20 piles? for the Garguantuan trick?

0		1
1		3
2		9
3		27
4		81
5		243
6		729
7		2,187
8		6,561
9		19,683
10		59,049
11		177,147
12		531,441
13		1,594,323
14		4,782,969
15		14,348,907
16		43,046,721
17		129,140,163
18		387,420,489
19		1,162,261,467


Did he really mean 20 piles with 2 billion cards and not ten piles with a billion in each?