
I’ve also heard bookies will adjust odds so people will bet less or more on certain contestants. Like, if the odds are 1.5:1 and there are 4 contestants, they want equal money on each so they make 2:1 or better payout. If one contestant starts getting favored, they’ll adjust so the others will get more put on them.
They don’t care who wins, they just want more money than they pay.
A dark horse might still have an upper limit of 8:1 or 20:1 so they aren’t losing their own farm on a random loss.
I would believe it yes.
After all, the other three readily available ‘places of holding’ are an even harder no from Maxima (and 99.9999% of women on earth)
The “palm of holding” is a favorite I’ve seen in manga. Not embarrassing one bit, just cool.
Well there is always the navel.
It may not be ideal in size for a place of holding.
Yet it would have its benefits, like an easier sword-draw than other places.
What about good old fashioned “reach behind the back” hammerspace? It works for video game characters, animated characters, and live-action highlanders.
If the curve of the waist is sufficiently concave to carry the enchantment, she could just pull it out of her side. It would be a fairly natural drawing position. Like, cleavage of holding sounds sexy, and can even look sexy, but for drawing a weapon out of, it’s super awkward to get the clearance needed for much more than a dagger. Similar argument against pulling out of the butt or crotch (minus the acknowledgement that it can be sexy, as I don’t think either of those look sexy to attempt, just awkward). But pulling a sword out of the top of her hip would be a very natural movement.
Also, special shout out to the various comedy options, mouth of holding (go read the Mage Errant bookseries by John Bierce, it’s really good and features a mouth of holding in later books to great comedic effect, and also great tactical effect in combat), nostril of holding, and behind the ear (or in the ear) of holding. Probably won’t be sexy, but plenty of room for shenanigans!
The other… THREE… available places of holding that would be a hard no from most women on Earth?
What are the OTHER 3? I can think of 2 others that would be a hard no from someone like Maxima but what is the third that would be a hard no?
Usually the odds are based around who is betting what more than what the bookie’s think is actually likely to happen. So if a ton of people are betting on other people to win, that is going to push her odds down, but if a bunch of people do a coordinated attempt to dump a huge amount of money on her winning, then it is going to push the odds back up. The initial odds are often set on some data or a preset amount based on past odds. So like they may have a 100:1 odds for random person that no one knows about winning everything as the starting point, and then adjust it based on how the bets start coming in.
Yeap. Odds are set so the bookie makes money based on the bets laid, not on any prediction from them.
I think she’s coming out of that hole with a few seconds to spare, but moving so fast that nobody can see her. An insanely fast Max going all out in a fae realm is only going to take a few seconds to hit “GET THAT OUT OF HERE NOW” status.
She’s amped up in the middle of a fight. She’s not going in cold and mildly petitioning for release. Besides, that fae lord would have to agree to be part of the fight, would they not? Otherwise, tiny tinkerbell is going to be in more trouble than the fight is worth.
Would Cleavage of Holding mean that Cora can’t be stabbed in the chest? Would anyone who tried just not get their weapon back?
The old ‘portable hole’ armour. The disadvantage being they can grab things in/through it and aren’t immediately disarmed.
Storage things like bags are typically kept closed to avoid contents spilling everywhere. We aren’t seeing a big portal opening in the cleavage so aiming into there likely would extreme accuracy or an assist grapple to open the storage / part the cleavage.
just call it hammerspace and she’ll accept it easily XD
Deus and Sciona immediately think, bet now! Whilst the odds are artificially lowered. Thothgoth misses out, as he whiffs the moment before she escapes.
The boobs are literally hypnotic, so it’s arguably not even on Sydney.
That’s for a succubus. I don’t think Cora is one, though I could be wrong.
Cora is not a succubus. Her boobs are no more hypnotic than anyone else. (which is to say, ‘some)
Its cleavage of holding for 1 reason, her breasts make her force field a big “bigger” in the area in between them, thus protecting the tech from being destroyed, unless her force field fails, in this case, the cleavage of holding being destroyed is the least of her problems… Cora also tried the “in between your legs of holding” but Max “compromised” to the top one
The mouth is also viable. She would then theoretically have access to whatever a launcher inside could fire. Flamethrower, liquid nitrogen, swords or anything she can think of. *mid battle getting mixed up and spitting out kittens*
She could have Jessica Rabbits booby trap.
If I’m interpreting the betting screen correctly, there are only three contestants left in this round. Ixah (who only has a few more seconds to get back into the arena before being eliminated), Rambo-Barney (who was downed, but the commentators have repeatedly said is not out), and Saraviah. That means the damage Ixah did to Kill-7 was too much, and 5-eye robot, skull with floppy ears, and speed mask of doom were eliminated by K-7’s initial blast or each other. If this is correct, then Nightwing’s magic will easily dominate Rambo-Barney’s melee attacks unless it’s somehow immune to magic. With 2:1 vs 1.5:1 odds, the bookies think Nightwing will win.
As for rounds, doing the math with 8-contestant single-winner rounds, a final of 8 <- semifinals of 8 * 8 <- eliminations of 64 * 8 = 512 contestants.
I do wonder what Mr. Super-Intelligence thinks of this. Does he think Max can get out of that and, if so, how?
“HOLO SWORD/NIPPLE CENSOR” is a great gag, IMO.