the computer cannot skip a conditional branch if the condition is true - not unless the entire engine code is completely broken and non-working. And that would show with other problems.
so no matter what you think, at that moment when the event skips that show text, the variable is not >=1, and there is a simple way to proof that:
add a show text above the conditional branch that displays the variable value with a textcode.
now the reason why the variable is different than you think is what you need to find, and there are several possible causes.
most likely cause is a plugin you forgot to configure, resulting in the variable being used and set by that plugin. Followed by a double use of the variable in events like already mentioned above.
Or it could be that you have two variables with the name "player pick" and mixed them up.
And if you add the show text and that does not happen, then you broke your playtest by deploying into your project folder and need to repair your project folder.