Find a spare table or level surface and leave the decks set up for a while. Return to them often and study the heights of each pile and the corresponding conversion factors. Rearrange the piles and see if you can determine the correct conversion factors when the piles are not in ascending or descending order in terms of height. Work at becoming good enough to know the correct conversion factor with only a momentary glance at pile height. Remember, you’re going through all this because the accuracy of your true count—aside from keeping an accurate running count—is based on how good you are at sizing up the discard pile. I got blackjack jackpot playing in this manner several times.
At this point it might be worth mentioning that, for example, two decks in the discard pile will obviously result in different conversion factors depending on whether you’re sitting at a six- or eight-deck game. So, of course, you must be cognizant of how many decks are in use— something that should and will become very obvious to you in that two, four, six, and eight-decks vary so much in size, as do their respective discard trays. After some practice one glance at the discard pile—at the cards and the tray those cards are sitting in—should create in your mind an association that will generate the appropriate conversion factor.
Realistically, the only two games where confusion could arise, if you’re not careful, are between the six- and eight-deck game. But as a serious player at Blackjack tournaments, you’re not likely to be wasting your time playing an eight-deck game if a six-deck game exists under the same roof, or in the same city. Unless bankroll considerations force you to play the lower-minimum eight-deck games, in which case you won’t be switching back and forth anyway. And four-deck games are such unique animals that they usually exist at all tables everywhere, or not at all. In other words, the message here is that a little bit of training for the game you intend on playing, or that exists at the casino destination you’re heading to, goes a long way. And the difference in conversion factors between, say, the two-and six-deck games in a locale like Las Vegas is so vastly obvious and different, that confusion between the two isn’t likely to happen.
