I just got my copy of Bound to Please tonight at the TAOM convention in FT Worth! It is nice not having to wait on the mailman this time round. And the networking with other stack savy workers in my locality is really cool.

I like the poker routine (forgot the name) from the Session With Simon DVD.. Usually I don't like any gambling routine, but this one intrigues me..

Is The Truth Sayer the one about a code that given to 2 people etc? My Try The Impossible book is out of reach now, and I just curious..

Thanks!

Truth Sayer is a really nice Lie Detector routine. Several variations are included.

I, too, have used a number of routines using the Aronson stack. For me the single routine garnering the best reaction is Past, Present, and Future. However at present I am performing Mindspell, Routine Maintenance, Intuitive Poker, and Random Sample Shuffle-Bored, in order.

Mindspell uses the six cards that spell from the top of the deck. I start with a Bagshawe deck composed of these six cards repeated eight times. I spread the cards facing the spectators but move them in an arc. I then have a spectator shuffle the deck, cautioning him not to let anyone see even the bottom card, and give it several cuts. I have him let someone else shuffle the deck. The first spectator now spreads the deck so a female spectator can choose a card. Of course she gets a speller. The card is returned to the deck and it is shuffled several more times. The deck is now put into my pocket on the inside of a cardboard divider. On the outside of the divider is a deck in Aronson stack. I have her silently spell her card, one letter for each card removed from the top of the Aronson stack. She is to call stop on the last letter of her card's spelled name. I removed the cards slowly, giving her a chance to stop me on the appropriate card. The removed cards are placed face up on my outstretched right hand, preserving the Aronson stack order. When she calls stop, I turn around the card in my hand, revealing the selected card. Eventually, this card is placed face up on the face-up cards on my hand. Then the remainder of the Aronson stack is removed from my jacket pocket and placed face up on those. The deck is in perfect Aronson order and the spectators think they have shuffled it three or four times.

Routine Maintenance is a poker deal from one of Aronson's books and very timely given the current interest in the game.

Intuitive Poker is a routine from the Benjamin Earl DVDs. I use a Draun peek. It only requires the top four cards of the stack. I introduce it by telling the audience I want to show them how mindreaders play poker.

Random Sample Shuffle-Bored is a great trick. At the end the stack is destroyed, and I finish the set with my Ambitious Card routine.

I like Aces Awry from Try the Impossible. It's a fairly fast and easy to do production of the 4 aces in a surprising way. You can then do a couple of effects with the aces. The time-honored ones are Twisting the Aces by Dai Vernon, and The Last Trick of Dr. Jacob Daly. If is now easy to restore your entire Aronson Stack and continue with whatever other mem-deck effects you like.

Dennis Loomis

Hey Dennis,
I too am a beginner with the Aronson stack and I'm just starting to realize how many amazing things are possible with it. Your website is a tremendous resource for thoughts on the stack.

As an aside, where can I find Daly's "Last trick"?

Thanks.

The Last Trick of Jacob Daley is found in Chapter 21 of the Dai Vernon Book of Magic. You'll also find an interesting discussion of it on Bill Malones On the Loose DVD Vol 1. And it's also on Daryl's Encyclopedia of Card Trick Vol 7 DVD. You'll find Harry Lorayne's Version (Observation Test) on his Best Ever DVD set Vol 1.

Dennis Loomis

What's the specialty in this stack in comparison to like Si Stebbin?

There is a free downloadable presentation of its features to be found at its creator's homepage, http://www.simonaronson.com

I won't answer your question in detail because I couldn't do so anywhere as well as the man himself. But I can at least mention that it is a full deck stack with several built in features. Its strongest feature is perhaps the great availability of published material tailored to it. Also it is very much examinable without appearing in any way fishy.

Just read Josh's Plunger Lie Detector. Sounds pretty good. I love Peter Duffie's Plunger Lie Detector routine, and have long considered creating a stack that incorporated the cards involved in that sequence. Josh's routine might make a nice alternative and let me use Simon's stack that's already been worked out.

Some thoughts derived from comments above:

The "discovered" effects in the AS serve a different purpose than being your strongest routines, IMHO. For the person who's looking to fill out a set without having to worry about destroying your stack, you have a lot to choose from. I wouldn't stack the deck just for those effects, but if you're using the stack, it's a great way to produce 4 of a kind, for example, and maintain your order. Adding in routines like this (assuming you handle the cleanup in a non-obvious way) makes it seem as if your deck is getting messed up. If you're doing walk-a-round and want to preserve your stack, it gives you more options. So while the routines may not be at the same level as your "A" stuff, I think they can elevate your entire set in an indirect way.

Isn't a perfect bridge hand all 13 cards of a suit? If so (which I'm pretty sure it is), I don't understand why that's not impressive. You don't have to call it a bridge hand if you don't want - dealing out the 13 Spades from a shuffled (?) deck is impressive in anyone's book.

Although you won't find the term "perfect bridge hand" in Merriam-Webster, it's generally understood by bridge players to be a hand that will win all thirteen tricks against any defense (and any arrangement of the remaining 39 cards in the other three hands) at a particular contract. A hand comprising all thirteen cards of a single suit fits the bill as long as that suit is trumps; because spades is the highest-ranking suit in the bidding, it's customary to demonstrate this by dealing a hand of all thirteen spades. Simon Aronson's perfect bridge hand will win all thirteen tricks in a notrump contract, but not in a contract when a suit is trumps. (It would win all of the tricks in a heart contract unless the opening lead is trumped by the leader's partner; however, that violates the any-arrangement-of-the-other-39-cards proviso.) Unless your audience understands bridge well - and you understand it well enough to point out that the deal shows a perfect notrump hand - you're better off eschewing it: it's more likely to be confusing than impressive.

Actually, a no-trump bid ranks higher than spades, which is why Aronson went with it. In contract bridge, a bid of 7 no-trump is as high as you can go, so bidding would stop at that point. Anyone who knows bridge would immediately recognize that the hand is unbeatable, since there is no way anyone could make a higher bid. However, I do agree with your point that, these days, most people wouldn't have a clue about bridge or the rules governing it, so much of the impact would be lost.

That's why I said that spades is the highest-ranking suit, not the highest-ranking denomination.


But the auction wouldn't; there could be as few as three calls and as many as seven calls after the 7 notrump bid.


Only in notrump; it would very likely lose a trick or more in a spade, diamond, or club contract, and could possibly lose a trick or more in a heart contract.


Absolutely correct!

Henceforth, Simon needs to do everything he can to repopularize contract bridge.

For general audiences, the 7 Notrump hand in the Aronson Stack would indeed, be fairly weak. But remember this: The arrangement is always there, just waiting to be used. I try to make it a point to ask people if they play cards. Occasionally, someone will be a bridge player. That's the time to use the hand. For bridge players it is a killer.

Dennis Loomis

Hey, I'm one of Simon's closest friends, and I'm the brains behind a lot of Simon's magic. I make a guest appearance on Simon's DVD on the memorized deck (Vol 3 of L&L's "Sessions with Simon"). My appearance is worth the entire price of the DVD!

So now I will tell you the REAL reason Simon used the 7 No Trump hand: it was a freebie, that comes automatically once you incorporate the Zens stack. (If you don't remember how Mike Zens stack works, it's described in Simon's "Stack to Remember", in Bound to Please). The Zens stack is the 13 card sequence, placed at every 4th position in the Aronson Stack, that allows you to deal any poker hand called for (and has other applications if you give the stack two faros). Those same 13 cards are, in fact, the perfect bridge hand!

Simon probably should have called it the Funksy stack, given all that I've done for him.

Mergel

Click here to view attached image.

It was Funsky to hear from you, Mergel.

Dennis Loomis

A key feature of the stack for me is being able to ‘Spell to any Card in the Deck’, [apart from maybe the top three and the bottom card- no point when you can perform a near miracle when a spectator thinks of these by just turning over a card or the deck]. It gets strong reactions every time, and it can be a quick effect done at the ‘drop of a hat’. I often use it as a quick incidental part of a larger routine- where spelling is one of the options of how I might discover a randomly thought of card. I don’t make a big thing of it, it doesn’t need to be played up.

It’s such an easy effect once the work has been put in. It’s a thing that has developed slowly over a number of years. It is very dependant on memory work. But once the initial stack is fully learned, its no more than another layer of maybe equal complexity on top.

I am yet to come across another magician who does this. I'm sure others must have worked this out by now. Has anyone else worked out a stack dependant and efficient method for spelling to all the cards?
ZapikO

To Count Zapik,
My method for spelling to any card named is on my web site. It's one of my favorite walk around effects. Briefly: Spectator names any card. I use Simon's Flash Speller technique from Try The Impossible to calculate how many letters are in the cards name and I subtract that number from the stack number of the card. I do an estimated cut to place the new card around ten to 15 cards from the top. A glimpse of the bottom card tells me exactly where I'm at. I do a quick Hay Mow shuffle which is my variation of the Standard Hay Mow and allows me to displace as many cards as I wish from the top to the bottom. When finished, I am ready to spell to the named card. Obviously this is based on Simon's Aronson work. You can master his Flash Speller in an hour or two. Practice it from time to time if you're not performing it daily and it's a powerful tool for many spelling effects.

Dennis Loomis

Hi Dennis, I do know of, or at least I have previously read, the work you've published on your site about spelling with stacks, [and indeed I checked your site, and a couple of others, before I posted my previous message on this topic, just to see if there was any new thinking on this issue in the public domain].

Is the information you give the best solution? So far as you know?

The method you describe above is good I'm sure for those that have dedicated time to making it a worker. Lots of things can be made to work if the dedication is there. Although it’s maybe a bit of a fag to do arithmetic whilst trying to perform for many of us.

Ideally this kind of thing wants to be as simple as possible and real world material.

The method I have is as streamline and simple as I reckon is possible. It’s maybe taken five years of messing about and experimenting and slowly over a period of time beginning to notice ways of reducing the rote learning required. The secret is to create a system that is simple and takes account of all the cards and categorizes them into as few units as possible. I don’t want to do any mental calculations that might take my attention away from the 'moment' at all when I’m in full flight, doing the ‘big magi thing’.
Furthermore there needs to be a logic to the divisions made so that it is easy to remember which key card leads to a required card.
It is possible to spell to half the deck with no cut, and the rest with a single cut to one of six key cards. Most of the spellings are full spellings of the cards in question. [The only one I am possibly embarrassed about is the Two of Hearts; T.W.O., it's a weakness probably but I'm not fussed about making a new rule for just one card].

As I say it’s been learned over time - like ‘Topsy’ the thing has just grown. I have discovered ways to reduce and minimize the thinking required. I’m sure there must be some other magicians around who have done the work too. There has been enough time passed now for a number of folks to have got the answer to this one. After all it’s not rocket science just a bit of geeky messing about.
It would be interesting to compare different solutions.

Best wishes Zapiko