Cohiba,
Getting into a mem-deck order like Aronson is a much harder problem than a red-black separation.

I do have a vague memory of Lennart Greens other separation, but I'll have to go back and review it before I can say anything coherent on the idea.

I don't know if it's faster to first separate the low cards from the high cards. This you can do with the Great Divide or Angle Separation, or a single cull of the complete deck. Then another of them would allow the second separation you suggest. If you are very fast at one of these, like Kostya Kimlat with his cull or Lennart Green/Harry Lorayne with their techniques, this may be a good start.

Perhaps you can first let a spectator shuffle, then, as you are getting the cards you need for the first routine, you do one of these for your first separation. Already you can now do a nice card location effect by having a card taken from the top half of the cards and returned to the bottom half. As you look for this card, you are doing the second separation.

Even better, after you do the first separation you have a card selected from the top half of the deck by running your thumb down the side. You go slow so they get one in the top half. You break at the point where they say stop and tip the top group up so they can note the face card. As you return the upper packet you can do a Kelly Bottom Placement of that card so it goes to the bottom. Then, do a false shuffle of the deck but move the bottom card to the top in the process. (Or, a simple double undercut will do the same thing if you get a break above the bottom card.) You now turn the deck face up and as your spread through to find the selection, you do your cull or separation into the four groups. The reason for getting the card to the bottom of the face up deck is that you can now cull or separate all the way to the bottom. You find the selection, and show it. By simple estimation you can now return it into the proper quarter of the deck.

Now you're ready to start doing my original routine, but finding the cards and assembling it into your stack will be much easier because of the state the deck is now in.

All of this is theoretically possible. However, it's not easy. You really have to be on top of the mem-deck your are piecing together to do that second cull of separation at any speed.

Dennis Loomis

Check out the chinese miracle by Bro John Hamman. The same ideas can be applied to a stack.

D

BTW ... It is possible to stack an entire deck in 3 culls into any order you like. Using my method you could actually stack 64 cards into any order in 3 culls (not that you would ever need to, but just to give a hint on how to do it).

Thanks Dennis and Doug - this is along the lines I was thinking.

Doug - any other hints? :o)

I remember reading the Hamman effect a long time ago; I'll check into that again.

Three culls to total stack order sounds very good.

Gruber is IMHO an mnemonic expert and it was a challenge by magician friends of his.
The world record to get a random mixed deck in NDO in his hands is 36 sec by Zdenek Bradac from Czech Republic. Bradac is also a mnemonic worker.

Here's a great way to do it that many will dismiss out of hand. Use a stripper deck...

Put the top half of the deck one way and reverse the bottom half. Do whatever routines you want to do. Let the spectator shuffle to their hearts' content. Then when you want to set up in your stack order, separate the top and bottom half (during the course of cuts and shuffles of course) and hand each half to a different spectator. Then as a feat of memory list the stack order of the top half and have the spectator place the called cards face up in a pile.

If you stop there you now have a half stack which can be used for many effects. And obviously you can continue with the other spectator to get the full deck setup.

This procedure has worked well for me in situations where a deck switch is not feasible. Strictly speaking it isn't an impromptu setup but that was not a condition required by the OP.

When moving from a shuffled deck to stack order, this is the favourite of procedures I’ve adapted.

I have the deck shuffled, then using whatever means, have a card selected and gain knowledge of its identity. I have the spectator shuffle the deck again.

I then take the deck, and explain that when you watch poker players on TV, they watch two things, the other players and the cards as they are dealt. I deal out two piles of cards face up and have them look at the cards as I deal them. In dealing the cards face up, I sort the piles into 1-26 and 27-52 stack numbers. If you know your stack cold this can be done very quickly. After dealing through all the cards I then reveal the selection. I have the spectator shuffle both piles (separately) then move into Memory Jumbles from Mnemonica, which stacks the top (or bottom if you prefer) half of the deck.

I then use another effect from Mnemonica that stacks the bottom half of the deck in the course of an effect.

Through the use of three effects you obtain stack order, and often magicians have no idea what you have done, owing to all the shuffling. Hope some of you find this useful.

Michael,

I agree with you about "Memory Jumble" from Mnemonica. When I read this I thought that it seemed like a great idea to stack half the deck right out in the open. So it actually does play well for audiences?

Which other effect do you use to stack the other half of the deck?

Tom

Okay, I looked up The Chinese Miracle. (It's on the 6-DVD set "The Lost Secrets of Bro John Hamman released by Houdini's Magic, on Disk 3) In the menu is calls it the Chinese Shuffle.

The Chinese Miracle is the name of a routine which is based on the Chinese Shuffle. This is merely a run through of the deck with the backs to the spectators and faces towards yourself and some cards are up-jogged, some down jogged. At the end, the groups are separated. So, it accomplishes the same thing as the Great Divide and the Angle separation.

In the Chinese Miracle, the deck is separated into groups of 4: all of the Aces are together, all the twos, etc. And this requires 4 Chinese Shuffles.

But, Bro John makes the statement that you can put the deck in any order you wish doing six of these shuffles. Doug suggests above that you can put a full deck into any order you wish with just 3 culls. His hint suggests to me that it could be based on binary numbers. But I don't know. Perhaps Doug will share his method with us... or if not, I'm going to play with it.

Dennis Loomis

P.S. Go to Google or Bling and type in "Magic DVDs" without the quotation marks around it. Hit enter and look at the top listing.

In the printed version of the Chinese Miracle, Hamman has an entire section on getting into Si Stebbins in exactly 6 culls. The effect is basically a justification for the open culling in front of the audience, although I'm sure his presentation would have to be modified to comply with being PC these days. I don't really want to say much more on the subject as this is my pet.

Doug

PS - Dennis ... you might not want to post your "magic Dvds" listing as I'm sure you pay per click.


D

Hi Doug,
Nope, I pay a flat fee. This is an experiment to see if it's worth it. But thanks for thinking of my pocketbook.

Dennis Loomis

P.S. If you want to test my new Google/bling placement, go to one of those search engines and type in MAGIC DVDS.

Dennis - Great P.S. in your last post ;-)

Wow - some great stuff - thanks!

I have the Hamman book, just haven't gotten to the Chinese Shuffle yet. I'll check it out tonight or tomorrow.

I can't believe I forgot about some of those (stack producing) effects in Mnemonica - there was one in particular that sounded like it could play well. I can't remember if it's the Memory Jumble or not. That's one other thing I have to look back up.

Keep the great thoughts and ideas coming!

P.S. Doug, when you say you don't want to say more because it's one of your "pet" things, that only makes us want to dig deeper!! C'mon, out with it! :o)

P.P.S. If you want to test Dennis' new Google/Bling placement, got to one of those search engines and type in MAGIC DVDS.

In that case, the 21 card trick is my "pet" effect ;-)

I've been working on the 21-card trick on and off for years now. Right now, I have it up to a 9-phase effect and I add more and more cards. By the end, I'm dealing 10 rows of 10 cards each with the help of a 2nd deck.

It is just so magical to watch people's faces as I endlessly deal piles. I should make a video.

Haha.

Ok, so today I spent some time with the Hamman book. I think the reason I originally overlooked it was because as Dennis said, the cull is basically just the Great Divide, and it didn't seem that practical. However, the fact that he can take a shuffled deck, do the cull 6 times and be in Si Stebbins is amazing! It's fun to do in hand and see it work itself out. Something like this could be very handy if you could apply it to your MD.

In the write-up, it's mentioned that Hamman could use the 6 culls (Chinese Shuffles) to set up a deck into ANY order. After spending some time with it, I think that the order must be cyclical for it to work. For example, it wouldn't be too hard to adapt it to the 8 Kings stack. But a random MD is still not a possibility (I think). I'm not sure if you can comment on that Doug or not. The MD that I use isn't cyclical, but it's not far off - it's basically a stay stack. I've almost got it worked out to where I can get to the order minus the mirroring, meaning I'd have to reverse 26 cards at the end. If there truly is a way to get to ANY order I'll really be amazed - but I don't think that's possible.

I think the Chinese Shuffle is great for getting into Si Stebbins though. If you have a pack in NDO, then you have the Si Stebbins Secret, and if the deck is mixed, you can get there relatively quickly using the Chinese shuffle. The biggest weakness is that it's easy to miss cards you're supposed to be culling, but I think with practice that will smooth out.

Doug - can you confirm or deny?

:o)

I'll just say I use Tamariz. Also, you could do the Chinese shuffle using any kind of cull you want so it doesn't have to be an open cull.

Yeah, I was thinking about that - if you can cull as well as Kostya, even better.

Cull as well as Kostya? How many people on the planet can do that?

Dennis Loomis