The Magic Cafe Forums - Second thoughts on a deBruijn stack

Second thoughts on a deBruijn stack

Spectator cuts the deck multiple times and then deals six cards consecutively to six other spectators. The magician reveals what the six cards are (without peeking at the bottom card).
This method uses a deBruijn sequence.

In past posts I wanted to avoid deBruijn sequences of long strings of zeros or long strings of ones because when used in conjunction with red suit cards being binary "1" technique I wanted to avoid all six spectators closing their eyes or even five of the six spectators closing their eyes "I'm having trouble with the red suit cards so if you have a red suit please close your eyes and concentrate".

And the thus JMbulg supplied me with the excellent deBruijn pattern that I refer to as JMbulg-B:

0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0,
1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1,
0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0,
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0

The above pattern is great when used in conjunction with a very specialized stack (create your own) that has the red suit cards in the "1" positions.

However when a 52-bit deBruijn sequence is used in conjunction with any popular mem deck by using some kind of mark on the backs of the cards (to indicate one or zero) then it may be beneficial to have the long six bit string of "0"s and "1"s.

Here is why:
I am making a deck composed of mandolin cards and rider back cards using my favorite mem stack (you can use your own stack). The mandolin cards will be in the "0" positions whereas the rider back cards will be in the "1" positions.

Note that the six card pattern can be easily read from across the room because the mandolin cards do not have bright objects in the corners of the card whereas rider backs do.

After the trick the six spectators might look at their own card back for a marking (which there is nothing to find). They are unlikely to compare the back of their card to another spectator's card but if they do they would notice the difference which can be shrugged off by the magician by saying my nephews have been fooling with my cards again.

However to greatly reduce this detection: If I use a breather card in front of six "1"s and another breather card in front of the six "0"s this will greatly increase the likelihood that all six spectators WILL have the same back design and therefore no difference if they happen to compare their card backs.

In order to do this I will need a deBruijn sequence that has six "0"s and has six "1"s.

A nice sequence from TomasB that
I will call TomasB-C: 1111110111010001111000100000011
001001101011011000010

My conclusions:
If using the "eyes closed if red suit" method (which requires a unique stack) then use the JMbulg-B deBruijn sequence.

If using the ones or zeros marked back method (any stack) then use the TomasB-C deBruijn sequence with two breather cards.

Note: if using the "eyes closed if red suit" method you could throw in four or five breather cards in strategic places to increase the likelihood of a good mixture of the 6 spectators having their eyes closed.

Put another way: If using the "eyes closed if red suit" method you desire a mixture of ones and zeros among the six spectators whereas with the marked back method you do NOT desire a mixture of ones and zeros.

Note that this TomasB-C with marked backs technique is useless without the proper sorted generic crib sheet which I will supply later in secret sessions. Of course you can create your own crib sheet but it is a very tedious process and the three card octal code method is very easy once the crib sheet is created, but creating it in the first place is time-consuming and tricky.