As stated the problem is like the Rubik's cube. More exactly, the cube is starting in NDO and after a number of twists it is in a particular configuration, all messed up as far as anyone is concerned, but in Aronson's very own precise mess.

The Six Hour Deck (name escapes me) has a section on what a shuffled or random deck should look like with all these ideas.

The deck switch is clearly the best solution to this problem. I'm partial to Tommy Wonder's "Has anyone got a pen?" An outright switch, total misdirection right in front of them. I've had a tough time convicing some magicians that it works.

However, the solution is still an irresistable challenge. To that end I propose this as a starting point. Not the whole stack but part of it. Take the top ten cards from the stack (or the bottom ten). Space them in order out amongst the other cards. As some of Simon's routines go, you can still make use of the this stack even when a shuffle or two has spoiled the perfect stack. Do this with different batches of ten or larger batches. At some point (stay with me here) a fair number of cards will be in a state where you can go through and upjog the cards of the stack, leaving others behind. There are zillions of combinations available where every third or fourth card is next in the stack. One or more of these combinations might be reached with shuffles and faros of all sorts as discussed. Once there, half the stack can be got with no more than a cull or a Green angle separation.

This is only the outline of a procedure to play with but it's a starting point. If accomplished then the rest can be done in only 26 more steps. All of this of course gets back to my favorite patter. In Collinspell when I need a perfect faro; "Just talk amongst yourselves."

One difference with the Rubik's Cube from a deck is that when solving the cube you can SEE the state of it at any time.

I used to solve the cube when I was around 13 using the formulas that were published. Even though there was a system of turns at play, you would constantly evaluate the state of the mess and select one twisting and turning sequence to do what was needed, for instance turning one middle corner piece without disturbing anything else.

A few of my friends solved the cube without a system because they were a lot smarter than me, but I suspect their principle would have been the same; evaluate and apply.

Of course, a sorted deck in NDO is always the same, unlike a shuffled one or a "shuffled" cube. But in addition to the actual process of finding a system of shuffles and cuts and whatnot in order to get there, you also have the situation of not being able to see where you are or to check for errors along the way.

I can't even do regular Faros with complete consistency in a very low light setting. I need to check visually along the way in order to know for sure that I got it. And I remain convinced that getting from new deck order to Aronson stack order cannot be done in any practical real world sense. Not without sending the spectators out for coffee while you apply your long list of twists and turns.

True, but the twists and turns could be effects in themselves.

What if I open a new deck and take out the aces to perform Twisting the Aces and at the same time cull KS,6S,4C,8H,9C to the bottom.

Next I remove the Kings (while culling QS,6D,QC,2C,9D) and perform Cannibal Cards or whatever combination of removing cards/culling.

The bottom part of my stack is complete, I can see that I am closer to my goal and the twists and turns are not boring but a feature.

Something like this might be the first solution, and then I would look to find a way to reduce the number of moves (or effects) - as per the Rubix Cube

Good point about the cube, Noobi.
I guess what I'm after is the stack's cards, say less than half of them, in the right order but each a few cards apart. From here it would be one step to cull them to half the stack and then many Aronson stack tricks. But even with them spread out in the deck there are any number of routines that can be done.

I agree that there probably isn't a method for getting there as simple as Tamariz, but again, it's a goal. And maybe twice as easy as the total stack.

Along those lines plungerman, and this is probably a poor idea - it just popped into my head:

Since the AS has the Zensational poker stack built into it, could you do a poker demonstration, openly removing cards necessary in a prior effect / explanation which would end up with a segment of the stack in place?

Similar with the 10 card poker deal - Remove the appropriate cards for the deal, do the effect, and you're that much closer to the stack.

EDIT: My bad on the 10 card poker deal. You probably need to secretly remove / stack the necessary cards for that effect, so it doesn't really get you anywhere.

To Cohiba,

As to the ten cards for the ten card poker deal: I think you were right the first time. You can suggest that you will pick some cards that make some good poker hands. You don't have to show them as you find them and table them, but they will be seen throughout the phases of the ten card poker deal. I don't think this will detract from the effect. You will still need to put them into proper order at the end of the poker deal, of course, but this should not be difficult.

And, in the process of looking for these cards, you can probably rearrange a few more cards which remain in order in the deck. Play it like you are consider a card or two as you take them from the deck, then either choose them and put them on your growing pile on the table, or reject them and put them on the back of the deck. You can probably do another ten cards this way. Make them the ten cards following the ten card poker deal, and you will have a block of 20 cards ready. You now just need to get 4 cards following this block in order, and 2 cards prior to it and you will have a complete Aronson Half-Stack of cards 26 to 52.

I think maybe we're starting to get somewhere on this.

Who's got ideas for another quick trick during which we can find and set up these six cards?


Dennis Loomis

Good point Dennis. I guess it sort of depends on how you want to present the 10 card poker deal; 10 (supposedly) random cards would be strongest, but presentationally an open selection of the cards would be fair as well. Since you have an ulterior motive here, it would be well worth it.

One other point in our quest:
A half stack is a half stack, right? I don't think it should matter which 26 cards you use, as long as they are consecutive. In other words, an additional effect could set up the 6 cards before, or after, the 20 you've already stacked if that is easier to accomplish than 2 before, and 4 after. Just a thought.

I don't have much to offer, except this is GOOD stuff.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts to both Dennis & Cohiba, et al..

If I'm following your thinking Dennis, the last 6 required cards are 2 queens and 4 face cards. If you have seen "La Dame Inquiete" by Arnaud Chevrier (it's on YouTube and worth checking out), you can use these cards for a similar quick and nice effect, and you're left with the required cards in hand to place on the growing stack (remembering 2 to the top and 4 to the bottom).

Thepspdope:

Good catch! I was looking for patterns of cards around the 20 as well that would fit a particular trick. I'm not familiar with the trick you mention.

Also, to get to a set of "convenient" cards for a particular trick, maybe the extra cards you set up (in addition to the poker deal) wouldn't be the 10 following. Maybe the 10 before the poker deal, etc., would get you in range of a more appropriate set of cards...

To edh,
Yes, a half stack is a half stack, but consider this. Some effects require a little more thinking if you have to go "around the horn." So, a half stack of stack numbers 27-52 would occasionally be easier to work with than one from 28-52 +1.

To thepspdope,
No, in Aronson stack, if we cull first the cards for the ten card poker deal that's cards 29-38, (In Aronson they are: 4H, KH, 4D, 10D, JC, JH, 10C, JD, 4S, and 10H) Then we cull the next ten cards which are 39-48 (In Aronson they are: 6H, 3C, 2S, 9H, KS, 6S, 4C, 8H, 9C and QS.) Now, if we find cover to cull cards 49-52 (6C, QC, 2C, and 9D) and then cards 27 and 28 (5D and 7C) we will have the half stack of cards 27-52, the second half of the Aronson Stack.

So, the six necessary cards to cull after the first two ten card culls will have only one face card and 5 spot cards.

The thing about the culling of those first 20 cards is that this will be a consistent action because we are always culling from new deck order. So, it can be practiced like anything else and we could get good doing it. Perhaps you could also do the other 6 cards in this same action. A little lost time here, is perhaps O.K., because this is likely to be the beginning of the set. For a formal show, I'd get the host to buy a couple of new decks and provide them. So, this will be the very first thing you do, and it's like you haven't really started yet... you're just finding a few card for your first effect. So, perhaps the next step is to set up a deck in new deck order and start working through this sort. There may be fortuitous pairings of cards, and short cuts we can discover.

Dennis Loomis

I tried to find Arnaud Chevrier's version of "La Dame Inquiete" on YouTube but the link appears to be gone. There are other versions of his effect there (but not as nice as his handling) but it will give you the idea. Anyway, the required cards 6C, QC, 2C, 9D, 5D and 7C actually work just as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiM-y_VDo2k&NR=1

Oops, I was wrong about one of those cards... the first card in the series is actually the 6D, not 6C. (Card 49) But it's good to hear that this assortment might work.

Dennis Loomis

LOL - I should have checked the cards. But anyway, this leaves us with 3 clubs and 3 diamonds so maybe we could add another card and do some sort of oil and water phase with 3 red and 3 black (+ 1 extra) cards?

Well, I finally took a look at La Dame Inquiete, the version at the link above is performed by Ascanio. It apparently uses five cards, 4 red spot cards and a black queen. There is actually a red queen in play as well. Unfortunately, the six target cards only include a single face card, and the spot cards are a mixed assortment of colors. And while we MIGHT be able to do it with these cards, we lose the finale, and the mixed colors will make it muddy. Too bad.

The Oil and Water effect might work. If you wanted an 8 card (with an extra ninth card)Oil and Water Effect, you could just grab one more club and one more diamond cards at random.

Dennis Loomis

Sorry to have taken so long, but here's the result of some initial experimentation with the proposed culling procedure.

Remember, we set the goal of separating out twenty cards, doing the ten card poker deal with ten of them, and when that's done, getting them into Aronson Stack order and replacing them, having most of a half-stack now ready.

First, after you open a brand new deck and eliminate the jokers and advertising cards, if you hold it face up, the Ace of Spades is on the face, and the Ace of hearts is on the back.

We will be culling two sets of cards: The ten cards for the poker deal which are stack numbers 29-38 , and the following 10 cards: 39-48. The cards for the poker deal will go face down onto the table while the other ten cards will be culled to the back or "top" of the deck. I put "top" in quotes because with the deck held face up, it's actually on the bottom. But I'll call it the "top" as we work through this cull.

The first realization is that we can cull the poker deal cards in any order. When we turn them face up, we will have to get the lone King (KH), the Jonah card to a position we can control it, but that's easy. So, I looked for ways to cull cards which are close together. To achieve proper Aronson Stack order, we will cull the cards 39 to 48 in reverse order. So, the first thing we need to do is to spread to the Queen of Spades and cull it to the back. You can actually do a Hofszinger Cull, or, you can just remove it as if you are considering it, and then you decide you don't want it and return it to the "top." To start, this card will be 12 cards from the face, so it's not hard to QUICKLY do this. As soon as that's done, you reverse your direction and go back to the 4 of Spades (4th from the face) and it's removed and tabled. This is the first "block" of cards. Only two cards, but both are spades so it's easy to get them from the new deck order.

We will continue to do this with a series of "blocks" of cards, batches of cards of the same suit to minimize the need to go very far in the deck.

For the second block, we will cull 3 Clubs: the 9, 10, and J. The 9 goes to the back of "top" of the deck, adjacent to the QS we already put there, and the 9 and 10 are tabled.

The next block will go very quickly indeed, we move into the hearts, cull the 8H to the "top" of the deck and quickly table the 10, J, K, and 4.

The remainder of the cards will require a little more jumping around, as we continue to search, considering possibilities and tabling some of them as far as the audience is concerned. We move to the 4C and cull it to the back, then move to the spades and cull the 6, K, and 2 to the back. Quickly, we move to the diamonds and table the 4 and 10.

Relax, we're 4 cards from our goal. First, we move to the Hearts section and cull the 9H. This time, we have to cull it not to the "top" but one card less than the "top." If you do spread culling, you know this is easy. As soon as this is done, we find and cull the 3C to the "top" and then the 6H to the "top." The very last move is to move to the JD and table it.

Done! twenty cards are ready. If we turn the deck over into normal face down orientation, the top 10 cards are in Aronson Stack order. (39-48) With the ten cards on the table, we now do our favorite ten card poker deal (Harry Lorayne has a million variations of it) and at the conclusion, in picking up the cards it's not too hard to get them into proper order. When they are placed on the top of the deck, we have 20 cards in Aronson Stack order.

Now... we need an effect we can do with six other cards and afterwards, two go on top of the deck, then the deck is cut bringing the QS to the bottom, and the other 4 cards are placed in proper order on the bottom and we have a complete half stack.

A warning. I worked this out and made some rough notes. I then typed it up into this thread. THERE MAY BE SOME TYPOS OR OTHER ERRORS IN THIS WRITE UP. Proceed with caution and be ready to make some corrections.

Dennis Loomis

Nice work Dennis!

One typo, I think:

"For the second block, we will cull 3 Clubs: the 9, 10, and J. The 9 goes to the back of "top" of the deck, adjacent to the QS we already put there, and the 9 and 10 are tabled."

I think you meant the "10 and Jack are tabled".

This is definitely a good start. From here we keep tweaking and improving.

To Cohiba,

Yes, of course, you're right. Also change "of" to "or" in the 2nd sentence you cited. I worked through this again and didn't catch any other problems. Once you learn the sequence of cards you are going for, this is really quite fast. And with sufficient practice should definitely fly. Using the actual Hofszinger cull is probably better that the other handling I mentioned... if you do the cull.

The Harry Lorayne presentation of the Ten Card Poker Deal was originally from Decksterity, but today you'll find it on page 300 of The Classic Collection. This is one of the all time powerful things you can do with a deck of cards. Harry himself suggests it should be done when you have the complete attention of your audience, and when you have adequate time. (It's not a quickie.)

Also, Aldo Colombini has a fairly recent DVD out on the ten card poker deal. Overall, I think that Harry Lorayne's routine is superior, but Aldo does explain a prediction finale created by Max Maven with is a great ending. You might want to use it, in conjunction with Harry's marvelous presentation. It's at least worth considering.

This is just an aside: but there is another incredible routine for the Ten Card Poker Deal created by Nick Trost. It's called Showdown and you'll find it in in the book "The Card Magic of Nick Trost." We probably can't use it here because it requires two gaffed cards, and we're working with a brand new straight deck. But Nick's Final phase is probably the strongest thing ever devised for the ten card poker deal. Just before you turn over the hands to see who has won, you offer to trade hands. The spectator can keep his hand, or he can switch. Either way you win! The only way I can come up with to achieve this with regular cards would be to palm out the Jonah card and one random card before the final phase. Now, when he chooses the hand he wants, you turn it over adding the Jonah Card, and then add the random card to your hand as you display it. This, however, gets away from the beauty of the Ten Card Poker Deal: everything is so very clean because you don't do any sleight of hand at all and things are clear throughout.

Okay, friends, we are two steps away from creating a Half-stack from NDO. We need to do some work on how to pick up the cards after the poker deal. This will not be consistant because other than the Jonah card, you won't know in advance which hand will contain which card. But, there are probably some efficient procedures to be discovered.

And then, we still need another effect to be done with the other six cards. Since they are 3 diamonds and 3 clubs, the suggestion to do an Oil and Water effect may work just fine.

Best to all,

Dennis Loomis

Great work Dennis.

Here's a quick way for the last 6.

Place the 10 Cards from the Poker Deal (in stack order) face down on top of the face down deck .

Spread through the pack again and up-jog the 2C (Cull the 7C to the back), up-jog QC.
Continue and up-jog 9D and 6D (Cull 5D to the back).

Now with the 6D, QC, 2C, 9D we can perform something like Dr Daleys Last Trick. Leave the 4 cards on the table face up (in stack order).

Finally we need to get these 4 cards to their correct position. The AH is in a nice position so we can spread to the AH, table it, and at the same time pick up the 4 cards and place them on top of the QS and square the cards and turn them face down. We can then pick up the Ah and place it face down somewhere random in the bottom of the deck.

It looks like an afterthought - you were maybe going to do something with the AH but changed your mind.

Moving on...your half stack is complete and is the top half of the deck.

(Note I personally will up-jog the cards in the reverse order then I mentioned, and cull the 5D to the right hand, and then up-jog the clubs and cull the 7C in front of the 5D, and then put them both to the back).

:)

Ps - Having got this far, I feel the first route to a full stack will be easier from here.

At the stage in my post above where taking out the AH and placing it on the table for misdirection, we could instead spread through the deck removing the 4 Aces (finishing with the AH) and place them on the table. As we table the AH we pick up the 4 cards for our stack (49-52) and put them on the stack pile.

Now table the stack cards and keep the remaining cards in your right hand.

Situation is now...

Stack of 26 cards (in stack order) on the table.
4 Aces on the table.
22 cards in hand that need to be sorted in some way.

Maybe that helps towards the full stack