Hello!

Could someone please direct me to a book or video on memorizing a deck?

Thanks,

Simon Aronson books!

Check out his website:
http://www.simonaronson.com/flashed.htm

Greetings from Germany

Stefan

"Six Hour Memorized Deck" by Martin Joyal. For some good applications, be sure you check the "Workers" series by Mike Close.
Regards

Actually only Volume 5 of the "Workers" Series might prove interesting concerning memorized deck work.

While Aronson's books are fantastic, a lot of his memorized deck routines are challenge locations that destroy the deck in the course of the trick (at least in his first three large books) while Close's work preserves the stack.

If you speak Spanish... dare I suggest the great books by Juan Tamariz!
If you need a really thorough list of literature with work on the memorized deck check out:
joyalstack.com

Greetings,
Denis

Tamariz's stuff is also on his Lessons in Magic series as well as a sampling on one of the A-1 All Stars vids.

And my Spanish is pretty poor but I was able to get through his books. And, yes, they are amazing.

There are also several great threads here with tips on learning a memorized deck, just try your search function.

Here's my recent favorite system:
http://members.aol.com/beagenius/card2.html

Thanks to all on my question about the memorized deck. 6 answers in one night! I think I'll investigate Close's workers books first. I have all Close's videos and like his approach to magic. Thanks again!

FYI - Workers vol. 5 won't teach you how to go about memorizing a stack. If memory serves, there is an essay on working with a memorized deck and several effects taught utilizing a stack. I believe Mr. Close uses (or used to use) the Aronson stack, but you won't learn the stack from Workers.

In my opinion, the best source for learning how to properly memorize a deck is "The Memory Book" by Harry Lorayne.

There was a trick put out by Repro Magic in the UK called "Imagine". He may still have it in stock.

It used the Bart Harding system which is easier to memorise.

If this is not available search the Net for the Bart Harding System - it's quite good.

The Aronson book "Bound to Please" contains a memorised deck system which is more complex to remember and is a variation of the Nikola System contained in Hugard & Braue's "Encyclopaedia of Card Magic".

The Aronson system does have advantages over Nikola if you're into gambling routines.

MikeM

There is a section in the book '13 Steps to Mentalism' by Corinda covering memorized decks and a technique of remembering them.
In addition, you can find complete coverage on the Nikola Card System in 'Encyclopedia of Card Tricks' by Jean Hugard.

My vote is for the Six Hour Deck. It gets the job done and it can be learned in that amount of time. You can apply it to most memorized deck effects. I use it constantly.
Greg

Even faster than the Six Hour Deck are the Bart Harding stack, the Charles Gauci stack, and my own "QuickStack", each of which can comfortably be learned in a half hour.

The upside of these stacks (including Joyal's) is their ease of learning, and the fact that they still "work" (albeit a bit more slowly) if you temporarily forget the card/position. The downside is that -- because they use algorithms/rules to relate cards and positions -- they don't have any "built-in" effects (such as poker deals, etc.). Personally, I think that a memorized deck can be used for much stronger effects than poker deals!

... Doug

I like Richard Osterlind's "Breakthough Card System"

Ray

Hi,
Osterlind's "Breakthrough Card System" is great. It's even better if you MEMORIZE it. I've used it for years as a memorized deck, and it serves me well. You then have the advantage of a memorized deck (where there is a bijection between card identity and position in the deck) and of a system (where a known card can give you the identity of the next one). This in itself is not a necessity, but it may come handy in the (unlikely, but still possible) event of a mental block with the memorized deck.
By the way, memorizing a full deck is not such a feat: in my 25 years of performing magic, I have memorized 3 different stacks, and it never took me more than a day to memorize one (and even though I mostly use Osterlind's today, I still remember the other 2).
Just put your mind to it, and design your own mnemonics. The method will stick in your mind for life...
Hope that helps.
Eric.

I think there is a subtle but significant difference between a mathematical stack (e.g. Bart Harding, Boris Wild) and a true memorised stack.

To do the sort of effect that Simon Aronson describes in all of his books, you cannot afford the time to perform even the easiest of mental calculations to locate a card.

So, if you want to learn a true memorised deck, there are two basic options: use mnemonics or learn it by rote.

The former is useful, since mnemonics are a versatile tool that can be used for other purposes.

The latter is not actually that difficult - think how many things you already know, and you will realise that learning a further 52 items is no great challenge.

So, shuffle a deck and learn it - it won't take you that long, and you have a powerful tool at your disposal!

A lot of otherwise-well-informed people completely miss the point when it comes to a discussion of algorithmic stacks with relation to memorized deck work. They assume that the former is not memorized, and therefore not a real memorized deck. Well of course... if it's not memorized, it's not memorized! But that's not the point.

A "true" memorized deck is one in which you have actually learned which card is at which position. There are two principal ways in which this is accomplished. One is to devise some sort of algorithmic relationship between the cards and their positions; the second is to devise 104 mnemonic representations (of the cards and the positions), and then construct relationships between the two.

In both cases, the deck is not truly memorized until the intermediate constructions have "fallen away", and you actually know the stack.

The advantage of the latter approach is that there are no constraints on card placement, and thus the stack can be designed to have various effects (such as Poker deals) "built in". Probably the two "best" examples of this technique are the Aronson and the Tamariz stacks.

The advantage of the algorithmic approach (assuming a well-designed algorithm) is that if a card/position is temporarily forgotten in the heat of performance, it's still possible (albeit a bit slower) to reconstruct same without difficulty. Which is why it's commonly the choice for those who aren't performing on a daily basis. I'll forgo modesty by suggesting that the "best" two examples of this technique are the Bart Harding stack and my own QuickStack.

[And before anyone asks, the Charles Gauci stack is also quite good, though the resulting sequence exhibits a fairly easy-to-discover pattern; the Boris Wild stack is even more obvious, and considerably more difficult to apply. The Martin Joyal stack is a sort of hybrid of the two approaches, with an (initial) learning time that falls between that of the mnemonic representation approach, and the truly algorithmic approach (which can be learned in about half an hour).]

... Doug

The section on mnemonics in Greater Magic provides a system for memorizing a truly shuffled deck by simply running through it once (as in counting the cards or under the guise of removing Jokers). It will take work to learn, but once you have it cold, you have an awesome tool.

Sid

It is very possible to just learn a memorized deck by brute force with no mnemonic help at all. Sit down and learn which card occupies which position. I know... I did...

Denis

Likewise. Took me a lot less time than using the mnemonic method and is just as effective.

Maybe it is like exercise equipment... What is it that you really USE ?!

My preference, since it simply is what I learned first, is the Six Hour Memorized Stack.