Suggestions for the fastest way to set up the Si Stebbin's system.

See Darwin Ortiz At the Card Table. He explains his system to do the set-up from a new deck.

Richard Tremblay

Ortiz has a way I believe in At the Card Table.

S.Segal

Here is what I do, this is for Spade/Diamond/Club/Heart setup:

1. Take a deck and put it in A-k, S H C D order
2. Take the heart packet and cut the jack to the face, which brings it to (face up order) J-Q-K-A..10
3. Cut the club packet to the 8, so that's 8-K, A-7
4. Cut the diamond packet to the 5 (5-K, A-4)
5. Give the deck 2 out faro's.

That's the fastest way I've been able to arrange a deck. You can figure stuff like that out by just taking a setup and giving it reverse faro's until some order comes.

Does it generally need to be set up very quickly?? I know that for Ortiz's effect part of the effect is setting it up from a new deck, secretly, but for the most part, one has time to do these things.

The suggestion above is a good one. You could order the Si Stebbins Unplugged ebook from trickshop.com. It's a good price, and while nothing in it cannot be found elsewhere, it's a nice little summary of some stuff you can do with the system.

Or you could always take it into the bathroom, set it up and come back and entertain people. Just wash your hands.

Allan Ackerman has a very fast way to setup SI Stebbins. You can learn it in his Faro Shuffle Video.

True, that it doesn't HAVE to be done fast, but if you can do it faster, why should you take the longer approach?

I mean, from a shuffled deck I can do 2 culls(suits), 4 re-orderings(putting each suit into order), and 2 faro's a lot faster than 52 single culls. Also by doing 52 single culls you have to think about the value of each card and then look through the whole deck for it... Where with doing it this way you can think about other things.

Btw, on a *somewhat* related note:


How do you guys Sort the suits? Culling out the suits is a pretty easy thing to do, but sorting them isn't.

Right now, I one-hand fan out each suit in my right hand, and draw them in order onto the deck, and then pass the block of cards to the bottom to start on the next suit.


Does anyone else have a good way to sort 13 cards into order while holding the other 39 cards?

Right now I can get a shuffled deck into new deck order in about 2 minutes, maybe less.

Anyone have any tips?

Check out Brother Hammans book on how to set up Si Stebbins from a shuffled deck.

Randy