Mr. Ortiz, it is nice to have you here. I was wondering, in your new book you have three effects that require a memorized stack. What stacks do you use for these three and is there any particular reason you use them?

Thanks
Whitini

Whitini:

Actually, there are four memorized stack effects in Scams & Fantasies with Cards: Maximum Risk, The Last Laugh, Remote Control, and The Zen Master. Any memorized stack will work for these effects. I feel that it’s a mistake to obsess over which stack to use. I can only repeat the advice in the book: Take a deck. Shuffle it. Memorize it.

Sincerely,
Darwin Ortiz

Without debating the merits of one published stack over another, wouldn't it still be advantageous to learn a published one rather than some arbitrary order? Some published stacks can be easily arrived at from new deck order, some contain built-in poker deals and other features, and some effects have been published that make use of the features of a particular stack. And finally, as rare as it may happen, it can be fun to work alongside someone else who knows the same stack.

Craig:

In my view, most of the built-in features of published stacks are either achievable impromptu through sleight of hand or are weak effects that I wouldn't bother performing. (Of course, anyone who disagrees should certainly consider learning the stack in question.)

While it may be fun to work alongside another magician (and it opens up the possibility of a two-person act), using a commonly known stack can also hurt your chances of fooling a magic group. Of course, this only matters if you primarily work for magicians. I don't. But if you do, starting with a deck you can't hand out for shuffling that has a nine of diamonds on the face may provide a tip off.

Being able to get into a stack from a sealed deck can be a big advantage if you often start your performance with a new deck (as I do). My point, however, is not to get hung up on searching for the mythical "perfect" stack. I’ve seen this lead to a paralysis of indecision for some magicians that can last for years. The important thing is to learn a stack so you can start performing with it.

Sincerely,
Darwin Ortiz

Dai Vernon explains a nice way of memorising a deck of cards plus various ways of coding which card you need or are holding by saying certain words or holding your cigarette a certain way. Check it out on the vernon revelation video 11/12

Euan

Euan:

The best ways of doing this are the various card cheats' universal codes. Most of these have not, however, been tipped.

Sincerely,
Darwin Ortiz

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Vernons goes into it in some detail. Holding the cards a certain way to denote values and placing of a cigarrete for suits etc. It's almost like card marking, without the marks

Euan

I worked on the Aronson stack for a while but soon became bored with the tricks hidden within. They were almost entirely fairly unimpressive poker deal routines or effects which (as Darwin said) could be easily achieved through sleight of hand. I am currently however working on Tamariz's stack because of one feature. There is an effect he performs (on one of the A1 All-Stars tapes, #2 I think) called Four of a Kind. While it doesn't matter which stack you use, it is important that there are no repeated pairing of cards. For example if a 5 follows a 6, no other 6s can be followed by a 5. You also cannot have any cards of identical value next to each other. Tamariz's stack fits in with this, Aronsons does not.

This might seem like a trite point, but this effect was the one that made me say to myself "That's what I want to perform".

Some of your may be interested in an idea I had when I saw Juan perform this effect. It occurred to me that it could be done with a deck shuffled by the spectators both before and after the selection.

The secret is a marked deck. You would need a fast-reading deck such as the Ted Lesley Working Performer’s Deck. (Anyone familiar with the original should be able to work out the details.) I’m not suggesting that this method is necessarily superior to the original. However, anyone who often works with this kind of deck might want to consider it.

With the marked deck method, you will occasionally encounter the problem of two cards of the same value side by side. You can easily deal with this by spread-culling one of them to a lower position, then starting to spread again. (This idea could also be used to perform Juan’s original method with any memorized stack.)

Sincerely,
Darwin Ortiz

PS: The effect is actually on volume 2 of Juan''s Lessons in Magic.