
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
(2005•Yangzhou) Poker Card Game:  
Xiaoming turns his back to Xiaoliang and asks Xiaoliang to follow these four steps:  
Step 1: Distribute the cards into three piles (left, middle, right), each pile having no fewer than two cards and the same number of cards in each pile;  
Step 2: Take two cards from the left pile and put them into the middle pile;  
Step 3: Take one card from the right pile and put it into the middle pile;  
Step 4: Take the same number of cards from the middle pile as there are in the left pile and put them into the left pile.  
At this point, Xiaoming accurately states the number of cards now in the middle pile. What do you think is the number of cards in the middle pile?

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
user