Hi,
I would like to share with you my experience about memorized deck. Im had never memorized a deck before, and I don't know any mathematical method like the Si Stebbins or similar to remember a card sequence. Tonight I couldn't sleep, I was playing with my deck in my bed, and I wondered if I was able to memorize a whole random sequence of cards in few time. I shuffled it, looked at the cards, and after some minutes I had an idea, I tried it and after less than an hour I had the whole stack of (almost) random 52 cards in mind. Now I can remember them in both order, from 1 to 52 and vice versa,and I can know in some seconds the position number of a card in the deck and the card from a position number, and of course if you name a card I know the previous and next one in the deck in an istant. The cards are really in a random order to the eyes of the spectator, except a few key cards in specific positions, but it's impossible to notice them.
The stack works also if you cut once the deck (but only once).

I already know a couple of nice effects I can do with it, and I would appreciate your suggestions about other effects. The 2 effects are the Michael Close's Invisible Deck, and a simple but strong "u pick a card -> I divine it" effect.

And if you are interested in my memorizing method, let me know, I'll be glad to explain it. I don't do it now because I'm in hurry and the detailed explanation could be long...

Bye

Davide

Hi david iam very intrested in your method I do not use memorized deck as of this time


vinny

"The stack works also if you cut once the deck (but only once)." ?

Cutting one time is the same as cutting 100 times. It will not change the sequence.

Hmm intresting I'm still in a conundrum to find one that I would like.

I assume he means cut it once as in not cut it into three or four piles and then replace them in different order. I use something that I ripped of Mega Memory to memorise cards and with some pracrtise you can memorise a full deck in less than 2 minutes after it was shuffled but it is more of a betcha than anything else. Besides everyone knows that I am memorising the cards and they usually think I am joking until I start having them ask me questions. I don't ever really prform it for other than friends because I don't consider it a real trick. Once I know how to word what I do and I can find someone who knows the mega memory system I will try to explain it.

I'm interested in your methods. I have memorized the Aronson and Tamariz (but now only know the Tamariz).

What I'd like to be able to do someday is memorize "on the fly" if you will ie. learn most or all of a deck as the cards come out. I'd like to be able to do this for magic but also for card games (Gin, for example).

To that end I've been debating buying the Dominic Monahagan book from Lybrary.com, as I'm having no luck finding it used in any bookstores around here.

For someone who has never memorized one which one should I begin with thaqt wouldnt send me running for my Coins instead?

I use the method that I've used for years. It's described in "The Memory Book" by Harry Lorraine and Jerry Lucas. The more you use this system the better you become at it. Like sleights, you can lose the ability as well so I practice with cards. I can memorize a deck given about 1-2 seconds a card. So I can memorize an entire deck in, at most, 2 minutes.

The system that I use is the one in the book, unaltered.

To those who are toying with the idea of Mem-deck work:

Look out for my 'Memor-ease' card stack which will be appearing soon. This is the perfect substitute for memorising an entire deck.

The 'Memor-ease' system allows you to know the numerical position of every card in the deck with ease. It allows you to know the value of the top card by looking at the bottom card and vice versa, in other words it's cyclical. The stack appears random, is extremely versatile and there is a ton of other 'strange' applications for the stack including the ability to cut to any four of a kind called for after the deck has been genuinely shuffled. Or, simply find the mate of any chosen card without even seeing what that card is.

The booklet is in production and will be avaiable soon. It contains the most powerful stuff I've ever released and includes my 'Any Card at Any Number' effect that I've been keeping to myself for ages. If you're considering getting into mem-deck work, keep an eye out for 'Memor-ease'.

Dave.

Unbelievable. I'm in the process of memorizing the si stebbins stack.
I'm still using mnemonics so far to get the results.

Mike Close's new CD-Rom E-Book has some great stuff in there.
Like "The Luckiest Card in Las Vegas" (I think it's called).

It is just a little memory exercise that I use to fool around with. The mega memory system works where you take numbers and assign logical pictures to them and then attach or PEG other pictures mentally to help you memorize other things like alist of 20 or 30 or 100 items in a remarkably short time with 100% recall ability if you practise it. All I did was I assigned names of people or pictures to the numbers in a deck of cards and then peg these to the already existing list. so lets say the first number on my list is tree (refer here to the course for the reason) and the first card is the King of Hearts. That to me represents the King of lovers which has to be Ron Jeremy for his very large whatever. Then The picture I have would be RJ naked in a tree and the two things are linked together in a picture. When Quizzed later all I have to do is recall the picture. Your brain has an excellent capacity for remembering and recalling pictures.
If anyone is interested PM me and I will try to get you some material to look at and try to get this down. It is really easy but again it takes too long to be used for magic and again their are better ways to do magic with memory decks etc etc.
I don't think this will work for card games since it does not involve counting cards besides there are easier ways to count cards which I can also do because I play card games all the time
The only reason I do this is I can bet a friend I can let him shuffle his cards and then memorize the order in no time (under 2 mninutes).

The best on-the-fly memorized stack, or the one I use anyway, is the Stebbins secret, which allows you to stack a brand new deck in Stebbins order in about 25 seconds through four shuffles. It's in Darwin Ortiz' Expert at the Card Table, but he doesn't really expound on the idea. What I do is stack the deck a la Stebbins Secret, then shuffle (overhand) the bottom half onto the top half. Now I spread the cards to show the new top half is really shuffled (bottom is still stacked), then have two people pick a card from the bottom half. Cull the card above theirs to the bottom and peek and you'll know their card, from a shuffled deck. I think it was Steve Youell who wrote about some applications of the Stebbins Secret in his lecture notes. This method is absolutely killer, even for magicians, because you can just control the stacked stack after while showing the rest of the deck thoroughly mixed. Just my opinion..

That's why I'm using the Si Stebbins Stack. Getting into it is too easy to pass up and I'm lazy.

Also, Lennart Green demonstrated a face-up "dribble" spread which would very much show the si stebbins stack in what would look like completely random order.

That's enough for me.

If you want to know the si stebbins secret, be fair to Mr. Ortiz and don't ask people to tip it to you.
Just get Darwin's book. It's worth it and it's a great book anyway.

Honestly, it doesn't really matter which stack you use/learn, but I'd recommend the Tamariz or Aronson simply because they have both written a good deal on effects with their respective stacks. There's a lot of info on this site with regards to this. My advice is: if you want to create simple miracles and absolutely mystify people, put the work in and go for it. It's not as hard as you think.

I use memory techniques all the time in my routines and demonstrations. I recommend Dominic O'Brien's memory system for use with cards over Harry Lorayne's system. O'Brien's techniques have provien to give you more speed than Lorayne's system "as to cards." But, the systems are not mutually exclusive and can be used interchangably if speed is not your concern. Bear in mind, these actual systems are merely expansions on prior memory systems used by older cultures and there are other threads at the Café on them. I will be exploring Sal Piacente's system, as well, and would love any input someone might have on Sal's techniques. I notice in 2001, both Dominic and Sal competed in the Memory Sports World Championships with Dominic ultimately memorizing an entire deck in about 41 seconds (which he repeated in the 2005 championships).

Dominic actually, didn't take part in the 2005 championship.

I learned the Lorrayne system years ago and it helped me through grad school. I don't recall if it taught how to memorize cards. I have my own system. I use the Lorrayne system to remember the order and the 'key' for the card is the number 1-52. Each card has a number. The Ace of Clubs is number 1, the two is number two. The ace of hearts is 14 (CHaSeD).

Then I just relate the card number to the order and off I go.

Yiannis - You are quite correct. Dominic was the World Memory Champion in 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Hi all.
I have read all your posts, and these are my answers to them.

1. Cutting the deck several times. Sorry for my bad explanation, of course if you cut a deck n times it will always mantain his cyclic order. As abc said, I mean you cannot cut it in 3 or more packets and reassemble them in a different way.

2. Be ready, it will be a long post.

3. Ok, let's go.
Many of you have mentioned some memory system to help you memorizing lists of things. I have never read the books you have listed, but some of the methods you have described are similar to the one I know. I used it at school and I think it's an original idea of the italian philosopher Giordano Bruno. It's the method of the rooms.
Ok, this is my memorizing stack rules:
First, you have to assocate the pips to more physical items, easier to remember than abstract symbols. These are the ones I used for my deck:
- clubs = flowers
- diamonds = pictures (in italian "diamonds" is translated "quadri", and "quadri" = "pictures") Of course for you english ppl, the diamonds can actually be true diamonds
- spades = swords
- hearts = red apples (they are similar...)

The main idea is the rooms system. You have to imagine a big house, a palace, or a castle, with many different strange rooms. You have to imagine yourself inside this house: you are visiting it and you are the character of a nice story happening inside it. The elements of the rooms (furniture, peoples, objects) and what happens in the story are all related to the different items you are going to remember (in other words, your cards!).

Ok, so let's begin. Shuffle your deck. Every order is ok, it doesn't really matter the initial order. Now, divide it into blocks of 10 cards, and one of 12. Here's a little helper I used for my memory: it's not necessary, but I think it's really useful and it's the secret of my fast learning. Take out the 4 kings and the queen of hearts; put the 4 kings at the 10°, 20°, 30° and 40° position. Put the queen at the 50° place. Do it and the following instructions having the deck face up on the table, and counting the first face up card as the first one in the list.
Just take a look of your cards, and be sure they are in a "good" random order. For example, with my first shuffle I obtained a tris of aces, and it wasnt good. I separated them. As a good rule, be sure you don't have too many cards of the same color in a group, and don't have more than 2 cards of the same value close to each other (no tris or pokers, in other words).
Now, let's begin our learning curve. Close your eyes and imagine the beginning of your story. You have just arrived at the castle. Now all you have to do is associate every card to something you see or do in the castle: I think an example will be more useful than theory. Let suppose your first 4 cards are:
Jack Clubs, 2 Hearts, Ace of Diamonds, 6 of spades.
Let your fantasy run and think to something you can relate to these elements. I will add some helpers later in the explanation. Imagine real and detailed things. In our example, I'm thinking to a black knight with a big black flower pictured on his chest; he's holding 2 big red apples, one in each hand. He's in front of the main door of the castle, offering the apples to me. I pass behind him, and I see that the door is huge, heavy, red wood, and there's a great diamond engraved on it. I push it open, and I'm in a narrow corridor. On the walls there are 3 swords on my left and 3 on my right shining at the soft light of torches...
If you now close your eyes and try to remember my little story, you will see how easy is remember the main elements of the story (the knight, the apples, the engraved diamond, the swords) and how fast you can reassociate them to their original cards.
So, you only have to imagine your travel in the castle, using the 4 kings as the main steps of your story. I find useful associate different environment to them: the king of clubs is in a dark room full of swords shattered everywhere on the floor, the king of diamonds sit on a huge pile of shining diamonds, and so on...(these are only examples, they work well for me but cannot be effective for u... create your own environments)
Begin memorizing the first part of your travel: from the main door to the first king. Then, imagine yourself changing direction, and taking another corridor, perpendiculare to your first path, and follow it until you reach the second king. Change direction again, and go to the 3rd, and so on.
I also think it's very strong changing level. In my travel, I take two elevators, one goes down to a sort of cellar, one goes up in a dark tower. If you imagine yourself moving in different directions, you will remember more easily your steps.
And here is another tip: imagine associations between an item and the next one. I mean something like this: the king of hearts sit over a big red apple, his fellow friend lean bored against the apple. Both of them are watching a nice looking woman, all dressed in black leathery, who is juggling with 9 swords (this is part of my stack: KH, JH, QS, 9S).
I find useful remembering many details of the scene: the leather dress of the woman, the bored face of the knight, etc... They are not used to directly remember the card, but they relate you to the main items of the scene.

Other various useful tips:
- alternate animated items to still ones
- be the director of the movie you are running in your head: use camera rollings, change your point of view to have dramatic sights of certain areas, do close ups, zooms...
- sometimes, use the very card as an item. I have a big series of 5 of hearts making a dangerous bridge over a dark cave canyon. And the 10 of hearts is a small door in one of my rooms
- the Aces are special, imagine something really special for them
- This is a nice one. Scientific lesson. Your mind can recognize at first sight a group of 1 to 6 items, without counting them. Try to think to it. If you see a group of 5 apples, you know they are 5 without counting. If you see 6 eggs, you know they are 6. The same for 4,3,2,1 items. But if you see 7 items, your brain do (really fast, but it does it!) an addition (4+3, or 5+2, it depends how they are arranged in the group). Almost nobody can recognize at first sight a group of more than 7 elements without actually dividing them in 2 or more groups and adding them. Use this knowledge to place your objects in the rooms of your castle. Place the elements of your 2,3,4,5,6 so you can remember their number at first sight. Simply imaging the items positioned as they related pips on the card (6 apples in 2 rows of 3 are easy to remember, 6 apples shattered on the floor are difficult to remember)
- the 8 has a nice visual shape. Just imagine a big 8 somewhere in your room. I have a couple of nice soft fluffy sofa shaped as eights. Two round wheels one on top of the other make an 8. A guitar has the shape of an eight. A school chalkboard with a very 8 drawn on it. And so on...
- Remember the 9s as matrixes of 3x3
- the 10 is the highest number of each pip. U don't need to remember exactly 10 diamonds. Imagine "many" diamonds, and you know you have a 10, because it's the higest number
- The jacks, queens and king are easy... they are the main characters of your movie, make them act!
- imagine feelings in your movie. A feeling is a nail in your memory. U remember the main events of your life because of the strong feelings you had in those moments. I think that Fear is a strong feeling. Use it to change something in your story so you can go scared from a scene to another one. In my castle, at a certain point, 4 huge dark voodoo flowers rise from the 4 corners of a room, destroying the floor. Everything shake, the ceiling break and a big sword drop and almost kill me. I have to run away, and in the running 2 pictures (my diamonds, remember?) fall down near me.... See what I mean? Is this easier to remember this sequence than a boring pale blue room where everyone is happy and everything is quiet, isn't it?
- let your fantasy run: everything is ok, nobody judges you for your imagination, so don't feel shame if you are imagining a sensual naked girl eating an apple, or strange illogical things. The more you feel them part of your story, the more you will remember them.
- Yes, I have the naked girl at the end of my story
- I don't know if this is different from people minds, but I don't have problems imagining in technicolor. Much much better than black and white. Color your dreams.
- I don't know why, but my movie is mute. I think it's different from person to person. If you have a more musical mind, add music and sound effects to the scenes, I guess they could be helpful.

Ok, now you know everything. With this system I memorized my deck in an hour or less. Memorize the 5 blocks of cards one after the other and repeat them in your head while you travel the castle, without looking at the cards. When you arrive to a new king, repeat in your mind the path from the previous one to this one, and then from the beggining to this point. While you are creating your story, take a look at the cards you have in hand, in the current group you are memorizing. Change their order if you need it. For example, I changed place to some of them to create a more logical sequence, because I had no idea how to put together King of Spades, 9 of Diamonds, 7 of clubs and 7 of spades. I simply imagined the 4 elements in a conceivable way, and moved them in this order KS, 7S, 7C, 9D: "the king of spades is mad, and he's sitted in a room full of swords. He's counting them, and for every sword he counts, he put a flower in another group near the swords. Now he's counting the 7th sword of his crazy collection. Now he's putting down the 7th black flower. I raise my head and I see that on the front wall there's a matrix of 3x3 pictures..." Got it?

When you have your whole story in your mind, go throught it many times, *don't change the items* if you think they are too strange, or you will only confuse yourself! The first idea you had is the good one and it's the only one you will remember! Above all, don't change the first elements of the story if you have already memorized the next ones, or this will ruin everything. Add details if you want (but not confusing ones, do it only if you feel it's helpful). And when you are sure you can go from the beginning to the end, try doing it in reverse. It's not easy and flowless as doing it in normal order, but if you have done good associations, you will do it without effort.

A useful exercise I did today to better my memory and that will be very useful in your tricks: open the deck at random, look at the card you have cut, and tell the next one and the previous one. Do it many times. It will help you going faster forward and backward in your story to the exact moment marked by that card.

4. Position numbers
To remember the position of the cards in the deck, just use your kings and red queen (and your first card) as key numbers. If you are asked about the 37° card, and you know that the king of diamonds is the 40, go back 3 steps and you have the 37. If I ask you what's the position of the 2 of clubs, you remember that it's 4 steps away from the king of hearts, who's 20, and you have 24.
This is just a bit more difficult than memorizing the story, but I kept doing it all day long while driving and now I can remember the position of lot of cards only by their name. I find useful using post-its for the more difficult ones. I added a yellow post-it to the items which's position number I have more difficult to remember. And I wrote their number on the post it with a big black marker. Very visual and good, in my opinion, but don't abuse or you will have too many numbers hanging on your castle's items and you will confuse and mess everything.

Im not sure yet if it will work, because I memorized my deck only yesterday, but I think that you can remember several stacks with this method, and don't forget any of them. Next week I will try with the next one. I will just change the environment, so I will have a big difference with the actual story, and don't risk to confuse myself. My next story will be in a wood, or in a modern palace, or in a north-pole ice palace... As a magician you shouldn't have problems remembering a story, is like remembering the patter for an effect.

5. The end
Ok, I'm sorry if this is a long big boring post, but it has been useful for me to put down the main notes I had in my mind. I will save it and keep it for the future
I hope it is useful for you too, and I'm sorry if some these ideas are not original. Im not the author of the most part of these thecniques, I know it. Just I don't know who the authors are because I learned them by different sources and many memory tricks arrive by my school days.
If you have more memory tips to share, I will be glad to know them, they will improve our memorizing line!

Ok, now I have to go. It's late, and today I forgot to take my memory pills... if I only could remember where I put them!!!

Dave

That's a very nice way using the room system. I liked your story