Hey guys,

This evening, for a bit of fun and also to help me learn the Mnemonica stack, I built a web-based memorized stack trainer which you are all welcome to make use off, too.

Find it here:
http://huruey.webs.com

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. I already have a few ideas for improvements which I may include in a later version.


Joe

It's great!

It would probably be good to find a way to hide the stack list in some way. Having the ability to try and determine the card before and after in the stack would be nice, too.

It's pretty good as is, though, so I've added it to my Memorized Deck Online Toolbox.

Congratulations. Very handy trainer.
Scott Cram already mentioned it: Having the ability to try and determine the card before and after in the stack would be nice.
It would be handy too if you could "save" the stack somehow, so that if the visitor returns to the site, he has not to fill in his stack again. (cookie?)

A button to "pause" would be useful.
Eventualy a button "reset" to start again if one would do that in the middle of a training.

Teriffic I added your site to my favorites
vinny

Making the rank number flashing would probably be an improvement in helping memorization.

You could make a sort of Wiki extension so that it can be opened on the upper right cornner of the screen as we do something else on the computer like on the net or using MS Words or Excel.

Great site though for it is not restricted to one specific stack and can be used for mirror stacks as well.

Thanks for sharing

Indeed! It's ideal for users who made their own stack.

Thanks guys.

I've just uploaded a few changes:
- New stack presets menu, to which I have added Si Stebbins and new deck order
- Clicking load now resets the count instantly
- You may now test yourself by guessing the position of a given card

I intend to make the position flash as well, though I need to make a few more changes to do that. I also like the idea of guessing the next/previous card. I'll have a go at that at some point.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Here's the Aronson stack if you'd like to add it. It's likely the most used stack in the USA.

JS, KC, 5C, 2H, 9S, AS, 3H, 6C, 8D, AC, 10S, 5H, 2D, KD,
7D, 8C, 3S, AD, 7S, 5S, QD, AH, 8S, 3D, 7H, QH, 5D, 7C,
4H, KH, 4D, 10D, JC, JH, 10C, JD, 4S, 10H, 6H, 3C, 2S, 9H, KS, 6S, 4C, 8H, 9C, QS, 6D, QC, 2C, 9D

Mike

Huruey,

The drawback of the Si-Stebbins had always been the repeated alternation of the suites. There is however an "Advanced Si Stebbins" stacking which solves this issue. When the card is an even card jump one step in the CHaSeD order (thus, for example, after an even Hearts, you'd get a Diamond). When the card is odd just go to the next suite in the CHaSeD order (thus, for example, after an odd Hearts, you'd get a Spade).
This produces the following stack which looks totally random but is easy to trace and remember. One of the beauty of the Si-Stebbins is that given a number, is easy enough to calculate the identity of a card after several shuffles and given a card, it's easy enough to tell its position. This is the principle behind Juan Tamariz's Total Coincidence (the only effect to match the impact of Out Of This World).
AC, 4H, 7D, 10C, KS, 3D, 6C, 9S, QD, 2H, 5D, 8C, JS, AD,
4C, 7S, 10D, KH, 3S, 6D, 9H, QS, 2C, 5S, 8D, JH, AS, 4D, 7H, 10S,
KC, 3H, 6S, 9C, QH, QH, 2D, 5H, 8S, JC, AH, 4S, 7C, 10H, KD, 3C, 6H, 9D, QC, 2S, 5C, 8H, JC

Now I'm a fan of Palyndromic or Mirror stacks. Following this second principle, the Si-Stebbins is followed all the way up to one half of the deck and is then done in reverse order for the second half. The mirror stack offers a lot of advantages for getting at a card or different effects.
The Palyndromic or Mirror Si-Stebbins stack (the "Si-Stebbins Pro" Stack) uses the same Suite system as the Advanced Si-Stebbins
AC, 4H, 7D, 10C, KS, 3D, 6C, 9S, QD, 2H, 5D, 8C, JS, AD, 4C, 7S, 10D, KH, 3S,
6D, 9H, QS, 2C, 5S, 8D, JH, JC, 8S, 5H, 2D, QH, 9C, 6S, 3H, KC, 10S, 7H, 4D,
AS, JC, 8H, 5C, 2S, QC, 9D, 6H, 3C, KD, 10H, 7C, 4S, AH

I've formatted them so that you can copy/paste them in your software

Joe,

The Joyal Stack guys might appreciate this as a choice.

JH,6S,6H,4S,10D,AD,7S,4H,9S,5D,QH,AH,KC,7H,10C,4C,JS,
9H,KD,5C,7C,2S,QC,AH,10C,6C,9C,7D,QD,10H,KH,4D,3S,3H,
10D,9D,QS,3C,3D,2H,8S,2C,QC,2D,8H,8C,KS,AS,JD,5S,8D,6D

There are some variations on suit sequence. One of my pals has this sequence but a different suit order. Joyal kind of leaves one that choice.

I must say Scott Cram's site is a plethora of sources, information and all things stack. No disrespect Joe, but the best thing about this thread, for me, was finding Scott's website!

KG

Huruey, that's great. Thanks!

Thanks for updating with the new stacks!

Mike

Huruey,
Your tool is definitely interesting

Kent,
Thanks for mentioning Scott Cram's site which I didn't know about
http://members.cox.net/astonishment/questions.html

I only knew of Scott's publications in http://www.lybrary.com/scott-cram-m-187.html

Hi Joe,

The trainer is great! Many thanks for sharing.

Here's a suggestion: When doing a random run-through of the stack which seems like the best training, I think your progam makes each instance random. This means that if you run 52 items you may get the same one more than once and you may not get certain cards/numbers. In fact it's likely that certain cards would not show up for a long time just by chance.

An alternate that's easy is to randomize the array that contains the 52 cards. I'm sure you know this technique but if not here's a simple way:

Loop from 1 to 52 and switch array element I with a random element. In other words element 1 switches with a randon element. Then element 2 switches with a random element. Do this from 1 to 52 and the array will be randomized. Then, after the 52nd item has appeared, re-randomize the array. Now every run of 52 cards will contain one and only one of each of the stack elements in a random order.

This similates what people do with a deck i.e. put numbers on the backs of the cards and then shuffle. One run through will force you to try each item in the stack once.

The randomization routine only has about 6 instructions. It would be something like this:

for i:=1 to 52 do
{
dummy := array(i);
num:=rnd(1..52);
array(i):=array(num);
array(num):=dummy;
}
I don't know Java but it would be something like this.

Another cool feature would be to allow the user to input a group of card names and their stack numbers. The program would then only use these cards in the practice session. This way a user could work on a specific group of cards.

In no way are these comments a criticism. The programs is great as is. These are just a couple of suggestions for features that might make it even better.

Thanks for sharing!

Mike

Good point, Mike. I was planning on recording the previous card to prevent getting the same card twice when on random, but a proper shuffle would indeed be better. I'll implement the standard shuffle, but I also have an idea for another mode which will allow you to enter the value you think is correct. For a single session (or potentially over multiple sessions using cookies) it will record which you get right and which you get wrong the most. It will then make the cards that you get wrong most often appear most often.

Additional changes that I'm planning on making in the next week or so are a details button for the preset stacks which provides additional information, credits and links to resources.

I would also like to add a way of generating and transforming stacks, doing things such as mirroring and cutting. I will also add a reverse order.

Another feature which I think might be cool would be a progressive training sequence which begins with a rabnge of one card, upon showing that card, it increases the range by one, goes through those cards, increases the range by 1 again and so on.

Saving by using cookies would also be nice, though it is unreliable.

Thanks again for your interest and suggestions.


Joe

Nice idea Mike, but here is a more efficient way (IMO) of doing the randomization (in Java):

//assuming Card objects have been instantiated and the array used is deckArray[]

Random rand=new Random(); //creates Random generator rand

for(int x=0; x<10000;x++) //set the 2nd constant to a really high number
{
int rand1=rand.nextInt(52);
int rand2=rand.nextInt(52);
Card temp=deckArray[rand1];

deckArray[rand1]=deckArray[rand2];
deckArray[rand2]=temp;
}


This way the deck will really be shuffled (10,000 swaps).

But, anyway, Joe seems like he knows what he is doing.

CW

Hi CardWiz. As you seem interested, I thought I'd explain why the more common shuffling algorithm as suggested by Mike is superior to swapping cards at random positions a large number of times. Firstly, the second algorithm produces no more random a result than the sequential swapping algorithm. In the first algorithm, every card in the deck is swapped to a random position at least once, meaning that regardless of the input order, all the permutations of the output are equally likely, which is as random as you can get. The algorithm you suggested, however, is in fact LESS random, as by only swapping random elements, regardless of the number of iterations, there is still a chance of some elements not being swapped at all. In terms of efficiency of the function, the first algorithm is also much faster, requiring only 52 iterations rather than say 10000.

I hope this makes sense.

Joe

Thanks for offering that, maybe just maybe......

Thanks Joe, appreciate that effort.