The odds of the callers folding or getting the call completely wrong in each round are very small, so it's almost impossible for the caller to take the whole pot alone. Basically, whoever gets the right to call in that round is bound to put their basic stake into the pool.
Of course, the basic stake doesn't mean much—unless someone raises the value of the basic stake.
Calling is a losing position, but the gain as a follower isn't small. Take the first game for example: even if five people split it evenly, Xu Huo could still walk away with three or four props, and they were Rank-B props.
In the first round, everyone gets a chance to be the caller, and whoever has already called and lost their basic stake needs to top it up again. So by the time it was Xu Huo's turn to call, eight mermaid players had already accumulated in the pot.
That's right—apart from Xu Huo, the other participants in the game had each brought more than one mermaid player.
