Generate a mnemonic with Piacentine cards

This method uses a 40-card Piacentine deck, or another Italian regional deck with the same structure. Each draw maps to a bit sequence in the card table below; accumulate 11 bits for each provisional word, repeat for 12 or 24 words, and then follow the final-word procedure.

Use a table like the following to record the results of card draws in the order drawn.

1024 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 Index Word
                         

The index is calculated by adding the values in every column containing 1. For example:

1024 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 Index Word
1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0    

The index is 1024 + 256 + 128 + 8 + 2 = 1418. You do not need to calculate it yourself; use the shared binary words table to find the index and word.

Card-to-bits mapping

With a 40-card Italian regional deck, such as Piacentine cards, draw one card at a time until you have enough entropy. Return each card to the deck and shuffle it before the next draw.

Like other regional Italian decks, Piacentine cards have four suits with ten cards each. Cards 1 through 7 show one to seven suit symbols. The remaining cards are:

These court cards are called Fante, Donna, and Re. Depending on the game, they have values of 8, 9, and 10 respectively. Card 1 of each suit is called Asso (Ace).

For each card, find its value in the following table by matching:

Suit Rank Value  
  Coppe A 00000
  Coppe 2 00001
  Coppe 3 00010
  Coppe 4 00011
  Coppe 5 00100
  Coppe 6 00101
  Coppe 7 00110
  Coppe 8/J 00111
  Coppe 9/Q 01000
  Coppe 10/K 01001
  Denari A 01010
  Denari 2 01011
  Denari 3 01100
  Denari 4 01101
  Denari 5 01110
  Denari 6 01111
  Denari 7 10000
  Denari 8/J 10001
  Denari 9/Q 10010
  Denari 10/K 10011
  Bastoni A 10100
  Bastoni 2 10101
  Bastoni 3 10110
  Bastoni 4 10111
  Bastoni 5 11000
  Bastoni 6 11001
  Bastoni 7 11010
  Bastoni 8/J 11011
  Bastoni 9/Q 11100
  Bastoni 10/K 11101
  Spade A 11110
  Spade 2 11111
  Spade 3 000
  Spade 4 001
  Spade 5 010
  Spade 6 011
  Spade 7 100
  Spade 8/J 101
  Spade 9/Q 110
  Spade 10/K 111