Hi guys,

I have recently fallen in love with marked deck magic! And also, since I regularly use a memorised deck (in just about every performance with cards), combining the two methods have led to some inexplicable effects, both methods cancel each other out nicely - the marks eliminate the need for glimpses, for example.

Do you have any favourites / recommendations for effects combining an MD and a marked deck?

I researched the forums and I know that Boris Wild definitely has some great work on this (which I will get soon, hopefully), and so does Larry Davidson

Thanks!

MD + marked is indeed a deadly combination.
However.... I want to give a little warning for what it's worth.

Let not depend your whole repertoire on this combination.
I hope not for you, but for 85% of us there comes a time that the eyesight diminishes and the reading glasses become an indispensable "body part"...
Once over 50 years, it is a fate for many.

A marked deck is fabulous on one condition: that you don't have to "read" the marks, but that you can see them in a flash. A split second. Otherwise it is not only dramatic but also pathetic.

I, for instance, don't use it anymore. Dare to take that decision in time.

I have a few MD decks marked up w/ binary codes. I ONLY use the marks for OCCASIONAL confirmations when using a MD so the audience perceives I am not RELYING on reading the deck. A glance at the back of a card is an art in itself.

If I were to ever use a marked deck, I'd like to think I'd spend a year with it in play, but never relying on the marks.

I'm not too familiar with any memorized marking system, so I wonder: is it easier to code the cards as values between 1-13 and four different suits, or to devise a number system, coding cards 21, 37, 44? (Of course, if they are coded into numbers, one has to do the additional step of converting the numbers to the card -- 44 = 6C -- but I don't think that's too much trouble if you've already bothered to memorize a stack).

Waterloophai, fortunately eyesight is not an issue for me at present, but thanks for your comments...also I use a fairly easy to read marking system, which I have used in very low light conditions extremely easily from a distance. But thanks, I will take your advice on board

Atom, great to hear from you again I completely agree with you, and yes I have routined my 'act' so that the glances occur on relaxation beats, or where no effect has happened yet. And also, yes I use it sparingly, and at all times in conjunction with sleight of hand AND the other features of a memorised deck AND other subtleties...which works really well as they all cancel each other out leaving an unexplainable experience for my audiences! At least, that's what I hope for every time, and that's what I'm striving for at the moment

Cain, the marking system I use is not specific to my stack, it is just a regular marked deck. Which allows for devious presentations even with a shuffled deck. I find it easier to have the backs marked with the values rather than the stack number.

Jon Thompson has a book out on the use of a deck that is "Stripped and Stacked," so that is another layer you can add to marked and memorised.

If you do that (I've done and do it occasionally) you should consider a one-way-back design which offers nice options for binary codes as well. Then you still have an ordinary deck which you could give away. Jan

Good idea, Jan!

While the combination of marked and mem deck is powerful, a little caveat. Often, some of the most powerful mem deck routines are those that to the uninformed spectator could only have been done with a marked deck. In other words, as Aronson himself has pointed out, often one of the jobs of a mem deck worker is to disprove that s/he is using a marked deck.

Exactly!! That's why I often give my deck of cards away - as a gift. Jan

@Woland, that sounds like the Deland deck!

I believe Ed Marlo is credited with publishing the idea of marking cards based on their stack numbers rather than suit+value. There is an interesting system published along these lines in Antinomy #8.

I love the combo myself and I use the stack numbers idea. Very often, paradoxically, marked deck + MD lets me very easily cancel out marked deck. I even say, even if these cards where marked, "and they are NOT", I did not see the back of the card you just put in your pocket [but of course I do see the back of the now top card to cue me ]. When I do jazzing with the combo, it fools even magicians – sometimes even when they know I am demoing mem deck work! It fools my wife who knows I use the combo. It just non intuitive to how powerful this is I think. I actually plan to document my experiences in a book one day, and have a bunch of notes.

If you own The Multiple Revelation Project by Big Blind Media, you can do your revelations by just letting them say cards instead of picking them.

I user GT Speedreader deck with a mem/stacked deck. I have Martini shorten all the cards except the last card which is the bottom card of my stack -- it makes the bottom card a wide card -- I've tried all the breathers, crimps etc.... NOTHING beats a wide card -- 100% reliable. Elmwood magic sells wide cards .. but I don't think you can't specify what wide card you get .. their wide card works in a normal deck of cards.

Wait till you see Labcomagic's ESP .. this will be a miracle for mem deck workers. A person can cut anywhere in the deck and you know where they cut to without getting near the cards. I will be getting my ESP soon.

This is how I use a mem deck. I put Boris Wild's MD in Aronson stack. It makes pre existing routines even easier! I was able to create several of my own routines from experimenting/thinking with both tools at my disposal.

That's an excellent suggestion, Amazing Steveo. Martini Magic can make a variety of altered cards, and his workmanship is superb.

It would be possible to use a variety of corner shorts, short, wide, belly-cut and other altered cards in order to make a number of specific cards in the stack instantly obtainable by touch. For some routines, it would be possible to achieve that by using strippers and moving them around as needed.