I like that sort of dark cynicism about the human condition that we see in those early 1980s TVB series though: no good deed goes unpunished and nobody is *truly* innocent.
I think Ah Lung lost that match for the same reason that Sau Dai Chin later lost to Fok See Ling: he called the opponent's bluff and miscalculated. I have very little knowledge about the rules of the game they played, but I gather that Ah Lung called Sau Dai Chin's bluff and lost (just as Sau Dai Chin later did with Fok See Ling).I still don't get it. Wouldn't Ah-Lung know Dai Chin could read his card? From the scene, it sounds like Ah-Lung expected Dai Chin to use some magic which he said he didn't. What was Ah-Lung expecting Dai Chin to do? Switch his card to something else?
On your earlier observation about whether or not Tam Sing could defeat Sau Dai Chin in tabletop games: I think there's a chance that Tam Sing could win. Sau Dai Chin had never lost, but he had also never faced an opponent who was trained by the respective masters of both Northern and Southern chin seurt. Lo 4 Hoi once observed that in combining his skills with Cheuk 1 Fu's, Tam Sing had attained a level that transcended them both. In all those years, I wonder if Sau Dai Chin had ever met an opponent like that.
Tam Sing was very modest about his skills in THE SHELL GAME II, even telling Ah Lung that Tao 1 Siu's skills were at least equal to his own and possibly better. But was Tam Sing telling the truth about this? Remember that in the beginning of THE SHELL GAME I, the second lesson that Lo 4 Hoi taught Tam Sing was "keep it in the heart; don't show it" ("sum chong but lo"). In other words, pretend to be a pig to eat a tiger. In THE SHELL GAME II, I think Tam Sing only demonstrated a fraction of his real ability (because that makes it much harder for his opponents to figure him out). Remember: Tam Sing was easily able to do with *both* hands what Tao 1 Siu could only do with his right hand. I think Tam Sing's skill level was much higher than he let on: as the student of both Lo 4 Hoi *and* Cheuk 1 Fu, he had to have been better than Tao 1 Siu...and possibly even better than Sau Dai Chin. As the King of Gambling Kings, however, Tam Sing had mastered the art of "sum chong but lo" and wasn't revealing his true strength.