Correct, Donnie, deck penetration measures the quantity of cards that have been dealt before the dealer shuffles the cards. Penetration is usually expressed as the percentage of the deck already dealt, for example, "65%"or about 34 cards on a single deck. Penetration is extremely important to card counters, but not indispensable for basic strategy players like you. Unless the dealer is outright cheating, or indulging in preferential shuffling thinking that plenty of 10s remain in the deck, the cards should be in a random order after each shuffle. Bottom line: If the player is not counting down the deck and there's no preferential shuffling, there is no advantage to the basic strategy player if the dealer were to allow 20% penetration, then shuffle, or plunge on to the 90% penetration level.