Once you have the appropriate number of decks, find a place where you can set them up in piles next to one another, preferably where you can study the piles for some time and where they won’t be disturbed exclusive blackjack. Divide the cards into piles that increase in half-deck increments, starting with one half-deck pile. The next pile would contain a full deck. The pile after that a deck and a half, and so on.
The six-deck player should end up with ten piles ranging in size from one pile of twenty-six cards, or a half-deck, to a pile containing 260 cards, or five full decks. The set-up for four-deck training would involve seven piles ranging in size from one pile of twenty-six cards to a final pile containing 182 cards, or three-and-a-half decks. By the way, the reason we don’t bother training for any more than five decks dealt in a six-deck game, or three-and-a-half decks dealt in a four-deck game, and so on, is because modern-day dealt a blackjack is never dealt down to the last card. So, for example, in a six-deck game, you should never have to do a division based on observing five-and-a-half decks in the discard pile. (At one time blackjack had been dealt down to the last card. But your predecessors put an end to that practice long ago, unfortunately. Imagine a true count with something like eight cards remaining?)
Notice how the conversion factors gradually decrease, which corresponds to fewer and fewer cards remaining to be played. This has the effect of a smaller and smaller change on the running count, since dividing any one number by a smaller and smaller number results in less of a change poker to the original number. That’s why in a multi-deck game the most advantageous situations often end up occurring just prior to the shuffle.
On a small index card write down the conversion factor for each half-deck pile, and place the card face up in front of that pile. Begin associating the heights of each pile with the corresponding conversion factor. The goal here is to become familiar enough with the height of each pile such that the actual number of decks present becomes meaningless—your only concern is the correct conversion factor.
To be continued…
