Your first job is to control tempo, not chase hands-per-hour; on our 8-deck blackjack in Pit 3 with three players I teach 60–70 hands/hour and build to 80 as procedures settle… Curious what your floors use as early benchmarks and how you teach buy-in interruptions without letting the shoe stall.
We run 8-deck in Pit 2 and I coach 60–65 HPH with three on day one; for “buy-in interruptions” I have the floor pre-count stacks and drop them during payouts, then the dealer gives a clean “checks change” at the round end so the shoe never stalls. , nothing tanks tempo like taking cash mid-payout; if it’s cash-heavy we stage a checks-change lammer at the rack and batch two buy-ins at the break, then bump to 75–80 once procedures settle. Does your Pit 3 let rookies defer color-ups until shuffle, @OP?
I teach a “money waits, game doesn’t” cadence — acknowledge the cash, park a BUY lammer in the rack (think bar tab, not speed bump), finish take/pay, then convert during the shuffle or right after pays. For bigger entries I script it out loud: “$500 coming in after pay,” which calms the table and keeps us at 60–70 HPH day one. @nwilso23, only tweak I add is capping third base to two hands until the dealer’s rhythm sticks.
On your 8-deck in Pit 3, I post ‘80 by shoe 3’ as the stretch and have dealers pace off second base — resolve L→R with zero drift between pushes. For buys, I acknowledge and delay conversion until the shuffle for the first two shoes; floor pre-builds stacks off-table so nothing touches felt mid-round. Once they’re steady at 70–75 HPH, I’ll allow late-round conversions, but never during insurance.
@OP I set one money window — only after last pay and before first card out, or during the shuffle — and teach a consistent line: “we’ll buy you in after this hand,” which tightened pace more than any counting drill; small caveat: on promo-heavy nights I relax it a bit so ratings and comps keep up — do you adjust for that?
Biggest lift for us was a pre-call to the floor: after the last pay, dealer looks up and says ‘buy for $X next hand,’ then keeps the rack closed and deals; conversion happens at the next hand start or during shuffle, never mid-round. In Pit 3 with three players I’m good with 60–70/hr @OP, with the caveat I’ll take an immediate buy if it’s a rated whale heads‑up.